Several weeks ago, I posted an interview with
award-winning author, Gayle Roper. In it, she talked about how she made her
characters so believable by assigning different personalities to them. I sat in
one of her classes at a writers’ retreat and she talked about a classification
system used by Marita and Florence Littauer.
The idea of classifying
personality types is nothing new. Hippocrates believed that personalities were
determined by four bodily fluids, or humors. He felt that people acted
according to the mix of those four fluids. In fact the word, temperament comes from the Latin
“temperare” which means “to mix.” Although others throughout history have developed
classifications based on four personalities, Florence Littauer developed her
system as a result of trying to revive her marriage after the death of one of
her children. The main use of her Personality Plus is to
understand and improve relationships.
Even though these classes of personalities were
designed to help people understand themselves and others, writers can use them
to know better how their characters would act in certain situations. For
example, if one personality was frightened, he may show it through anger where
another may show their fear through tears.
There are four basic personalities: Sanguine,
Choleric, Phlegmatic and Melancholy. The Sanguine has a sunny personality –
always the life of the party. The Choleric is the take-charge person – a
natural-born leader. The Phlegmatic personality is always seeking peace, while
the Melancholy wants everything to be perfect. While most people are a
combination of two personalities, one is usually dominant.
The sunny Sanguine is the popular one in the bunch,
always seeking attention and approval. On the other hand, the Sanguine can also
be too wild or too loud and goes on spending sprees to make herself feel loved.
Do you have a character that tries to charm his or her way into controlling
every situation? Then you definitely have a Sanguine on your hands.
The commanding Choleric is always in charge and
knows exactly what to do in every situation. In fact, this personality is so
confident in his abilities that he’ll become angry if someone tries to disagree
with his plans. If one of your characters is a workaholic obsessed with power,
then you can be he’s a Choleric.
The passive Phlegmatic is easygoing and dependable.
He’s the glue that holds all the other personalities together. However taken to
extremes, he can be lazy and dull. It may be difficult to make a phlegmatic an
interesting main character, but you’ll need at least one as a secondary
character to round out the others.
The mellow Melancholy strives for creativity and
perfection. An independent-thinker, he or she may also avoid relationships and
become hypercritical. Be careful with this personality, as too much of it can
become withdrawn and antisocial.
There are also some natural combinations of
personalities that you may want to use in your manuscript. For example, a
strong, popular politician could be a Sanguine/Choleric combination. A powerful
minister who specializes in hellfire and brimstone could be a Choleric/Melancholy
combination. You may also have a combination of Phlegmatic and Sanguine or
Melancholy and Phlegmatic. In each case, one of the two would probably be
dominant although you could possibly have a more balanced combination of two.
There are several other methods of classifying or
rating personalities, such as the Myers-Briggs test and DiSC assessment. Any method
would be helpful for writers to use when developing characters, but I know this
one works because Gayle Roper uses it. J
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