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MBTI and styles of writing

goodgrief

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I was thinking about how different MBTI types would vary in their style of writing. I'm not sure but I think these ideas might be close to reality. Also the characters would probably be closish in personality to the writer for the most part.

An E would focus on a larger group of characters who were nearly equally developed and the focus would move around.
An I would focus mostly on one or a few characters who would have stronger development than the subcharacters.

An S would put a lot of detail into the environment and situation and would be more action oriented.
An N would place emphasis on puzzles and riddles, internal thought and abstract forms of storytelling.

An F would emphasize the characters emotions and would be more likely to write about relationships and romance.
A T would emphasize on the plot and include be more likely to write about mystery or science fiction.

A P would have a more open and expansive plotline that leaves many plot points open and unresolved.
A J would have a more restricted and linear plot where all the plot points are resolved and there are few questions remaining at the end.

So do youo think these are accurate? Also, what do you think would be different between writing styles of different types?
 

Rebe

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Awesome topic.

An E would focus on a larger group of characters who were nearly equally developed and the focus would move around.
An I would focus mostly on one or a few characters who would have stronger development than the sub characters.

I have a huge preference for first person and might always. I find it to be most natural and comfortable and efficient for 'looking within a character' and I enjoy a lot of first person, main character driven books. I don't know necessarily if this comes from my introversion but perhaps my lack of multiple understanding in a way that I can develop a variety of characters. My characters are all myself, really, in emphasized ways.

An S would put a lot of detail into the environment and situation and would be more action oriented.
An N would place emphasis on puzzles and riddles, internal thought and abstract forms of storytelling.

I love stories with abstract forms of storytelling. Mystery and science fiction bores me to death. I enjoy a lot of introspection and observation of quirkiness. I like big, deep connections and ideas. And I thrive to do the same thing, what I question in 'real life' is what I question in writing, what I observe is the same, etc. But, I also do emphasis on the five senses, but looking back, yes, a lot of abstraction.

Example: "It started raining after breakfast. The roof next door was flat and the rain turned the dark space into a hundred winking silver circles. The clothes on the hangers rotated wildly. Our window frames were as thin as pencils."

An F would emphasize the characters emotions and would be more likely to write about relationships and romance.

Correct. But, most books whether by Fs or Ts have love stories in them. It seems a worthwhile topic to explore over and over again. Love, death, war.

A P would have a more open and expansive plot line that leaves many plot points open and unresolved.

Correct. I like to be ambiguous and open. No idea is concretely expressed, but sort of 'suggested' upon the readers, let them come to their own conclusions and leave them room for their own interpretation.
 
G

garbage

Guest
If I could, I'd write every single short story and proposal in one sentence that sums it up

e.g.

"Basically, uh, we're gonna use Google-like search technology to solve your problem."

"The issue with this type of simulation protocol is its network overhead."


Ideally, I'd never go into detail or reason out my thoughts. Because, you know, I know my thoughts already, and I shouldn't have to get them out there and organize them!! :steam:
 

Asterion

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oh f^^k! I have a little E living in me!

I wrote the ocassional story that expanded so much that I couldn't decide which trail of thought to choose next, and then eventually I'd come up with an idea that would involve me writing the whole first part again... and I could never develop the main character, all of the other characters had really cool parts and heaps of whacked up history. The main character was almost mute. I naturally write in first person, present tense, it bugs me that I have to write past tense in some practicals.

Well, that pins me as ENTP anyway, my plots get really out of hand fast, within a few paragraphs someone is being teleported to a crazy f^^ked up universe full of space travelling pegasi (pegusus'??) and highly advanced chimps. I do love planning out specific aspects of a story too, drawing a detailed map, or outlining terminology/creatures/history.
 

Keith

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Awesome topic.



I have a huge preference for first person and might always. I find it to be most natural and comfortable and efficient for 'looking within a character' and I enjoy a lot of first person, main character driven books. I don't know necessarily if this comes from my introversion but perhaps my lack of multiple understanding in a way that I can develop a variety of characters. My characters are all myself, really, in emphasized ways.



I love stories with abstract forms of storytelling. Mystery and science fiction bores me to death. I enjoy a lot of introspection and observation of quirkiness. I like big, deep connections and ideas. And I thrive to do the same thing, what I question in 'real life' is what I question in writing, what I observe is the same, etc. But, I also do emphasis on the five senses, but looking back, yes, a lot of abstraction.

