If we’re all different, why does the writing community seem to want to herd us into the prolific/personable/power-outliner box? I’m curious if this is just my experience or if this is indeed the modern trend of the creative writer.
The reason I’m asking is because I took a personality test and found out my Myers-Briggs type is probably INFJ (Introversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Judgement) though the F part is balanced by a well-developed T (Thinking).
Knowing these online tests are sometimes unreliable I spent a good amount of time researching the different personality types. A lightbulb went off over my head, about why I always feel so out of sync with how I know I “should” be writing.
It’s my opinion most of the advice out there for writers is written from an extraverted, judging perspective, from people who are (or, who, like me, have bought into that as the correct writing advice) pedantic and driven and willing to put stuff out there. That seems, to me, to be the norm now. It seems the Orson Scott Cards and the Stephen Kings have been generally accepted as the gurus. Perhaps because outgoing is accepted over introspective as the way to be in society, logic over emotion, certainty over consideration. But it’s just not true. If you develop the first in each comparison and ignore the second, you will suffer. The same could be said for the opposite imbalance, but I haven’t encountered that much. Those guys definitely have a lot of good advice, but their perspective is no better than, say, Sarah Stockton‘s or Laraine Herring‘s, who take a more centered, thoughtful approach.
That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to what works for you, and hold your ground when you feel bullied by someone else’s inability to understand why you don’t write like him. This is something I’ve struggled with over the years, and since one aspect of my personality is aligning myself with my peers, I can see why. It’s all about who I hang with.
So what about you, have you ever taken a personality test? Did the results confirm what you already knew about yourself, or did they open up some aspect you hadn’t seen before? Did your new knowledge affect how you are in your writing space?
