How to Build a Character Using Emotional Intelligence

Vermilion is a character I'm in the process of developing. I feel as if I  know her already, but I want to know her better, to burrow down and understand her motivations, predict her behaviors.To do that, I'm building an Emotional Intelligence profile using the EQ-i.

I'll start with the first composite scale of the EQ-i: Emotional Perception.

1. Self-Regard refers to a person's ability to see their faults and weaknesses and still feel as if they're a good person. Vermilion's Self-Regard is a bit low, although not enough to keep her from launching herself into the world. Her high Independence makes her look more self-confident than she is when, in reality, she depends on Peter's quieter, more self-assured presence to keep insecurities about her ability to manage from overcoming her. She flies along for while, but when she finds herself in a strange place, fear can consume her, suddenly and completely. She's afraid everything will come apart at the core, and she won't be able to do a thing about it.

2. Self-Actualization is about having energy and passion, feeling that you live a rich, meaningful life. Vermilion, as her name implies, is aflame with passion, throwing herself into whatever she does with force and energy. Her greatest fear is letting one second slip by without actually living it. Even in the reduced circumstances of her life in New York City during the Great Depression, she never regrets a single decision she's made.

3. Her Emotional Self-Awareness, understanding what she feels and why and her sense of how her emotions blend from one to another to another, her ability to calculate even the most fleeting emotions before they disappear, is too high. A childhood trapped in the house with a mother who was probably schizophrenic left her with exposed nerve endings. She's always measuring and massaging her emotions and intuiting what those around her feel. She unnerves people with her ability to tap into their fears or joy before they know themselves what they are feeling.

Next time, I plan to look at Emotional Self-Expression. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to give me feedback on a shorty story about Vermilion, you can go to authonomy.com and read Vermilion Wanted to Go to the Movies. It's a work in progress.