Monday, October 24, 2011

The Color Code for Characters

Have you ever read the book The Color Code by Taylor Hartman, Ph.D.? It is a great book about identifying your personality, and the personalities of those around you. It is a great way to learn about yourself and how to deal with others.

It is also a great characterization tool. I give each of my characters a core and secondary Color and - BAM - I instantly have their personality firmly on my mind. It only takes two words:

Red Yellow

To me those two words invoke a complete picture of a person's behavior, drives and complexities.

Of course that is not the end. I go on to do more. But then when I am writing I keep falling back to my characters Color.

I highly recommend using The Color Code to help when building your characters. Or - if you have another favorite personality classification method - use it.

How about you? How do you define the personality of your characters?

4 comments:

  1. Great tip! I think I'll do this quiz today!

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  2. This is something different to look at, thanks.

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  3. This one the colors are used differently than what I am used to. I am primarily a Detail/Structure person followed closely by equal amounts of Extroversion and Pace (meaning I am concerned with relationships and outcomes along with socialization and interpersonal connections.) Yes, this makes me a very rare personality type and not offended by the word "Freak".

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  4. That's a really great tip! I will have to do that! Thanks!

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