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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24041
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24041
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The first thing that determines how a character acts in a story is not their personality, but their motivation. In short, what do they want. If your characters all want the same thing, they will tend to seem the same.

People with different personalities will definitely pursue their goals in different ways. But what people want is also a result of their personality. People with different personalities, in other words, are likely to want different things. That puts you back in the realm of what they want.

Then the issues becomes, is their behavior in this scene consistent with what they want. What they want and how they act to get it will reveal who they are. If they want the same things, to the same degree, chances are they have similar personalities that will be hard to tell apart. If they have different personalities, that will manifest itself in different actions in pursuit of different goals.

The trick in any scene is to keep each character pursuing their own goals. If you forget what one of your characters wants in a scene, they are not going to ring true and will probably start to blend in with others. They are blending because you have forgotten what their individual motivation is.

Original score: 12