Inside the Heart of an INFP
When it comes to Writing Aunia… some characters walk onto the page fully formed, speaking in their own voice before you’ve even decided what they’ll say.
Yes, Aunia is one of those rare gems. She showed up like a firecracker and it took me a bit to realize I was seeing her at her most stressed.
I learned when she isn’t frantic she can be a calming influence. But either way she definitely shapes the heart of the Heart of the Worlds series.
Aunia is an INFP — the “Mediator” personality in the Myers–Briggs framework. This means she’s idealistic, deeply empathetic, and guided by a moral compass that rarely points in the easy direction. I certainly mean all of that—the last one in particular in spades.
And she does live up to the concept that writing an INFP protagonist is like navigating with a map that changes based on emotions, loyalties, and a stubborn streak of hope.
Living in the Realm of Possibility
INFPs don’t just see the world as it is—they see it as it could be. That idealism is at her core and I would say it’s something Aunia and I have in common.
Aunia constantly measures reality against the dream of something better, something worth believing in whether it’s how the world should her or how it should treat others. I’d say that this makes her a natural hero for a series where prophecy, faery politics, and impossible choices collide. It also means she wrestles with frustration when others can’t see what she sees… which is quite a lot.
Her perception — the way she catches details or patterns that others miss — is partly her INFP intuition. But it’s also partly something more. INFPs naturally look beneath the surface, but Aunia’s heritage and magical connection sharpen that instinct into something almost prophetic. It’s as if the threads between events, emotions, and people shimmer faintly for her eyes alone. She’s not always right but her percentages are pretty good.
The Impulsive Heart
Many INFPs prefer to pause and process before acting. This is where Aunia veers from the typical INFP. Why? She’s grown up in a village where her ties to mischievous faeries—they bean other villagers with apples, break stuff, throw dye in faces but only at people who are mean to Aunia— and her unexplained magic have made her an outcast. Most of the villagers avoid her. Some go out of their way to make her life miserable. It’s hard to get to know Aunia and not feel protective of her.
Anyway, it’s this constant sense of being on the outside which has greatly influenced her emotional responses. I find that she’ll often jump at the chance to be helpful, to prove herself, and to grasp at fleeting opportunities for connection. Often it will bite her butt. Maybe eventually she’ll learn but for know she continues often leaping before thinking.
It’s important to not that beneath her impulsivity lies a deeper ache. There are unanswered question of who her mother was because (and Aunia gets highly frustrated with this), her father refuses to speak about her. And Aunia has no memories to draw from. She and her father arrived at the village when she was a baby, and there is no one else to ask. Top this off with her feeling that if she could learn the truth, she might finally understand herself — and the strange abilities she possesses.
Those abilities set her even further apart. She sees the glows (auras) around others. And not only that, she’s faery-sighted when others are blind to the fae, and she carries what she believes is a piece of Edvaras’ light—a fragment of magic from one of the Chandarions, near god-like beings fated to save both worlds but at the cost of everything they are.
See, for Aunia, these gifts aren’t just mysterious. They’re a constant reminder that she’s different, and that maybe she’s part of something far bigger than she ever asked for. But… if that was the case, wouldn’t others treat her better?
Put this all together and it’s no wonder she sometimes acts on instinct instead of caution and why her emotions flare. Her life has been a blend of alienation, longing, and fleeting moments where action feels like the only way forward.
The INFP “Car Model”
Human psychology has always fascinated me and I’ve spent more hours than I can count going down rabbit holes. One of my favorites (because I use this A LOT now) has been breaking down the Myers–Briggs personality types into greater depth with the “Car Model,” developed by Personality Hacker. It’s is one of the most useful tools I’ve found for understanding how a personality type actually moves through the world.
The idea is simple: picture your mind as a car. Your strongest function is in the Driver’s Seat, your second-best in the Co-Pilot’s Seat, your third in the 10-Year-Old Seat (useful but immature), and your weakest in the 3-Year-Old Seat (vulnerable and easily stressed). Who’s “driving” at any given moment shapes how you act, make decisions, and handle challenges.
