Writing Style and Type

[Default]

What kind of correlation is there, if any?
Also, if there is... What is the distinction?

I've noticed that writers like Mark Twain and Frank McCourt (the general consensus is IEE on the former and I strongly believe that holds true for the latter) like to write in a satirical, anecdotal fashion. There are always little side stories that don't really have a strong connection to one another but serve altogether to move the plot... From reading a couple of each of their books it feels like time blurs and I'm never really given any direct insight as to how much time has passed between each episode.

Thoughts?

[silverchris9]

Shrug. Ni-egos tend towards mysticism (Blake, Yeats). I tend to type anti-romantic writers (Jonathan Swift, Twain) as gamma or delta, more often gamma, though. I also often type the "this story has no meaning, stop looking for one" writers (Twain, Tennyson), as Ni-nonvaluers.

[WVBRY]

Shrug. Ni-egos tend towards mysticism (Blake, Yeats).

*shakes head* I dont think. I dont think. No Blake wasnt ,he was ENFp lol

[Logos]

What kind of correlation is there, if any?

An IE one.

Also, if there is... What is the distinction?

A typological one.

Thoughts?

Some.

[Creepy-male]

"...Where my Logos is LAW."

[Default]

An IE one.

A typological one.

Some.

Thank you for that insight.

[Park]

"...Where my Logos is LAW."

Considering the post-modern era of overused ideas and lame attempts at originality in which it was made, that movie firmly stands out against all competition.

[blankblank]

I would think so. The EIIs I know write their firsts drafts long with showy language, then when they go back and edit they shorten it and make things clear and concise. And if they can't think of a good way of expressing something, they come back to it after a period of time after it has dawned on them.

[Logos]

Thank you for that insight.

My insights are directly proportional to the question itself. If you want better insights, ask better questions.

Associated IE Vocabulary

Semantics of the Information Elements

The writing style will be a product of the interaction of these elemental stylistic qualities with a particular distinction drawn along lines of functional emphasis, that is type.

[Aiss]

Some thoughts on this I wrote down a while back:

Si - subjective sensations, focus on feelings of comfort/discomfort, pleasant/unpleasant. Examples: cozy, inviting, uncomfortable, unsettling, pleasant, warm/cold in metaphorical use, etc. Impression of the environment is conveyed explicitly, leaving its details implicit (complimentary with Ne).

Se - objective (subject-independent) sensory detail. Features directness of speech, often purposefully "crude" or graphic descriptions instead of impressions meant to convey them. Focus on "seeing the real thing". Things - objects - are what they seem. The picture is painted explicitly, the impression it invokes is implicit - along with its meaning (complimentary with Ni).

Ne - unexpected, surprising elements, seemingly out-of-context additions and replacements. Example: placing a modern item in fantasy setting. Hidden qualities of objects are revealed by changed context (see Si). Twists in plot are often intended to be shocking and unpredictable (contrasting with Ni, which hints at them).

Ni - interconnectedness, butterfly effect, inevitableness, multithreading, parallels, use of prophecies and premonitions, also inexplicit, symbolism, consequences of events. When something is revealed in the story, it often makes sense in an enlightening way - showing something that was seen, but has been misinterpreted by the reader earlier (see Se). Note: do not confuse with "plot device". Things - events - are rarely only what they seem. The important part here is not so much characteristic elements as the lack of explicity in their use - you need to guess to see the whole plot, it's never given to you on the plate. For example, explicit use of prophecy leaving nothing to the imagination has little if anything to do with this style. Plot itself is often more of the interweaving threads and interactions between them.

Elements work in dyads, so while emphasis and results would be markedly different, both Si/Ne or Se/Ni tend to be present. Additionally, it seems to me that while Se/Ni valuers may consider Si/Ne style random - out of context, lacking harmony, in a way - Si/Ne valuers are just as likely to consider Si/Ne style as random - lacking a clear plot, parts which need to be pieced together implicitly.

Irrational elements have more to do with how you treat the world and rational with how you approach characters. I don't have much on the latter as of yet. Ne could probably use some refining as well.

And of course, many writers are able to find balance which makes their books popular among all types - so one could probably find signs of most if not all of these in many stories, when looking for them. Some stand out, though.

