[ENFP] Enfp Writers?

[Enfpcoco]

Hi! Is there any Enfp writers/authors out there? I have a problem.

I know that most np's are known for epic novels, but my stories always come up short! No matter how much I increase my word count, my whole novel ends up being really low. I tried to pre plan my whole novel but I feel like it made it worse. Usually ENFP'S write very long stories (mark twain), do you think I might be doing down thing wrong?

 

[Dreamer]

Writing is an art form like any other creative expression. Focus less on word count and let your words flow. Keep in mind the tone, and the atmosphere you wish to provide with your words. Since writing is not visual in a traditional sense, let your words breathe and create a visual in the mind of your reader. Don't get too caught up in painting the scene with too many descriptions and "he said" "she said", provide just enough detail and descriptions to allow your reader to come to their own conclusions. Use this same approach to your character development and scene build up. Like photography, painting, etc. you as the author is given the freedom to direct your reader's attention and play with their emotions as you wish. You are the sole director to your next great novel.

Just start off by letting your words flow and try your best not to edit as you go. Let that creativity flow first, then you can go back and add this, delete that, etc.

 

[Betty Blue]

I wonder if you have tried telling your story verbally... and recording it? It might becomes quite different.

 

[Florence Atley]

I'm not an ENFP, but I have the exact same problem with my writing. The more I think it through, the shorter the story gets. It's also harder to maintain a cohesive focus and feel through a longer piece than it is with a shorter piece. Refining drafts a zillion times helps with that, tough. I've found a couple things that really help me get length in my stories.

1. Daily journaling and free-writing help to loosen your 'voice' up so you can comfortably write at greater length, and it also helps to focus more on character development and naturalism (because we tend to read a lot into daily situations). 2. Reading interesting human interest stuff like blogs and human interest news articles: this often gets my mind going about possibilities for little things that should happen to my characters in between the big things. One super interesting book that always gets me passionate about the little things is a book called, 'The Art of Seduction.' I started reading it to make my writing more seductive in terms of magically whisking away my readers, but the book is amazing for developing character chemistry (romantic or no). 3. Lastly, I totally agree with HelenOfTroy and Enthusiastic Dreamer about letting the words flow. Get your detailed outline prepared, then put it away and don't refer to it too often.

 

[Enfpcoco]

you're right, thank you!

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I wonder if you have tried telling your story verbally... and recording it? It might becomes quite different.

I have never tried that before... I think i'd find it weird though

 

[Amargith]

If you want to try it, there is an app called...rev, i think? And there is even a company out there that will help you make and self-publish your book using this technique (it's especially used for people who feel odd about writing or have difficulty with that but are like celebrities or specialists in their field who have been recommended to write a book by their PR people).

Personally, when I do write (fiction or non-fiction), I go back several times and reread what I've written and get 're-inspired' to add to it, change things around and make it flow better. I used to not do this, because I was all stream-of-consciousness - like a true ENFP and my INFP friend, who corrected my essays in college actually really groaned at this ('Stop writing like you talk!'). It took a while, but I found that if I just reread my own piece to see if it truly communicated what I was wanting to say - from that perspective - I ended up inspired to make things more crisp, more expansive, and more in depth - without losing my own personal stream-of-consciousness style. It became stream-of-consciousness style Chic - and added significantly to my word count

 

[Starry]

I have a problem.

I know that most np's are known for epic novels...

Usually ENFP'S write very long stories...

^^Are these statements of yours fiction or non-fiction? Because I'm just going to confess in a very straightforward manner that I personally lean fiction in this regard as I'm not sure Twain and a very small handful of other NFP epic novelists can truly qualify as a "most" or an "usually". What are the chances here that these facts are not facts but rather were born out of frustration in an imagination that may have innocently overestimated its own abilities as well as underestimated the epic amount of time and effort that goes into writing epic novels?

Let's say for the sake of argument though that the above be non-fiction and you go on to provide me with a citation... Who is to say you must write epic novels as well?