For an INFP like Aunia, the passengers look like this:
- Driver: Introverted Feeling (Fi) — The Moral Compass Her unshakable values steer everything. This is why she can stand against entire armies or risk her own safety without flinching — her inner code wouldn’t allow her to do otherwise.
- Co-Pilot: Extraverted Intuition (Ne) — The Possibility Scout Always asking “what if,” she sees connections, patterns, and potential futures others usually can’t. In Aunia’s case, her magical heritage also boosts this so that she doesn’t just imagine possibilities; sometimes she senses them before they unfold.
- 10-Year-Old: Introverted Sensing (Si) — The Memory Keeper Si keeps her anchored in the past, holding onto promises, vivid moments, and lessons learned. Sometimes this steadies her and gives her strength. Sometimes it makes her cling to “how things should be,” out of defiance even when she needs to move.
- 3-Year-Old: Extraverted Thinking (Te) — The Reluctant Organizer Efficiency and cold logic aren’t definitely NOT her first choice. However, in moments of crisis Te can unexpectedly take the wheel, helping her act with decisive clarity — often surprising both her and those around her.
When her Driver and Co-Pilot are working together, Aunia is at her strongest. She’s grounded in her values, open to new possibilities, and fiercely creative in problem-solving. But that isn’t always the case. Sometimes her 10-Year-Old or 3-Year-Old takes over. At those times, her choices can skew. She can be too anchored in the past. She may second-guess every move. And every once in awhile she may overcompensate with blunt logic that lacks her usual empathy.
For me as a writer, this “car” explains a lot about her arc. The most compelling scenes often happen when a crisis forces one of her weaker passengers into the driver’s seat. These moments find her thrown so far off-balance, but this is also where she grows.
Watching her navigate those shifts, sometimes clumsily, sometimes brilliantly, is one of the most satisfying parts of bringing her to life on the page. In Aunia’s case, every shift in the driver’s seat changes not just how she reacts to the world — but how she shapes it.
Empathy as a Double-Edged Sword
Empathy is Aunia’s greatest strength and her biggest vulnerability. She doesn’t just notice others’ pain — she feels it. One of the challenges is that writing her means pausing mid-action to capture the way she absorbs emotional undercurrents, even when danger is pressing in. So much for writing fast! But the interplay between the urgency of the outer conflict and the weight of her inner world is where Aunia’s most unforgettable moments live.
The Quiet Courage
While other characters in Heart of the Worlds may command attention with bold moves, Aunia’s courage often appears in smaller, more intimate forms. Yes, she does have magic… fairly powerful, but she has yet to learn how to control it and she avoids because sometimes the cost is too steep. So her go-to moves are her using her smarts. Know that that doesn’t prevent her from holding her ground…even if it’ll cost her personally. And she’ll befriend and stand by those who the rest of the world has turned its back on.
Anyway, some of these moments don’t involve swordplay or spellfire but they shift the course of the story just as much as any battlefield victory.
The Challenge of Writing an INFP Heroine
Writing Aunia means accepting that she will sometimes wander off the neat path of my plot outline. She meanders, reflects, and takes detours and I’m left shaking my head and muttering, “oh, Aunia, you make my job so hard!” But in those side paths, I often discover the most powerful and surprising scenes.
I’ve learned that when the story forces her to act against her nature—and not just because I as the author want her to—that those moments hit hard. For her to be ruthless, to shut down her empathy, to stand by while someone suffers, she’s going to pay a high price after the moment passes.
Why I Love Writing Her
At the end of the day, I’d have to say that Aunia reminds me why I tell stories. She embodies the belief that kindness is strength, that dreams are worth defending, and that even the quietest voice can shape the fate of worlds. In the chaos of magic, politics, and prophecy, she is my constant reminder to keep sight of the human heartbeat at the center of it all.
If Heart of the Worlds is about reaching balance between realms, Aunia’s arc is about keeping your own heart intact while you fight for them. And for me, that’s the kind of hero who is worth following anywhere.