• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

[NF] composition for nf types

Thalassa

Permabanned
Joined
May 3, 2009
Messages
25,183
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
sx
Writing something by hand is a piece of advice I'd like to give to everyone (though of course it helps some people more than others). It will help you to spot redundancies, unclear passages, sentence fragments etc. much more easily. Also, you can always jot down important thought on a foolscap whenever you have them without losing track of the 'big picture'. A slight drawback is that it's a bit slow (again, my fear of forgetting something important before I've written it down). That's why shorthand comes in handy sometimes.

You know what else works? Read something out loud. Listen to what it actually sounds like.

Read it backwards. That's the easiest way to spot technical errors, especially for people like me who don't care about the little things.

Go back and read your paper the next day and imagine it isn't yours. Imagine that you're writing something for the back of a paper back novel (or whatever works) and it helps to clear up sloppy mistakes like redundancies.

I'm not great at being linear, either. I hate doing straight-up research with very little interpretation or analysis. I find it dry as fucking hell.
 

speculative

Feelin' FiNe
Joined
Jul 15, 2008
Messages
927
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
speculative: Does the ring true for you, now? I haven't attempted a novel, but do you still do chunks as they are ready or interesting? I would imagine with practice one could reduce the percolation time, and develop more patience for editing.

When I was in college, I would spend weeks thinking about shorter papers while I did research or gathered quotes from source materials that caught my interest. I normally used about 20% or so of the quotes I had gathered. Then, I just sat down and wrote, often starting the night before the paper was due and writing late into the night, the following morning before the paper was due, or in later years sometimes all night. So, for shorter works (5-15 pages, then later up to 20 pages) I would do all the "thinking" and "intuiting" beforehand, and then came the act of getting it all down on paper before the deadline. I agree about not wanting to write before it was time.
 

Clonester

New member
Joined
Jul 5, 2009
Messages
480
MBTI Type
ENFP
I like to do a lot of research and thinking ahead of time. A LOT of research. I formulate my thoughts, think about how to construct it. Try and catch some "lightning in a bottle" ideas. My actual writing or composition is done typically under pressure or against a deadline. My writing is better that way.
 
B

brainheart

Guest
I relate to all (or most) of this, minus the cut and paste thing. I could see myself doing that for a little bit and being all psyched about it and then getting tired of it and just thinking, 'this is such a waste of time'.

I write poetry to a particular person. My novel I write to no one in particular. A novel is very hard for my brain to organize, thanks to all my tangential thinking. I wrote for two years basically just spouting shit out and then I'd agonize... 'my God! What's the point? This makes no sense! What am I trying to convey?' I'll get into a new way of organizing it and then I get tired of it or I forget or I feel the need to deviate. I write lots of notes but I instantly forget what they are or where they were or what the purpose was. I've started doing this snowflake method way of organizing it and I think it's helping, provided I'm working on it vs being on this forum...
 

speculative

Feelin' FiNe
Joined
Jul 15, 2008
Messages
927
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
A novel is very hard for my brain to organize, thanks to all my tangential thinking. I wrote for two years basically just spouting shit out and then I'd agonize... 'my God! What's the point? This makes no sense! What am I trying to convey?' I'll get into a new way of organizing it and then I get tired of it or I forget or I feel the need to deviate. I write lots of notes but I instantly forget what they are or where they were or what the purpose was. I've started doing this snowflake method way of organizing it and I think it's helping, provided I'm working on it vs being on this forum...

I'm starting to work through this book: Amazon.com: Fearless Creating: A Step-by-Step Guide To Starting and Completing Your Work of Art (9780874778052): Eric Maisel: Books and have found it helpful. I don't have it handy to quote directly, but it talks about artists being able to "see" the completed work in their minds (intuition).
 

the state i am in

Active member
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
2,475
MBTI Type
infj
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I don't have it handy to quote directly, but it talks about artists being able to "see" the completed work in their minds (intuition).

Ne. this is not how Ni works (you lucky bastards).

i suspect that most books on the creative process emphasize a specific function's growth.

for me, i have to arrange as much detail and complexity as possible in various forms of representation. and chip away until it is perfect(ly integrated). i don't see anything- i have to make choices in order to reveal what is already there. but i don't know either, i can only balance, clarify, reveal, draw more taut the threads/webs of relationship that are waiting for emphasis, highlighting, attention, re-framing, etc.
 

Polaris

AKA Nunki
Joined
Apr 7, 2009
Messages
2,529
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
451
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I have a unique creative writing process, and I was about to describe it when I decided that would be like revealing the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken. What I can say about my creative writing process is that it involves a lot of planning. Before I start a novel, I spend months working on character profiles, plot twists, and all kinds of other things. This contrasts with what I do on this forum. When I write something here, I simply lay down my thoughts as if I'm having a conversation with someone. Before I submit, I do a quick look-over for tone and clarity, and then I'm ready.
 

Yloh

New member
Joined
Jul 31, 2009
Messages
183
MBTI Type
ENFJ
First of all I try to get what is in my head into the paper (I try to complete a thought before I jump to another though). Then I read what I wrote and try to organise it (most of it is already organised). I do all the spelling and grammer checking. Finally, I make sure what I wrote is the best possible product I could possibly write.

Oh, I try to get all of the information I need before I start writing.
 
Top