I'm curious about whether there are any members who know what type they are on the Myers-Briggs or Keirsey Temperament types. (I'm an INTJ, for those who know what that means.)
Robert q
Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :
INTJ too. How 'bout that.
Posted by babooher (Member # 8617) on :
I'm a TMNT...oh wait, wrong franchise.
We jut talked about Myers-Briggs in one of my Masters classes. It was funny to see it brought up here, too.
Posted by Brendan (Member # 6044) on :
INFP, or sometimes INTP. Which means... I never finish my stories, alway tinker, almost never describe, and don't talk to people about them. Hold on. That last one isn't true. Posted by Owasm (Member # 8501) on :
Maybe most writers are IN types. I'm an INTJ as well. Crazy, huh?
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Personality and behavioral preference inventory assessments tend to place me in no clearly defineable category. "Otherwise well-adjusted" crops up in each assessment report. Since most of the rest of the human species tends to exhibit preferences, I'm the outsider, a statistical outlier. I can fit in to a degree in most situations, but that ease of fitting in is alienating to close in-groups. Grudging tolerance, rejection, exclusion, regardless. I fit in most among misfits who don't fit an expectation of some arbitrary "normal" standard.
Posted by MattLeo (Member # 9331) on :
, which apparently suits me for a career in literature, psychological counselling or social activism. Apparently INFJ is the most rare type in the US.
Some years ago when I was looking for a job there was a vogue for employee candidate aptitude I paid to take a battery of tests so I'd know what any prospective employers knew. I scored 3.5+ standard deviations above the mean in both verbal and social reasoning, at the 80th percentile for spatial reasoning and the 20th for social perception (reading facial expressions and body language). In other words, the tests told me what I already know: I'm a nerd. I'm better equipped to write a novel of social manners than I am to use social manners myself.
Posted by NoTimeToThink (Member # 5174) on :
INTP (The Architect); sometimes INTJ (the Scientist)
Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :
as per extrinsic:
yes we are all special
BTW: from what I have read the online assessments (which is what I took) are excruciatingly inaccurate and/or misleading and should be taken with a grain silo of salt... apparently
Posted by MartinV (Member # 5512) on :
I think my last blog post works perfect for this thread.
Posted by MattLeo (Member # 9331) on :
What makes you think introverts don't meet people?
It's funny, but many people I've met casually, say sitting next to them on a long flight, have ended up telling me their life story. It doesn't happen all the time, but when someone needs to talk with someone, for some reason they find it easy to talk to me. Mostly it's about stuff going on at work, or where they are in their career, but I've even had men tell me about the difficult relationship they had with their father. Sometimes I think I ought to wear a clerical collar.
Imagine a large, loud party. The extrovert is in the center of things participating or perhaps leading the collective activities. The introvert is sitting on a couch at the edge having an intense conversation. Who is having more social contact? Neither. It's just different.
From time to time I've thought of writing a story about a man with mutant powers that makes people want to tell them their deepest secrets. I haven't because it seems more like a Martian Chronicles style framing device than a story idea itself, and I don't have much experience with short fiction.
Posted by Unwritten (Member # 7960) on :
INFJ. At least based on this dumbed down (but cute) version of the Myers-Briggs test. I'm a wolf.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Introvert and extrovert are current social buzz words with problematic application. They are terms best left to professional clinicians' diagnoses due to the complexities and causal complications involved.
For example, a person with a Reactionary Attachment Disorder, RAD, cycles between several association states: normative attachment, equally healthy association openness and reservation; association detachment--the dissociative state; and abreactive attachment, unhealthy association. Choosing which state a sufferer is in or acting incorrectly toward a sufferer may cause abrupt cycling between the states and undue conflict and harm. That's just one of many emotional conditions which has a spectrum of introvert and extrovert implications, and one which shows association is not black or white, either/or introvert or extrovert. ------ MattLeo wrote: "From time to time I've thought of writing a story about a man with mutant powers that makes people want to tell them their deepest secrets."
That idea is a situation for a story by E.M. Forster's definition. "'The king died and then the queen died' is a story. 'The king died, then, out of grief, the queen died' is a plot." Noting a causal relation for the queen's death.
Examining that idea for the purposes of plot, a man with mutant powers that makes people want to tell him their deepest secrets strikes me as ripe for a problem wanting satisfaction. Causal in that I'd imagine he is burdened by strangers' problems like a literary agent is by anyone with an undeveloped novel idea.
[ June 22, 2012, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by Unwritten (Member # 7960) on :
extrinsic, I agree. Even when using them to specify inclinations instead of diagnoses, introvert and extrovert are words fraught with misinterpretations.
I read in a book about children that introvert and extrovert can be used as words to explain to children where they find their energy and power. Do you feel gain energy from being with a group of people or from being alone? I think that is a useful thing for people to know about themselves.
Posted by MattLeo (Member # 9331) on :
quote:Causal in that I'd imagine he is burdened by strangers' problems like a literary agent is by anyone with an undeveloped novel idea.
Genius.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Thank you, MattLeo. I believe a developmental editor has a role in beginning writing phases, mostly prompting development of an inspiration; middle raw drafting phases, limited to only coaxing a writer over tough spots; and ending phases, where an editor is most effectual from gauging accessibility, appeal, craft, and voice effectiveness and offering suggestions for strengthening a whole and parts.