Example: "It started raining after breakfast. The roof next door was flat and the rain turned the dark space into a hundred winking silver circles. The clothes on the hangers rotated wildly. Our window frames were as thin as pencils."



Correct. But, most books whether by Fs or Ts have love stories in them. It seems a worthwhile topic to explore over and over again. Love, death, war.



Correct. I like to be ambiguous and open. No idea is concretely expressed, but sort of 'suggested' upon the readers, let them come to their own conclusions and leave them room for their own interpretation.

First of all, it looks like you're an INTP, not INFP. As for this topic, I agree with the OP's thoughts. The same logic could probably be applied to each type's preference in books, and also movies.
 

Mole

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I was thinking about how different MBTI types would vary in their style of writing.

Rather than being based on evidence and reason, graphology is a confidence trick and a fraud like astrology, homeopathy, alchemy, creationism, phrenology, Lysenkoism or MBTI.

To believe such New Age nostrums is demeaning.
 

goodgrief

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I won't bother getting into an argument here, Victor, but let me just say that MBTI isn't something randomly decided to be true and applied to peoples personalities in the way that those things are decided true and then applied to their respective subjects. In contrast, MBTI is based off peoples personalities categorised into distinct groups of tendency and then used to help understand people. There is no point going on an MBTI forum just to insult it.
 

Mole

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There is no point going on an MBTI forum just to insult it.

But there is some point in going onto an MBTI forum and telling the truth.

And anyway, this is not an MBTI forum this is a Typology forum.

But still a good place to tell the truth.
 

goodgrief

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Look I don't believe in God but you don't see me joining a forum on religions just to say they suck. Forget it. You're not going to convert anyone or they wouldn't be on here in the first place.
 

Mole

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The Antidote

Look I don't believe in God but you don't see me joining a forum on religions just to say they suck. Forget it. You're not going to convert anyone or they wouldn't be on here in the first place.

When I first joined 5,370 post ago, no one critiqued MBTI. Now the critique of MBTI is commonplace.

So it only takes one person to tell the truth and then it is contagious.

Unfortunately it takes a world wide American cult to tell a lie, which is also contagious.

Fortunately the truth is an antidote to a lie.
 

goodgrief

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By critique do you mean 'insulting without evidence'? Because you are the only person so far who I've encountered who has been doing that. Everyone else seems to believe in it, like one might believe in chemistry. And 5,368 posts. Wow. I can tell you have a life out of trying to insult others.
 

Mole

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By critique do you mean 'insulting without evidence'? Because you are the only person so far who I've encountered who has been doing that. Everyone else seems to believe in it, like one might believe in chemistry. And 5,368 posts. Wow. I can tell you have a life out of trying to insult others.

I do make a habit of not making ad hominem attacks which are against the rules of Typology Central.

Unfortunately ad hominem attacks are de rigueur for those defending a lie.
 

Arthur Schopenhauer

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Rather than being based on evidence and reason, graphology is a confidence trick and a fraud like astrology, homeopathy, alchemy, creationism, phrenology, Lysenkoism or MBTI.

To believe such New Age nostrums is demeaning.

I do declare! Pseudoscience is what makes the world go 'round! (Pseudoscientifically, that is!)

We don't need any of your filthy empirical evidence!
 

Mole

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I do declare! Pseudoscience is what makes the world go 'round! (Pseudoscientifically, that is!)

We don't need any of your filthy empirical evidence!

Quite so.

And the New Age is not so new. I reached its height of popularity in Germany before WW II.

It married the hatred of usury with eugenics.

And the usurers were the Jews and eugenics was the final solution.

And, "Personality Types", was written by Carl Jung to complement eugenics.
 

Arthur Schopenhauer

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Quite so.

And the New Age is not so new. I reached its height of popularity in Germany before WW II.

It married the hatred of usury with eugenics.

And the usurers were the Jews and eugenics was the final solution.

And, "Personality Types", was written by Carl Jung to complement eugenics.

How dare you?! Eugenics is the best pseudoscience of all! No, wait, Time Cube Theory a.k.a. Cubicism, beats it by a million miles.

Also, in contribution to this threads actual topic, my stories and poetry usually involve characters and ideas that are in line with my personality traits and core set of ideals.
 

Katsuni

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I was thinking about how different MBTI types would vary in their style of writing. I'm not sure but I think these ideas might be close to reality. Also the characters would probably be closish in personality to the writer for the most part.

An interesting idea, though I think yeu've simplified things too much.

An E would focus on a larger group of characters who were nearly equally developed and the focus would move around.
An I would focus mostly on one or a few characters who would have stronger development than the subcharacters.

