Getting to know you

Time for an update.

There’s not much new on the Western front. I’ve been in another extensive rewriting and editing process on the Scout’s Journey script. To put it simply, it’s getting a lot better. I think it might end up really good. I’m still totally convinced of the characters and the plot. There’s gold in there, I just have to bring it out and make it shine.

Yes, it’s still a back-breaking process. It’s like going to the desert to find your vision AND learning basic survival skills at the same time.

Anyway, there’s something worth telling. I talked to a friend because I’m having trouble writing Scout’s character, especially her emotions and how she reacts when confronted with obstacles. I ended up doing a Myers-Briggs personality test and answered 100 questions while channeling Scout’s mindset, as if I was acting out her personality. Lo and behold, it was very interesting.

Scout is an INFP-T personality type according to the test. This means introverted, intuitive, feeling and prospecting, as opposed to more rational/assertive behaviour. This type belongs to the diplomat group and is called the healer or mediator. Only 4% of people share this personality.

Put simply, it could mean Scout has trouble with social activities or keeping down a regular job, tends to take things too personally and think too much of others instead of herself (in the game, she actually has a kind of performance anxiety, which is fitting). On the upside, she is guided by very strong feelings about right and wrong and can be supernaturally determined and adaptive if she actually discovers a worthy cause. She is a troubled, outwardly weak-looking person initially underestimated by others, but turns into an unstoppable guided missile under certain conditions.

Funnily enough, this is exactly what happens in the script. So I guess that is coherent and I managed to write that personality type relatively well so far without actually thinking about it in psychological terms.

The questionnaire and the analysis will certainly make her even more fun to write.

So just you know, there is progress being made, just nothing that could be expressed in screenshots unfortunately. We’ll return to that later.

Well, here’s one. Scout’s test result.