Unwritten, I agree knowing about one's self is useful. However, either/or questions tend to impose answer expectations. I gain energy from both being among a dynamic group and from being left alone. My answer to which I gain energy from is just that, both, and has been for as long as I can remember. I also remember and still experience evaluators and such getting miffed that my answer isn't an either/or to questions predicated upon simplifying the process for an evaluator. No easy, predetermined answers from me, not because I want to be difficult or labeled difficult, but a full and honest response to what I think is an honest if incomplete question.
[ June 23, 2012, 01:07 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by robertq (Member # 5265) on :
Hi,
Thanks for all the responses, folks. My guess is almost anyone who reads spec fiction is fairly high in the N range (imagination valuing.) In any case, I'm wondering whether what Keirsey terms the Apollonian personality (search for "true" self) approaches fiction in a different way than the Promethean "NT"s (constant skill-builders.) The reason I bring this up is that I read this story from another workshop, and it was decently written, but ten of 13 critiques really liked it. I was in the minority with Ian Creasey (numerous stories published in Asimov's) in not liking it for structural issues. I'm simply at a loss to explain the 10 positive crits. And I'm just wondering if it was a split by Apollonian vs Promethean temperaments. Probably a blind alley, but has anyone noticed a diffeernt "approach" reading between NT's and NF's?
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
quote:Originally posted by Unwritten: I read in a book about children that introvert and extrovert can be used as words to explain to children where they find their energy and power. Do you feel gain energy from being with a group of people or from being alone? I think that is a useful thing for people to know about themselves.
I like that definition. I don't enjoy anonymous crowds so much, but I do like speaking in front of a lot of people (I enjoy being on panels at SF/F conventions, and I think I do a pretty good job as a moderator on such panels). As much as I enjoy that, however, I'm exhausted afterwards. I gain energy from the audience, but I use it up very quickly.
I find one-on-one or small groups much more restful (and gently energizing).
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
quote:Originally posted by robertq: The reason I bring this up is that I read this story from another workshop, and it was decently written, but ten of 13 critiques really liked it. I was in the minority with Ian Creasey (numerous stories published in Asimov's) in not liking it for structural issues. I'm simply at a loss to explain the 10 positive crits.
robertq, it could be that you and Ian were more conscious of the structural issues, and those who really liked the story were not, perhaps because of some other factor that worked so well for them that they didn't notice the structure.
There are some aspects of writing, as has been mentioned, that can distract readers from failures in other aspects.
Posted by MattLeo (Member # 9331) on :
quote:There are some aspects of writing, as has been mentioned, that can distract readers from failures in other aspects.
That, and when you're wearing your critiquing hat your "liking" response can be distorted by other factors, (e.g. workload). I once participated in an online workshop where to have your work critiqued you had to submit a certain number of critiques. What I found was that this produced a strong bias towards liking stories that were easy to skim. If you discarded the "liked it/hated it but don't have much to say" critiques you were lucky to get one useful critique for eight or nine submitted.
I have found critique exchanges much more productive here on Hatrack. Hatrackers have more of a personal commitment to help each other improve.
Another thing about sci-fi critiques is that sci-fi writers are a brainy bunch, but their gifted faculties are all over the map. I've had critiques from obviously highly intelligent people who can't seem to tell when a character in a story is being deceptive no matter how outrageous the deception is. Yet these people have valuable contributions in areas not related to character motivations. It stands to reason that they're getting very different things out of a story than others who have a sensitive ear for characterization but happily bypass huge logical holes in the plot.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Robertq wrote "I read this story from another workshop, and it was decently written, but ten of 13 critiques really liked it. I was in the minority with Ian Creasey (numerous stories published in Asimov's) in not liking it for structural issues. I'm simply at a loss to explain the 10 positive crits."
Seems to me an opportunity to satisfy for yourself why ten liked the story and three didn't as much. What did you glean from the ten's comments about what they found worked?
Since structural concerns are on point, consider whether alternative organizing principles are in play. Like maybe if a farce, audiences love accessible farces, a widening oscillation of escalating absurd and sublime actions might be an underlying organizing principle.
Anachrony, displaced temporal relation, might be involved. Escalating detail toward an inspirational revelation might be in play. And of course, setting, character, idea, event, or voice development might be emphasized and especially artful.
The story might not be a drama, where plot is emphasized. It could be a vignette, an anecdote, a sketch, or maybe a picaresque, where the episodic adventures of a roguish protagonist are portrayed.
Vignettes are foreshortened (narrow scope) sketch depictions of interesting and entertaining characters typically, sometimes settings or events.
Anecdotes are entertaining, interesting, sometimes amusing sketches of events involving characters and settings.
Sketches are like candid snapshots of a person in a setting for a narrow amount of time.
One important feature distinquishes drama from other forms: a major problem for the protagonist wanting satisfaction that's satisfied in a final outcome. Vignettes, anecdotes, sketches, and picaresques do not, per se, depict a problem wanting satisfaction, though any one might, or be parts of a larger drama. Cormac McCarthy's pre-Western Southern Gothic works are largely picaresques emulating William Faulkner's manner.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
I have an example from my own experience in a critique group, but it would be too far off topic if I post it here. So I'll go post it in the "Things that annoy you" topic.
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