Not necessarily; keep in mind that "E" doesn't necessitate "lots of people", nor does I imply "very few close friends". The only difference between them, really, is the method by which their thought process occurs; an E thinks through explaining themselves to others - for example, discussion or debate allow their ideas to bloom better as the mere act of externalizing an idea will give them greater clarity into it, and they can come into epiphanies during the act of explaining even if the other side isn't listening. An I, on the other hand, will tend to internalize their thought process, thinking things through to themselves and then checking with others for validation AFTER they've already reasoned out an idea.

This has nothing to do with the number of characters involved; if anything, it would likely actually be the reverse of whot yeu have listed. An I would be more likely to develop many characters on their own and end up with far too many that don't have as much meaning, as they're unlikely to check with anyone else until it's too late to remove them without rewriting half the story. An E would be more likely to provide fewer characters based off of close friends, and build those characters with outside input, developing them more deeply.




An S would put a lot of detail into the environment and situation and would be more action oriented.
An N would place emphasis on puzzles and riddles, internal thought and abstract forms of storytelling.

Likely true to some degree, but keep in mind that actions and environment can be the puzzles themselves; many writers that rely on puzzles and riddles will often leave clues and hints that would be picked up by an S more likely than an N.

A very strong S, however, would be more likely to go all tolkien on us and go into obscene detail over nothing, giving exacting information on stuff that really isn't relevant to the story at all. A strong N, on the other hand, is more likely to wander off on tangents and substories, but is more likely to tie those sub-quests into the main storyline somehow.




An F would emphasize the characters emotions and would be more likely to write about relationships and romance.
A T would emphasize on the plot and include be more likely to write about mystery or science fiction.

Not neccesarily true at all; the genre of story is not related in the way yeu'd expect. Check out say... Star Trek Voyager... it was pretty much written by F's, despite being science fiction. The whole thing was one big soap opera in space; the sci-fi aspect just happened to be a vehicle for the characters' relationships is all.

Yeu also assume the only things available are those few genres, which's a bit silly at best.

More likely, the F wouldn't specifically rely on romance so much, but they would be far more likely to try to make sure the reader understood the character's perspective and feelings, to emphasize why they do things the way they do. Most likely, first person perspective, or a gods' eye view where yeu can hear the character's thoughts is likely to be an F's writing style.

A T, would be more likely to describe things through the environment and explain things as to how they occurred, less so than why. While it's very possible for a T to have romance in their novel or story, they would be more focused upon the actions, rather than the emotions usually. This is where yeu'd get a character that shows their love through doing something, rather than just saying it or thinking it.



A P would have a more open and expansive plotline that leaves many plot points open and unresolved.
A J would have a more restricted and linear plot where all the plot points are resolved and there are few questions remaining at the end.

From personal experience, this's not the case at all. In fact, it has no accuracy or even relevance.

The P wouldn't neccesarily have open and expansive plotlines, moreso they'd be like RL Stine, where they just write off the top of their head, with limited preparation; their characters would have a life of their own and write themselves.

The J would tend to have detailed notes and have things planned out far in advance of actually writing the story itself. This actually tends to lead to more complex plotlines, rather than whot yeu'd suggested. The J will have better knowledge of the start, middle, and end, and whot they want to happen at each stage along the way, which also means they can set up 'surprises' to occur later on but be hinted at early in the storyline.

The P, however, will tend to have far more natural characters, that feel more alive and less like they're being forced into acting a pre-defined role; J writers have a bad habit of making a plotline and forcing characters to do whot's required by their plotline regardless of whether it makes sense for that character to do so or not. The P's are more likely to have character development and characters that practically think for themselves, and act consistently, but are unlikely to have structured, complex storylines for those characters to enact.




So do youo think these are accurate? Also, what do you think would be different between writing styles of different types?

Uhm... just said that XD




But yeah, there's alot more than just MBTI type at work as well. Inspiration comes from many sources, and characters themselves and the location/theme of a story can play a very large part in its' telling, and those characters need not be directly related to MBTI type. Once one is aware of their drawbacks of their type, they're more likely to avoid certain pitfalls.

I'm a strong P, but have since learned to plan out my writing a bit in advance, with basic plotpoints and things I want to occur, with a bit of structure, which allows more detailed plotlines to occur; J's are far more naturally adept at this, but P's do a better job with the characters feeling more natural, so everyone has their flaws, and their bonuses when writing... the trick is to learn to take advantage of the benefits yeu have to writing which come naturally to yeu, and then consciously work on the areas yeu're lacking on.