When I think of an ENFP writer Dr. Seuss immediately comes to mind. He may have never produced an epic novel...but his contribution to literature was epic all the same.

 

[Cellmold]

Just wait till you get started. I think I've started to understand why writers talk about their characters taking on sentient life and getting away from them.

 

[Starry]

Oh and Twain wrote hundreds of essays, editorials, commentaries and short stories for years prior to hammering out Huck Finn.

 

[Enfpcoco]

I'm a fiction writer. I'm not 100% sure if I'm an enfp (because I have some infp qualities too). And you're right, there is probably a lot of work that goes in epic novels . But I just want to be able to reach a basic novel standard, which is even harder for me to achieve.

 

[magpie]

All art is a skill. What are you doing to make yourself more skilled at writing? How many techniques are on your toolbelt? How proficient do you feel at your craft? Do you practice every day? You can't rely on creativity or inspiration to make art, you must rely on hard work.

 

[Florence Atley]

All art is a skill. What are you doing to make yourself more skilled at writing? How many techniques are on your toolbelt? How proficient do you feel at your craft? Do you practice every day? You can't rely on creativity or inspiration to make art, you must rely on hard work.

Doing this did totally transform my work. But with an interesting twist. I have this love hate relationship with my unyielding value on authenticity. For years I refused to study about writing, painting, music, etc. because I didn't want to be influenced by pre-existing creations. I wanted my work to be as original as possible. As I got older I realized if I wanted my work to speak to others as effectively as possible, I needed to study how other people think when they read. A lot of information has already been gathered on this subject.

I started reading articles and books about fiction writing and creative thinking. My favorites are fiction writing articles on the readers digest site, the art of seduction (free online pdf), "Thinkertoys" (a book to help you learn new methods of creative thinking and innovating) and an awesome book called "The 3am Epiphany - Uncommon Writing Practices That Transform Your Fiction Writing."

Studying these things has given me more inspiration than I know what to do with. I will say, though, that at the end of the day I still rely on inspiration to create. Creativity alone fizzles out and gives you writer's block. Knowhow alone leaves you with nothing important to say. Coming up with great ideas is that magical thing that can't be taught, so in my opinion, creativity drives the bus - knowhow just gives you fuel.

 

[magpie]

Doing this did totally transform my work. But with an interesting twist. I have this love hate relationship with my unyielding value on authenticity. For years I refused to study about writing, painting, music, etc. because I didn't want to be influenced by pre-existing creations. I wanted my work to be as original as possible. As I got older I realized if I wanted my work to speak to others as effectively as possible, I needed to study how other people think when they read. A lot of information has already been gathered on this subject.

I started reading articles and books about fiction writing and creative thinking. My favorites are fiction writing articles on the readers digest site, the art of seduction (free online pdf), "Thinkertoys" (a book to help you learn new methods of creative thinking and innovating) and an awesome book called "The 3am Epiphany - Uncommon Writing Practices That Transform Your Fiction Writing."

Studying these things has given me more inspiration than I know what to do with. I will say, though, that at the end of the day I still rely on inspiration to create. Creativity alone fizzles out and gives you writer's block. Knowhow alone leaves you with nothing important to say. Coming up with great ideas is that magical thing that can't be taught, so in my opinion, creativity drives the bus - knowhow just gives you fuel.

I'm glad you've explored reading books about writing. I don't think you're wrong that without inspiration you'd have nothing to say. But without knowhow you have less ways to say it. Or you can't say it meaningfully or skillfully. Or you will have lots of big ideas but will run into problems expressing them as wonderfully as they exist inside your head.

I think other people may have suggested this in this thread, but I think practicing writing everyday is probably very important. I go to school for acting and we focus a lot on the process and are taught not to concern ourselves with a finished product. This might work for you. Can you throw yourself into the process and not worry about qualifiers like how good your writing is or how close it is to the story you want to be telling? Can you just write a bit every day and see where it takes you and not worry about improvement?

