Peering Through the Johari Window

A simple way to develop your characters and their relationships from the inside out.

We are getting closer to the start of class. Just six days (closer to five since I’m getting this out late) and only 14 slots left. This lesson comes from the course on growing characters from the inside out. One of my degrees is in psychology. Never practiced as a therapist, but taught interpersonal communication for 20 years. It’s amazing how those psychological insights help me develop believable and empathetic characters. This is one of those insights that can help you understand your character by exploring what they know about themselves and what they share with others.

Btw, you can find out more about this course and sign up while there is time by clicking here.

Peeking through Johari's Window

What is known about your character? By whom is it known? What is kept secret? What is known to the reader alone?

When growing your character from the inside out, it is helpful to understand something about the concept of self-knowledge. A useful tool for that is called the Johari Window. That exotic name is a joke. The two researchers who first developed the model to help us understand our relationships with others were named Joseph Luft and Harrison Ingham. Joe and Harry. Get it? The Jo-hari window.

The Johari Window is so named because it is represented as a two-by-two grid, similar to the panes in a window. The two rows are things known to others and things not known to others. The two columns are things known to self and things not known to self.

There are four selves we find. Some refer to these as areas. Of course, these vary with the relationship. With some people, we have a large open self. With others, we have a small one. Also, some people are naturally more open than others. So, these squares are not all the same size for each person. When thinking about your character, think about the relative sizes of each square.

Let's look deeper at each one of these.

The Open Self

This is sometimes called "The Arena." It's the public square of a character's personality. These are the things that are either self-evident, such as appearance, tone of voice, and basic public information such as the person's name, job, etc. It also includes what the individual decides to share with others.

This last is where different personalities emerge. Your character may have a large or an exceedingly small open self. Or it could be somewhere in between. Some of us are relatively secretive. Others should have the letters TMI (Too Much Information) tattooed on their foreheads.

What about your character? Do they share easily with people about personal matters, or do you need to drag it out of them? Do they have one person with whom they share everything? Do they even have trouble sharing with people close to them? Are they in a relationship with people who share more than they do? How do other people feel about their level of sharing, whether too much or too little?

The Blind Self

Most of us have certain blind spots about ourselves. At one level, this can be a simple matter, like your slip is showing or your trousers are unzipped. Sometimes, it is more serious. You might have a nervous habit that annoys people. You might have a personality trait that holds you back from advancing in your career. You might even be better liked or more skilled than you believe yourself to be.

What about your character? Where are his or her blind spots? How do they affect their relationships with others? How do they influence your character's choices of action? Does this impact the plot in some way?

The Hidden Self

Someone said that a relationship can go no deeper than your most closely held secret. While some people share way too much to way too many people, others are the social equivalent of secret agents. They are afraid that, if people knew them, they wouldn't like them. So, they hold on to their secrets. This is another self that is revealed to some people more than others. We are much more likely to share sensitive information about ourselves with certain people. In general, it is reciprocal. I am more likely to share a secret with someone who has been open with me about their own personal information.

Interestingly, this self seems to be shrinking with the explosion of social media. Many people feel perfectly comfortable sharing with a thousand "friends" On Facebook what they would be reticent to tell a co-worker or fellow church member.

Your plot is often pushed forward by your characters' secrets. What secrets are being kept by each of your characters? Likewise, how important is this secret to the character? Not all secrets are as fearful as others.

The Unknown Self

When I taught about the unknown self in my interpersonal communication classes, it was philosophical. After all, if someone is unknown both to me and to others, how do I know it exists at all? And more importantly, why does it matter? Those are hard questions to answer in real life.

However, in writing, such things can be important plot points. A man may go through his entire life ignorant of the fact that he was adopted until after his parents die, and he finds the adoption papers in their safety deposit box. Or your reader may be privy to people plotting against our protagonist without his knowledge or that of anyone else in his circle of friends.

Ask yourself, "What would surprise this character and anyone who knows them if it were made known?"

So, there you have it. The Johari Window. Take some time and pick two of your characters and block out 2-3 things in each of the quadrants of the Johari window for each character.

Write YOUR Novel YOUR Way is unlike any novel writing course you have ever taken. With sixteen courses and more than 100 individual lessons, you will learn how to take your novel from premise to print. It is like a graduate course in novel writing. I will be there with you all the way giving feedback on assignments, and a critique of up to 20,000 words of your finished novel. I’ve offered each course in the bundle for $35 each. That makes this a $560 value, not counting the critique which is worth $200.

However, this is my first time offering this course in this way, so you can get a bargain. I’m only charging $47. Okay, I also have fun teaching these lessons. Hope to see you in class. Click the button below to learn more.