Character Archetypes & How They Can Improve Your Stories

Take a sip of water every time you read the word archetype in this article.

Photo by Wiki Sinaloa on Unsplash

Dear Storytellers,

If you’re a fiction writer looking for resources that will help you write better characters, 45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt is an excellent blueprint.

This book goes into great detail about the archetypes of male and female characters (their hero and villain counterparts), creating supporting characters, symbols, and the feminine and masculine journeys with examples of where you may have seen these types of characters before.

The stories I usually prefer are when the plot is driven by the characters and not the characters driven by the plot. This book focuses on ways to help you do just that.

What is an archetype, and how can it help you create characters for your story?

Schmidt uses the 7 master archetypes in Jungian psychology (while adding one extra) and skillfully transforms them to a writer’s perspective, creating a useful tool to understand the very nature of your characters and what drives them in any situation you put them in.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking they’re the same as stereotypes, though.

Stereotypes limit your character's possibility for growth and can cause recurring static characters we’ve all seen a thousand times over.

Picking an archetype for your character helps you dive deep into the character's psyche and know who they are at their core.

Archetypes are characters we’re familiar with, but in the sense that they feel real to us, and the potential for growth is always there, whether they’re on the hero's journey or bound for tragic failure.

Knowing your character’s archetypes means you know what’s most important to them, what they fear, and what motivates them.

It means knowing how they will react in any given situation and, as a result, what choices they will make.

This creates endless possibilities to move the plot forward.

Don’t concern yourself with it causing your characters to be too formulaic because “whatever plotline you place your character in, [their] desire will filter into the dialogue and subtext of your scenes and chapters.”

So feel free to get creative with them and remember not to “let archetypes dictate the plot to you.”

They’re more like guidelines anyway.

Schmidt thoroughly explains each archetype, what they care about, what they fear, what motivates them, how others see them, and how to develop them.

In order to get the full wealth of knowledge, I highly suggest you check out a copy from your local library, or you can buy the book here using my affiliate link from Bookshop.

[embed]45 Master Characters, Revised Edition: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters Mythic Models for Creating Original Charactersbookshop.org

If you click and make a purchase, I do earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I like Bookshop because every purchase on their site supports independent booksellers and your local bookstores.

Without further ado, here are 32 of Schmidt’s female and male archetypes:

Female Archetypes:

• Aphrodite: The Seductive Muse and the Femme Fatale
• Artemis: The Amazon and The Gorgon
• Athena: The Father’s Daughter and the Backstabber
• Demeter: The Nurturer and the Overcontrolling Mother
• Hera: The Matriarch and The Scorned Woman
• Hestia: The Mystic and The Betrayer
• Isis: The Female Messiah and the Destroyer
• Persephone: The Maiden and the Troubled Teen

Male Archetypes:

• Apollo: The Businessman and the Traitor
• Ares: The Protector and the Gladiator
• Hades: The recluse and the Warlock
• Hermes: The Fool and the Derelict
• Dionysus: The Woman’s Man and the Seducer
• Osiris: The Male Messiah and the Punisher
• Poseidon: The Artist and the Abuser
• Zeus: The King and the Dictator

In developing your character within one of these archetypes, there are a few things worthy of note:

• “The best tests a character can come up against stem from fear.”
• “The fears a character possesses come from the psychological aspect of their archetype mixed in with their past experience.”
• “Archetypal characters must learn something from the experiences you give them so they become much more than just their archetype.”
• “Essentially, we may have many archetypes within our personalities, but one is usually dominant. Within each archetype, I ask, “What happened at an early age to cultivate this archetype in your character? There is usually an event during the developmental years that causes us to adapt to survive; the way we adapt shows our dominant archetype. When we are under any type of stress, this dominant archetype always takes over.”

This article is a small excerpt of my Substack article on the same topic. So if you’d like a further in-depth look at each archetype along with their assets and flaws, please click on the link below.

[embed]The 32 Character Archetypes That Instantly Improve Your Stories Take a sip of water every time time you read the word archetype in this article.open.substack.com

P.S. Thank you for reading, and happy writing.