S17:E23: How a Character's Personality Shapes Arc, Voice, and Goals
Helping Writers Become Authors
K.M. Weiland
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What makes a character unforgettable? It's not just quirks or dialogue. It's personality. Your characters' personalities shape their arcs, influence their voices, drive their goals, and and connect plot and theme into a cohesive whole.
In this episode, we'll explore why personality is the secret ingredient to compelling storytelling and how you can use it to create characters who resonate with readers long after the final page.
You'll Learn:
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3 reasons personality is the foundation of great characters
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4 ways personality drives storytelling (arc, voice, conflict, theme)
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10 practical tips for weaving personality into your plot, dialogue, and arcs
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How to use tools like the Enneagram and MBTI to stress-test your character development
Whether you're outlining your next novel or revising a draft, this episode will help you unlock deeper, more authentic storytelling through the lens of personality.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast. I'm K.M. Weiland, and I am here to take you |
| 0:07.8 | deep with story theory, writing techniques, and the incredible wisdom of story. I believe story is the |
| 0:14.9 | greatest power on this earth, and that as writers, we carry the torch of wielding that power with responsibility, passion, |
| 0:23.6 | and skill. There is no such thing as just a story. Today, it is my honor and my purpose to help |
| 0:30.9 | you write your best story, astound the world, and maybe change your life. |
| 0:38.3 | Hello and welcome. |
| 0:40.4 | You are listening to Season 17, Episode 20. |
| 0:45.3 | When it comes to creating memorable, emotionally resonant characters, your character's personality |
| 0:51.0 | may seem like it's just a flavor, but in many ways it's actually |
| 0:55.0 | the foundation of the story itself. Your character's personality influences everything. |
| 1:02.2 | The character arc, the voice in both dialogue and narrative, if the character has a PLB, and the |
| 1:07.7 | goals that shape your entire plot. In many ways, your character's personalities can determine |
| 1:13.8 | whether or not the story works at all. And this is most obviously true when it comes to that |
| 1:17.7 | special it factor that creates unforgetably quirky or nuanced characters. But it's even more true |
| 1:24.5 | when it comes to the cohesion of your story's deeper workings, |
| 1:28.4 | where character, plot, and theme all come together. |
| 1:33.2 | So welcome to today's episode, how a character's personality shapes arc, voice, and goals. |
| 1:41.8 | So the concept of personality brings a number of different connotations. Number one is that |
| 1:48.2 | personality is a consistent set of traits. So we recognize the technical definition of personality |
| 1:54.3 | as a consistent set of traits, behaviors, emotional patterns, and motivations that shape how someone perceives the world, makes |
| 2:03.6 | decisions, and interacts with others. Personality influences not just what people do, but why they |
| 2:10.7 | do it. How they react under pressure, form relationships, pursue goals, and confront internal or |
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