PurpleCar

From Words Mean Things:
 Do you tend to be late or on time? I am pathologically on time – even when I don’t try, I’m there five minutes before I’m supposed to be. My friends, on the other hand, are almost always late. This infuriates me.

From PE Online:

Perennial lateness inhibits success. It’s annoying. It slows progress. And yes, it is disrespectful. Someone once told me: “Being late is one of the most selfish things you can do.” Many people share that opinion. And if it happens to be someone you work with, work for, or sell to—you’re doomed.

Wikipedia writes:

Passive-aggressive personality disorder (also called negativistic personality disorder) is a controversial personality disorder said to be marked by a pervasive pattern of negative attitudes and passive, usually disavowed resistance in interpersonal or occupational situations. It was listed as an Axis II personality disorder in the DSM-III-R, but was moved in the DSM-IV to Appendix B (“Criteria Sets and Axes Provided for Further Study”) because of controversy and the need for further research on how to also categorize the behaviors in a future edition. On that point, Cecil Adams writes:

Merely being passive-aggressive isn’t a disorder but a behavior — sometimes a perfectly rational behavior, which lets you dodge unpleasant chores while avoiding confrontation. It’s only pathological if it’s a habitual, crippling response reflecting a pervasively pessimistic attitude.^[1]

A behavior like habitual lateness seems to divide the populace.  Some believe that it isn’t any big deal, that’s why people add (or subtract?) 15 minutes to the  REAL schedule, so the latecomers can  settle in.  Others become supremely annoyed at any sign of tardiness by anyone, no matter what the circumstance.   I personally say that flexibility is key, a great personality trait for anyone to have.   Some people aren’t capable of returning that flexible favor, though, when you are the late one.

Kids especially.  Routine-mongers that they are, any crink in the expected schedule can send almost any child into rage.  Thankfully, most of us grow out of it.  But what if your character hasn’t gained the flexibility one needs to “roll with the punches” in life?  On the other hand, what if your character is habitually late?  What if these two polar opposites were related?  An on-time employee and an always-late boss?  An on-time wife and a lagging husband?

Your personal approach to being on-time to things is fantastic fodder for your character building.  Make sure to write the opposite approach into at least one character.  Everyone knows this tension; I myself have a friend that I will never drive with again, because she made us to whatever functions we were attending.  It’s quite a dodging dance when I think up excuses as to why we can’t carpool.  It seems rude and accusatory to actually tell her the truth, so I have to come up with plausible reasons why I want to destroy the environment and take two cars.  I’m sure you have similar experiences you can draw upon.  The Late/On-Time debate is built-in tension.

Ask yourself, why is my character always ten minutes (early or) late for everything?  Are they early because they fear they’ll “miss” something?  Doesn’t looking overeager matter to them?  Or, is my character trying to avoid a situation?  Who at this party does she hate and not want to see and why?  Does my character come from a different culture that disregards schedules (Latin America) or sticks to schedules like white on rice (Germany?)

So don’t feel blocked by character traits.  As an observant citizen of the world you already have enough knowledge of the inner workings of human personality on which to build great characters.

Sorry for my late post.  I’ll try not to make a habit of it!

I’ve been so busy over the holiday (and recovering!) that I have been awol on Purplecar. Sorry!   Here’s a bit about multiple intelligences that you can use for character building.

Howard Gardner shook psychology ground back in 1983 when he theorized that there were more measurable skillsets than just the typical math, reading and logic most standardized tests sought to quantify.   His famous book on the subject, Frames of Mind, outlined the 8 areas where individuals could excel, apart from the standard Intelligence Quotient tests (wikipedia article):

• 1.1 Bodily-Kinesthetic
• 1.2 Interpersonal
• 1.3 Linguistic
• 1.4 Naturalistic
• 1.5 Intrapersonal
• 1.6 Spatial
• 1.7 Musical
• 1.8 Other intelligences

You can get the gist of each skillset from the titles, but read the article for an overview.  The “other intelligences” have to do with a spiritual, moral/ethical or existential skill, which would be hard to quantify.

Knowing a bit about these skills and those on which we typically measure intelligence will help you write your characters and develop your plot.

If you are experiencing some creative block, put your character’s names in one hat, the 8 intelligences in another, and have two different people in your life stand with you to pick out characters to match with traits.  If you think the match doesn’t fit, all the better!  Make it fit, make it realistic.   We’ve all experienced surprises about friends’ hidden talents or hobbies at some point.  I remember one day in my senior year of high school our choral teacher was sick.  We were in the heat of our last spring concert rehearsals, and we had no piano.  Then a girl I was raised with, since first grade, one of my close friends, a fellow cheerleader, singer, classmate, pal, stepped up to the piano and started playing our pieces so we could rehearse.  I was floored!  I asked her immediately how she learned, when she learned, and she just said simply that she had been taking lessons for a while and that she just never mentioned it.  Amazing!  Her musical intelligence went way beyond what I knew of her (and I knew a lot!).  Since then, I’ve had many similar shocks along the way: friends told me they were avid fly fishermen, or community dance troopers, or olympic cyclists, the list goes on.  I (and many others) consider myself a keen judge of character, and even I get surprised sometimes.

