Hello everyone!
It’s good to be back! In our last meeting we talked a little bit about writers’ block. There are lots of reasons to be creatively blocked, and they may require different solutions, but here is a technique (if you can call it that) I used in January to develop a character I was unsure about:
Beating Writers’ Block: Tip #1—Making it personal
If you’re stuck and need a creative diversion that may pay dividends for your story, try doing a personality test as one of your characters (like this one: https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test). Imagine how they would answer each question or statement. And if you have no idea…make some arbitrary choices and see where you end up!
I used this to flesh out a protagonist for a short story I was working on. I had decided that my character was a kind of stoic security guard, and that’s about it. I took the quiz, answering how I thought he would answer, and read the personality summary at the end. Here’s a little excerpt:
People with the ISTJ personality type (Logisticians) mean what they say and say what they mean, and when they commit to doing something, they make sure to follow through. With their responsible and dependable nature, it might not be so surprising that ISTJ personalities also tend to have a deep respect for structure and tradition.
The summary, which is much longer than the excerpt above, gave some flesh to the bones I had built the character from.
Now, I’m certainly not one to put too much stake in personality tests. But, I do think they have their uses, and they could be valuable resources for your character work.
The website above gives strengths and weaknesses (gold!), insights into friendships and romantic relationships (below), and even career recommendations.
People with this personality type are not naturally receptive to others’ emotions, not unless they are stated clearly, and a partner usually only says “I’m angry” when it’s too late to address the initial grievance.
And the great part is—you don’t have to agree with the findings of the test! If you don’t agree (e.g. it says my character is dependable, but I think they’re unreliable), that’s useful information too.
Personality tests require instinctual, rather than black-and-white, thinking. Instead of wondering ‘how many siblings does my character have and what are their names?’, you get something like this to chew on:
You feel comfortable just walking up to someone you find interesting and striking up a conversation.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the above statement?
This alone raises questions, like—why are they comfortable or uncomfortable? What kind of person would they find interesting? How would they start a conversation? What would it take for them to strike up a conversation?
You don’t necessarily need to think about those things, but the statements alone can provoke this kind of imagining.
Some writers like filling in character sheets, but when you’re creatively stuck, a personality test is another useful approach—one that encourages empathy with your character. It’s fun, and it feels kind of cheeky, doing a test as someone that doesn't exist. Almost taboo. I guess because we’re conditioned to answer tests truthfully, else society might collapse.
Give it a try!
It was quite amusing to get emails from 16Personalities trying to encourage me to understand my strengths and my struggles…they didn't know that I had made up all the answers for my character, John. How could they?
TBR from our previous meeting
Unreal Writers had its second online meet-up on 10th January 2026. Here’s what was on our writers’ TBR lists:
Short stories by JG Ballard
The Names by Florence Knapp
Crab & Bee’s Matter of Britain: Mythlands of Albion, by Helen Billinghurst & Phil Smith
There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
Recommendations
Here are the books our writers recommended:
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Juice by Tim Winton
The Murderbot Diaries Series by Martha Wells
If you’ve had read any of these, please let me know your thoughts! Email me at [email protected].
Submission Spotlight
A brand new speculative fiction publication—Phantom Pulse—is releasing its first issue in May 2026, and it is (at the time of writing) open for submissions! The window closes on February 14th at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (February 15th 7:59 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time).
‘The Phantom Pulse is a biannual speculative fiction magazine of the grey corners of humanity, dread that permeates the skin, and the bizarre. Our pages are haunted by twisted longing, inevitable darkness, and quiet obsession.
We publish traditional horror, sci-fi horror, dark fantasy, and the weird. We have diverse reading tastes and are open to experimental forms and stories.’
Visit their website here, where you can read about the six siblings that created the Pulse, and why they decided to create a speculative fiction magazine.
While they don’t yet have any existing issues, they do post stories they like on their Bluesky page, so you can get an idea of their taste in fiction there.
Cosmic Horror Monthly is taking weird fiction submissions in tribute to C.L. Moore, one of the first women to write sci-fi and fantasy and a massive influence on the genres.
The window for this is March 1st to March 7th.
For more information, visit this link:
Next Meet-Up
When: Saturday 14th February 2026, 4pm-5pm
Where: Online, via Jitsi.
How: Use the hyperlink below (no app required, you can join in browser).
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!
Keep writing stuff.
Jonah