Effect of similarity between characters and writers on generating characters in narrative

Abstract

Characters are essential factors in narratives. Several recent studies have suggested that sharing a perspective with a character in a narrative plays a critical role in narrative production. However, it remains unclear how information about a character influences the writers’ cognitive processes. This research focused on fictional character generation and investigated whether the relationship between the writer and character influences the perceived difficulty of character generation. The present study was based on reader-protagonist interaction research on narrative comprehension. Participants were asked to generate an extroverted or introverted character and describe the character’s personality traits (e.g., their hobbies, treasured possessions, etc.) and rate the perceived difficulty of character generation. The results showed that, in particular, the participants with low extroversion felt it was easier to generate an introverted character rather than an extroverted character. This suggests that writers performed a mental simulation of the characters; therefore, the relationship between writer and character plays a significant role in character generation.