This kind of surprise is very interesting in real life and in fiction.  But in fiction, you have to make it fit better than it does in real life.  Read about the multiple intelligences and think of a person you know that excels in each one.  Write that part of your friend’s personality into your character.  You get where I’m going with this, I’m sure,  because as writers we all have great interpersonal skills!  Have fun and let me know what you come up with.

There are a ton of sites on the web offering scaled-down versions of famous personality tests, like Myers Briggs or the MMPI.   Lots of sites offer free tests, but they aren’t reliable ones; in fact, most of the tests are just plain fake.  Still, I think you should go and take a few.

Why take a unreliable personality test?  Well, I want you to channel your character.  Answer like the character would.  If you can’t finish the test because you get stumped, then write down the question and think about it.   Form that character firmly in your mind so you’d be able to answer typical personality test questions.  Do this for many different characters.  If your characters are based on real people (loosely, of course!) then answer as that real person would.  This exercise will help you put real meat onto your strawman; that background investigative work will come through in your writing.

But I must emphasize again: USE THESE TESTS AS A TOOL FOR CHARACTERS ONLY.  If you want reliable information about your own personality, you must see a professional who is licensed to administer the tried-and-true tests.  Only those tests (that take hours to fill out, by the way) and the skilled interpretations of a professional will give you information you can count on.   There.  That’s my very serious disclaimer.

Now go pretend to be your characters and find their most intimate motivations!

Popular psychology’s “they” say that ‘everyone collects something.’

It took me a while to think about what I collect. I have a pretty big fabric and art supply stash (there probably aren’t very many crafts left in the world that I haven’t tried). I have a pretty filled-up font book on my Mac. But I don’t house my collections in some cabinet like rare coins. I don’t collect anything of any value. They are supplies that can be replaced easily, a means to an end, like keeping a well-stocked food pantry. I’m not too exciting that way.

Characters with a collecting habit can be pretty interesting. The plotline can go so many different ways. Is your character poor but saves and saves for a haute couture dress she is never going to wear? Is your character wealthy beyond imagination but loves vintage broken checker sets? Why do they collect? Is it a secret? Do they have friends/competitors that collect the same objects?

The psychology behind collecting isn’t well defined, but this website had a good summary:

For some people collecting is simply the quest, in some cases a life-long pursuit that is never complete. Additional collector motivations include psychological security, filling a void in a sense of self. Or it could be to claim a means to distinction, much as uniforms make the “man.” Collections could be a means to immortality or fame …
For some, the satisfaction comes from experimenting with arranging, re-arranging, and classifying parts of a-big-world-out-there, which can serve as a means of control to elicit a comfort zone in one’s life, e.g., calming fears, erasing insecurity. The motives are not mutually exclusive, as certainly many motives can combine to create a collector – one does not eat just because of hunger.

We are writers; This picture of a harmless collector trying to make sense of the world is lacking drama. Throw some obsession into it (a la Indiana Jones) and you’ll run into some inner and outer conflict when a character has to choose between the collection and something or someone equally as important.

If the collecting obsession truly turns sour, it is known as “hoarding.” Hoarding is the extreme case of collecting. Whereas collecting is a pursuit or a quest as an end in itself, hoarding behavior forsakes all other people and things. Often, a hoarder will harm others in their attempts to gather as much of the object as possible. Hoarders are those types that save every newspaper ever delivered to them or have 200 cats living in their house. It’s a psychological pathology that needs treatment. A hoarding character has the potential of taking over your book. For example, serial killers are thought to be hoarders of people. Entire books are written around this pathology, so make good choices on how obsessive you would like your character to seem.

One of my characters likes antiques. Mostly a very frugal person, she is a big fan of antiques from the Mayflower and Puritan England, and sneaks away to look for expensive pieces to buy any chance she gets. Her family is aware of it; her furniture collecting is pretty harmless, and this character has a mansion to fill anyway. But the want of this particular kind of antique says something about her wants and desires, especially when compared to her 1st generation off-the-boat italian catholic upbringing. Choose your character’s collection so it shows a deeper, unexpected side of him or her. When do they find time to go searching? How many hours do they spend? Do they keep the treasures or give them away? Is it about the pursuit or the obtaining or both? What sense are they trying to make of the world? There are so many opportunities to show and not tell with a character’s collecting.

Think first of what you might collect now or started to collect as a child. Baseball cards? Matchbooks? Obsolete technology? See what your imagination can do when you collect your thoughts around collecting, and write on. Come back to PC and let me know what you came up with!