Truly great writers have practiced hard to even themselves out, so that they have very few weak points.

Novice writers will tend to make very poor mistakes, regardless of type, but the mistakes they make will likely be influenced by the type they are.

There's alot more to this writing thing than just the basics yeu suggested ^^
 

goodgrief

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Not necessarily; keep in mind that "E" doesn't necessitate "lots of people", nor does I imply "very few close friends". The only difference between them, really, is the method by which their thought process occurs; an E thinks through explaining themselves to others - for example, discussion or debate allow their ideas to bloom better as the mere act of externalizing an idea will give them greater clarity into it, and they can come into epiphanies during the act of explaining even if the other side isn't listening. An I, on the other hand, will tend to internalize their thought process, thinking things through to themselves and then checking with others for validation AFTER they've already reasoned out an idea.

This has nothing to do with the number of characters involved; if anything, it would likely actually be the reverse of whot yeu have listed. An I would be more likely to develop many characters on their own and end up with far too many that don't have as much meaning, as they're unlikely to check with anyone else until it's too late to remove them without rewriting half the story. An E would be more likely to provide fewer characters based off of close friends, and build those characters with outside input, developing them more deeply.

Well I cann't really speak for extroverts, but I put most of my focus on my central mains, and they have a lot of depth. My sides are rarely 1 dimensional but also rarely 3-dimensional.


Not neccesarily true at all; the genre of story is not related in the way yeu'd expect. Check out say... Star Trek Voyager... it was pretty much written by F's, despite being science fiction. The whole thing was one big soap opera in space; the sci-fi aspect just happened to be a vehicle for the characters' relationships is all.

Yeu also assume the only things available are those few genres, which's a bit silly at best.

Well I wasn't really saying those were the ONLY genres. I was just mentioning what I thought was likely. Also, when I said science fiction, I was sorta thinking SCIENCE BASED fiction rather than fiction with a backdrop and science. You know because it's all logical and technical. It's kinda like how Twilight is not really fantasy, but rather crap with a fantasy backdrop.

More likely, the F wouldn't specifically rely on romance so much, but they would be far more likely to try to make sure the reader understood the character's perspective and feelings, to emphasize why they do things the way they do. Most likely, first person perspective, or a gods' eye view where yeu can hear the character's thoughts is likely to be an F's writing style.

A T, would be more likely to describe things through the environment and explain things as to how they occurred, less so than why. While it's very possible for a T to have romance in their novel or story, they would be more focused upon the actions, rather than the emotions usually. This is where yeu'd get a character that shows their love through doing something, rather than just saying it or thinking it.


I can kinda see that, though I'm a T and I ALWAYS go deep into the psychology and emotions of my characters. Maybe it's just because psychology interests me. Dunno.

The P wouldn't neccesarily have open and expansive plotlines, moreso they'd be like RL Stine, where they just write off the top of their head, with limited preparation; their characters would have a life of their own and write themselves.

The J would tend to have detailed notes and have things planned out far in advance of actually writing the story itself. This actually tends to lead to more complex plotlines, rather than whot yeu'd suggested. The J will have better knowledge of the start, middle, and end, and whot they want to happen at each stage along the way, which also means they can set up 'surprises' to occur later on but be hinted at early in the storyline.

The P, however, will tend to have far more natural characters, that feel more alive and less like they're being forced into acting a pre-defined role; J writers have a bad habit of making a plotline and forcing characters to do whot's required by their plotline regardless of whether it makes sense for that character to do so or not. The P's are more likely to have character development and characters that practically think for themselves, and act consistently, but are unlikely to have structured, complex storylines for those characters to enact.

That does make sense, but I would imagine the lack of planning would probably cause the P to get out of control with the writing, so it would expand more. Also, because the J planned, they will already have a way to conclude plot points when they write, so it won't leave anything inconclusive.
 

Nonsensical

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many, many authors transcend these boundaries. but it's still kind of cool.
 

KDude

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OP: That's an interesting distinction that you made between I and E. I've never gotten around to writing it, but FWIW, I've had somewhat of a "children's story" idea floating in my head that had dozens of characters... yet, it was mostly centered on only two or three of the them. Not sure if it's just me, or I'm merely taking a queue from the type of genres that influenced the story (lots of fantasy, shonen anime, and space opera is written this way).

Not sure about F/T. I think I may be F at times, but I would write more like a T, according to you.
 
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