This is just a little guide for anyone who’s interested, written by an English major, using INTP for demonstrative purposes because, well, I’m an INTP.
I’d like to start off with a warning that it’s very easy, when crafting your character based off a certain MBTI type, to fall into all the little stereotypes. Treat your character as if they are living and breathing, learning and growing, so that they’re round, not flat.
One of the easiest ways to fall into stereotypes, and the first issue I’ll address, is the common mistake of writing as though their dominant function is their only function. I see this everywhere, MBTI or otherwise. Taking the INTP (my type), we’re often treated as though Ti is absolutely everything about us, and that you’ll see Fe in us about as often as the sky falls. Your character has four functions total: address and craft them all.
The inferior function is often ignored altogether, which, in the case of INTP, leads to the belief that we’re all soulless robots. Not so. Because we have Fe as an inferior function, it does indeed exist within us, try as some might to suppress it, and it causes us to experience pure and childlike emotions. However, because we feel and others see our Fe contrasting with our dominant Ti, it’s usually swept under the rug.
As to the crafting of the functions in general, you have to look to your character, their environment, how they were raised, and how they’ve attempted to better themselves as an individual, if they have. I think (could definitely be wrong) that it was Jung who said that an MBTI was an area on a map, not a specific destination. Each person within each type is entirely unique, and, to be completely honest, crafting a carbon copy type would probably be boring. (You could do so purposely for satire, comedy, tragedy, etc., but as a writer, there must be a purpose in everything you pen down.) Looking at myself, I’m an INTP female, meaning that social expectations, whether we like it or not, have influenced my growth as a person, which led to a period in my life (ages 10-12) when I was extremely awkward while developing my Fe. These are the little details about your character that readers crave; they bring your character to life.
Sometimes, we’ll fall more in love with a plot, sometimes with a character. This happens when we write as well, leading to something I touched on earlier, the development of round or flat characters. Round characters develop and grow in their story, and flat characters do not, so that stories containing flat characters are centered more on the plot. Think of the protagonist from a Bildungsroman novel such as The Chosen contrasted against the characters of a Greek epic like the Iliad. In terms of MBTI, a flat character wouldn’t develop and expand their functions, while a round character would, learning and growing. Flat characters are used by the plot; round characters use the plot.
So that’s a few tips on using MBTI for character construction. If there’s anything you’d like to add, either reblog or drop me an ask. I don’t bite :)
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