quote:I don't know where this came from, but it sounds like a quote, so I put it in that form.
Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.
Well, a friend sent me this along with a note telling me I'm an INTJ, whatever that is. I looked into it a little and it seems to be a personality type from some sort of popular personality test. Hmmm.
My question is, have any of you ever used personality types (this kind, or others) to create or deepen your characters? Does it make any sense to actually plan characters out that way, or does it work better for you if you just let them develop as they will? Is this something that is commonly done?
And, yeah, I think what my friend quoted is is accurate. Unfortunate, but accurate.
As for INTJ, it's from the Meyers-Briggs personality tests. My dad is one (my parents are really into the whole thing), but I never thought of him as an arrogant asshole who doesn't care what other people think, but maybe that's because he's been softened by his line of work). I could see where that would come from though. If he was bitter and jaded like me he would match that explanation.
Personality types are good food for though but not exactly the basis for a character I think.
Jon
But I would never use it to help develop my characters in the first place.
What you've essentially got is a group of 16 stereotyped characters. You can then take these and modify them however you need to fit your plot. For background characters, this doesn't need to be by very much. For major ones, I'd avoid basing them too heavily on such a well-known model...
I found this website that lists some of the Myers-Briggs stuff for those who are interested.
http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/tt/t-articl/mb-simpl.htm
Michael Flynn says something about using Meyers-Briggs types in _The Wreck of the River of Stars_. Now, I still haven't found time to read that one, but my husband really enjoyed it. One of these days, I'll get to it.
I've never used Meyers-Briggs in my writing, though.
Oh, and the quote is not really anything to do with Meyers-Briggs types in general or INTJs in particular--that's just one person's opinion, and it's not even based on what an INTJ really is. For example, the "morbid sense of humor" bit is by no means universal, or even (in my experience) all that common.
(I've taken a real, professionally-administered Meyers-Briggs inventory.)
Most portrayals of INTJs, for example, tend to be horribly stereotyped and based on a complete lack of understanding of what drives them and how they make decisions (this despite the fact that INTJs are way overrepresented among writers). So quotes like that sent you by your friend are common, even though they represent nearly complete misrepresentations of anything said by Myers&Briggs. The facts are that INTJs tend to create their own moral universe based on logic and evidence rather than the opinions of those around them. They also see little point in trying to change someone else's opinions about them. The relative scarcity of INTJs in the general population means that INTJs are used to having very logically sound reasons for disagreeing with nearly everyone around them.
And they know that this looks like arrogance and a morbid sense of humor. But if you write an INTJish character as though they were simply arrogant and delighted in morbid subjects, you would be missing the point entirely and simply using a cardboard cutout that captures none of the real motives and internal reasoning of the "real life" models you think you're using to create your character.
So reading the Myers&Briggs literature is a good way to avoid using stereotypes.