A few weeks ago I previewed some preliminary character development. Mainly the aesthetic of the main character with photo inspiration. Offered by digital artists and Instagram models and a few details of the main characters life. After deciding or even using a random generator to decide some general traits. I often start looking deeper into their psyche.

Do they have any glaring emotional scars? Do events in the story cause any? How does their background and or trauma affect how they interact with their world? Other characters? Do they trust easily or keep people at arms length?

Do they smile a lot? Or are they reserved? How do they operate in their world to survive?

Deepening a character’s background and personality type makes it easier to see how that person operates in the world. However even the most cheerful personalities can turn dark with the right pressures.

There are many methods for choosing your character’s traits, issues, and traumas. I’ve tried several. My favorites are the programs Persona by Mariner Software. It helps me to really boil down the type of person the character can be by deciding what archetype and what style they have can be helpful in seeing how the character relates to the world and other characters.

Typing Chimp Character (TCC) is another program to help tweak a characters traits even more delving into the mental health of a character and what kind of story arc you want for the character. Do you want them them to have an arc where they become better than they started? End up worse? Or stay the same? Also choosing an Enneagram type helps with how the character reacts to their surrounds and what others say or do. TCC also has the capabilities to add mental disorders to your characters with descriptors to help you. Then it takes all of the information you entered and puts it into a convenient character profile. Checkout the slideshow below for examples of this.

Both programs offer different things I like to use them as a starting point and then add on as I write.