The Influence of Personality on Authorial Style

Part of the allure of being a writer is the ability to create another whole (albeit fictional) world. We might have very little control over events in the real world, but we can play God in the ones we invent. We choose what happens to whom, who lives and dies, every twist and turn, and we alone decide how it all shall end.

I wondered to what extent those decisions we make as the supreme beings of our story-worlds are influenced by our own personality type.  There are many formal ways to categorize personality types but, as with most things, I have my own way. I classify personalities as: Optimist, Pessimist, Skeptic, and Cynic.

The Optimist is a person who believes everything will end well despite all evidence to the contrary.

The Pessimist is a person who believes everything will end badly despite all evidence to the contrary.

A Skeptic is a person who believes nothing until it is proven.

A Cynic is a person who believes nothing even after it has been proven.

There is a fifth classification of “Pragmatist” or “Realist.” This is actually a false classification, because a Pragmatist is the term everyone who is not an Optimist uses to refer to themselves.

Given that all this is absolute and undeniable fact (that I just made up), how do these personality types influence the kinds of stories authors write, their authorial style, maybe even genre choice? Are the worlds we create partially influenced by the lens through which we perceive the actual world? If influence is there, does it mean we shape our books according to how we see the real world, or in defiance of how we see the real world?

What are your thoughts?

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Author: Stephen Hise

Stephen Hise is the Evil Mastermind and founder of Indies Unlimited. Hise is an independent author and an avid supporter of the indie author movement. Learn more about Stephen at his website or his Amazon author page.

23 thoughts on “The Influence of Personality on Authorial Style”

  1. What an excellent question – and what a great way of defining characters in fiction. I tend to use a few of the old 'archetypes' to flesh out my character-driven novels. It works quite well, but this is simple and rather appeals to someone like me, who likes shortcuts without cutting corners. But I have a question in return – what would you call someone who believes in everything and anything without need for proof?

    (BTW – I find that your four identifiers can all apply to me on different days.)

    1. "what would you call someone who believes in everything and anything without need for proof?" Rosanne, I would call that person the future purchaser of a parcel of swamp land I have for sale, reserved for just the right buyer. Please direct them to me. 🙂

  3. Great piece. I just hope it isn't the way we see the world because my characters always have to deal with loss and pain, usually actual pain. For some reason torture often appears. Maybe I am a bit of a drama queen. Lets hope that's all it is.

    1. Thanks HJ. I don't mean that what we write necessarily has to be directly experiential, but that it may be shaped by our own personas and personality style. I think optimists can still have some dark stuff in their writing, but may feel unsatisfied without a HEA resolution.

  4. This is a provocative post Steve – as usual. I think in many cases the extent to which an author's personality impacts their style can be linked directly to the size of their ego.

    As for me, I've never given it much thought – I guess I'd have to call myself a skeptic, which is probably why I write faction. I want it believable – proven to be true – so I use real places and real events.

    On the flip side, I try to impart subliminal messages in everything I write. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have worked because as of this date, no one has sent me large sums of cash, jewelry or valuable works of art.

  5. This post really got me thinking about my personality type and how I write. I've taken personality tests before and looking at the results, I'd have to agree that the type we are influences our writing.

    Also, the experiences that we've had and how they have shaped us influence as well. I guess that's why I tend to write violence without batting an eye. I've been exposed to it since I was a child.

    Really good post, Stephen. Thanks for writing it.

    1. Thanks Yolanda – I do think we draw on our experience either directly or metaphorically in our writing. I really don't know how we could step outside ourselves enough to do otherwise, but I think that also contributes to the richness and diversity of writing. 🙂

  6. Interesting. Part of why I find it so interesting is that I feel like people peg me wrong a lot of the time. I am a skeptic in a lot of ways, but I'm a lot more sanguine than I get credit for- not bitching, I just think it's interesting. And I thought about my short stories and novels and there are a lot of dark characters with an inner light in there. Good question and good food for thought.

  7. My story doesn't have a happy ending. It is parroting what I have said about court for years, "it's like las vegas, only without the shrimp cocktail."

    Thanks for the insight.

    Una Tiers

    1. Valerie, it's perfectly all right to argue with yourself as long as you win. When you start losing the arguments, THAT's when you need to start worrying. 🙂

  9. I, like Kat have put messages, some subliminal and some overt, in my writing.

    Has Henrik called you, Kat?

    I have never thought about my characters as having only one of the four personality types. I try to layer, making them unpredictable. And always making the women goddesses – intelligent, bewitching, a bit difficult. This is a stretch for me, I am so different from this.

    I am from NJ so I fight against negativity. None of my characters are from NJ.

    Are you sure there isn't a separate category for NJ?

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