The Trendsetter

In my previous blog about “outlining vs. not outlining before you start writing your novel”, I wrote about writing a journal for my characters—especially my focal characters. By having a journal sheet for your characters, you’re able to compile their important background information like the height, weight, eye color, race, age, gender, marital status, etc.

And I have also expanded the journal sheet to interview them about their perception about the villain or other secondary characters after meeting them. However, that was not enough to carry my focal character to 100,000 words.

I solved this problem by using Erikson’s Psychosocial Development and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Having a background in Personality Psychology, has helped me create my character’s background in my journey of becoming an established writer, in my previous life, and then now. I use Hierarchy of Needs when I set the premise of my novel. Then as for the character’s background from childhood to adult I’ve used Psychosocial Development.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

According to Maslow, a human being has needs to be fulfilled: from physiological needs like eating, drinking, breathing and excretion. Second come safety needs like a place to stay, financial security, health and well being. The third are social needs which involve friendship, marriage, etc. The fourth are self-esteem needs which involve self-respect and self-worth. The last in the group of needs are those of self development or growth needs which lead to self-actualization.

I usually start my story with a premise. I ask myself what is the story about? And then I go straight to my main characters and asked if they fulfill all the needs. Or are they lacking one of them? If they are, what are they going to do about it? When I get several answers, the plot starts to form.

Then I’ll move to each of the characters to find out in more detail about their childhood background.

Psychosocial Development

Here I deploy Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development in eight stages. Depending on the age of my main character, I’ll use the stages of the development accordingly. The eight stages of psychosocial development are:

1. Trust vs. mistrust (birth - 18 months) – The baby would develop trust of the parents or people around them and the parents roles in this stage is crucial. Someone who has problems trusting have something to do with his or her crisis of psychosocial development at this stage in early life.

2. Autonomy vs. shame and doubt (1 ½ - 3 years old) – when the toddler reaches 1 ½ to 3 years old, she/he start to develop an autonomy if her/his upbringing is positive, but develop some shame and doubt if not.

3. Initiatives vs. guilt (3 – 6 years old) – when a child develops a healthy autonomy she/he would become an active kid and curious about life. Otherwise, she/he would start to fill themselves with guilt.

4. Industry vs. inferiority (7 – 11 years old) – at this stage a child will become industrious if she/he is encouraged to excel. If she/he doesn’t receive the encouragement and are talked down, she/he starts to develop an inferiority complex and become less confident.

5. Identity vs. role confusion (11 – 18 years old) – the adolescent stage is the crucial stage in all of us. At this phase, the adolescent begins to form their identity. If they have a psychosocial crisis in the early stages they would develop role confusion.

6. Intimacy vs. isolation (19 – 40 years old) – This stage is similar to the social needs in Maslow. Everyone wants to have someone they love and getting married. If they have been hurt so bad in the past, they withdrawal from society.

7. Generativity vs. stagnation (40 – 65 years old) – When you’re getting older, you tend to become mellow and less ambitious as when you were young. Someone who has an early positive psychosocial development tend to be more generous and want to contribute something to help the young generation. A person can experience stagnation if she/he doesn’t reach her/his ambition.

8. Integrity vs. despair (from 65 years old). – I would say this stage is very similar to the need to reach self actualization by Maslow. Someone who achieves everything she/he wants in life would experience integrity but despair if not achieved.

Using these theories as a device to create my main characters

This is the best part in creating my main character. I can play god. I can create a human being out of these two theories alone. If my main character is 26 years old, I have six stages of psychosocial development to dwell on. Then I am also able to nail them down about need deficiencies they currently have.

For instance, my main character has a problem making decisions and when I checked on his childhood history, it happens he didn’t trust anybody. Not only did he have problem trusting others he also had a crisis in stage six - which is developing intimacy with the woman he loves. This is the root of his problem then the other reason is something that is beyond his control.

I can go on and on.

Now it’s your turn. You don’t have to critic the theories like an academician, but use them as a device to create your character’s background. It helps me so much. I can write about the main characters endlessly.

Happy writing!