I don't know how old you are or how seriously you take writing, but it might help you a lot to take college classes in creative writing.

[MENTION=26789]Florence Atley[/MENTION] Sorry, I confused you with the OP and it influenced how I replied to you in this post. So yeah, you can just disregard what I said because I merged you and the OP together for some reason and replied to you as if you were having the OP's problems.

 

[Starry]

I'm a fiction writer. I'm not 100% sure if I'm an enfp (because I have some infp qualities too). And you're right, there is probably a lot of work that goes in epic novels . But I just want to be able to reach a basic novel standard, which is even harder for me to achieve.

While I may doubt the typing of every single person in this thread... you, I'm convinced, got it right. And I love that this is something you want for yourself. The OP, as commonplace as it may seem...simply a "new, ENFP member looking for some writer's tips"...is significant to me. The fact it was even created at all tells me this is real for you and it persuades me. I am posting because I now want this for you too.

Your reasoning however...I know all too well how that kind of reasoning comes about. I know the map. I know what you are detouring (ignoring) inside of yourself that causes you to arrive at a place where you're actually expressing something as faulty as "Usually ENFP'S write very long stories (mark twain), do you think I might be doing something wrong?"

Your response above tells me that you are probably not quite ready to see in yourself what you're working so hard to keep hidden and that is okay. But in this instance please listen closely to my "writer's advice". Do not convince yourself that there is something wrong with you or that you have a problem. I know you don't want to give-up in your awareness and so do not let the hidden parts of you try to convince you of something completely unreasonable like..."I'm ENFP and so it follows that if I can't write like Twain fairly effortlessly something's wrong with me" There is no hack. There is no easy.

The only way for you to reach the basic novel standard is to keep on writing until you reach the basic novel standard. You can do it.

 

[Enfpcoco]

While I may doubt the typing of every single person in this thread... you, I'm convinced, got it right. And I love that this is something you want for yourself. The OP, as commonplace as it may seem...simply a "new, ENFP member looking for some writer's tips"...is significant to me. The fact it was even created at all tells me this is real for you and it persuades me. I am posting because I now want this for you too.

Your reasoning however...I know all too well how that kind of reasoning comes about. I know the map. I know what you are detouring (ignoring) inside of yourself that causes you to arrive at a place where you're actually expressing something as faulty as "Usually ENFP'S write very long stories (mark twain), do you think I might be doing something wrong?"

Your response above tells me that you are probably not quite ready to see in yourself what you're working so hard to keep hidden and that is okay. But in this instance please listen closely to my "writer's advice". Do not convince yourself that there is something wrong with you or that you have a problem. I know you don't want to give-up in your awareness and so do not let the hidden parts of you try to convince you of something completely unreasonable like..."I'm ENFP and so it follows that if I can't write like Twain fairly effortlessly something's wrong with me" There is no hack. There is no easy.

The only way for you to reach the basic novel standard is to keep on writing until you reach the basic novel standard. You can do it.

Thank you! I know i'll get there one day. It'll take me some time, but I guess that's part of the craft. I even did so much research on this as well, and it's funny, some of them were technical responses, and others told me to just write, and then fix it later, and the fact that your story is as long as it needs t be. I think this has gotten in front of my craft, because i'm so scared of disappointing myself to the point that I don't even try anymore, which makes me even more mad.

It just sucks when people gloat about having 100,000 word counts when you're trying to build up your way there, you know? But I have to remember, it's practice, and craft.

I have gotten some critiques for my books and a lot of them say I miss detail, but when I do add detail, it's like nobody glances at it. People will leave lazy reviews and it's like: is the extra description even needed?

I think I work better in first person than third person, but I have gotten so used to third person, that I forgot how to write in first. But writing in third person makes me feel so distant from my characters, no matter how much depth I put into the character.
That's great! I showed my sister the personality test and descriptions (she's a total INTP), and she told me i'm more of an ENTP type, despite my diplomatic personality.