[DirectorAbbie]

My writing style is thin and small. Very legible, but not especially pretty.

[silverchris9]

Ashton's typings

Oooh, ESFp is a fantastic typing for Toni Morrison. I wouldn't have tripped into that one, but I like it quite a lot. I'm going to require some convincing for ISFp (for ethical anything) for Emily Dickinson, who is, imo, as gamma as they come, poetry-wise. Have your read "The Soul Selects Its Own Society?" Sounds as Fi-valuing/Fe-devaluing as they come. Nice catch on INTj Arthur Miller, that also makes sense to me, although we ought to look into his lengthy (and godawful irritating) prologue and introjections in The Crucible to see what light they shed on his typing and vice versa. ISFp for Balzac doesn't make sense to me either. Have you read about his life? He was massively Si-devaluing, i.e., completely sacrificing his health and comfort and bodily well-being for the sake of his ambition to be respected as a great novelist. I need to dig up some facts and some quotes. ESFp would be my preferred typing for him.

Interesting that you think Mary Shelley was ESTp. That would make her Percy's dual, which I would like quite a lot. And really it does make sense. I like to read Frankenstein partially as a critique of Shelley, to the extent that Victor is a figure of the romantic, although he is a logical type, socionics-wise.

I do rather like ISTp for Roald Dahl. I sort of always knew he wasn't a beta, even though I'd be glad to claim him for my quadra. Delta is really the best quadra for him. He's a very likeable ISTp.

Also, where on earth do you get ENFj from Wallace Stevens? I don't see anything Fe-valuing about his poetry or his life. Se-valuing is pretty clear in a poem like "Bantams in Pine Woods," though. In many ways, Harold Bloom is to Stevens as Freud is to Shakespeare (or as Harold Bloom says Freud is to Shakespeare).

ESFj is also perfect for Rowling, and somewhat obvious, if you think about it hard enough.

*shakes head* I dont think. I dont think. No Blake wasnt ,he was ENFp lol

Well, why do you think so? I have to say, I'm pretty sure that the majority of the major Romantic writers were Ni-egos. Certainly Blake, Shelley, and Keats were IEIs, and as for Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Byron, Byron seems like an EP type, Coleridge seems logical, and Wordsworth could potentially be SEI, given his focus on nature, but if we look at "how" rather than "what" (lol), IEI again seems to be a more natural typing.

Anyway, Blake is obvious to me. First of all, the way he went about systematizing his mythology is a PERFECT example of Ni-leading + Ti-HA. He wants to explore this mythical system of archetypes and representations of these deep principles... but then he wants it in strict categories, with x as an emanation of y, and q as an emanation of p. Several of his major poems were so-called prophecies, also typical of Ni forecasting the grand design. As far as the Ni-mysticism connection... I dunno, isn't it obvious? I mean, other types can be mystics, sure, but Ni... insofar as Ni is concerned with interpreting signs, or reading the "internal images," tracing things backwards along lines of temporality, causation, or logical necessity, it is "mystic," or leads its users towards "mysticism." Because Ni is always trying to look through things into what's behind them, what caused them, what is the deeper level within them. Ni is very interested in essence, not in the Ne sense, which I like to compare to Aristotelian intrinsic form (the soul is the "set of powers"---or possibilities---of the body), but more comparable to Platonic extrinsic form (the soul is the Form of the Individual, that of which we are the representation or copy, that which we imitate, so that self-actualization is actually the unfolding of that which we already are, becoming what we are, etc.). Now, of course, this is more pronounced in Beta Ni, which is paired with Fe, another internal dynamic function. This aspect is subdued somewhat in Gamma Ni, which is "grounded" somewhat by Te, but I don't understand Gamma Ni as well as Beta Ni, because I'm not a Gamma NT, lol.

Lately I've been considering EIE for Whitman, although I had long typed him IEI (who created this SLE man-of-all-experience hybrid in the Rough Walt, and compared him with the IEI Me Myself and the unknowable, possibly Fi Soul. Fi would be in keeping with socionics anyway).

[Aiss]

Now, of course, this is more pronounced in Beta Ni, which is paired with Fe, another internal dynamic function. This aspect is subdued somewhat in Gamma Ni, which is "grounded" somewhat by Te, but I don't understand Gamma Ni as well as Beta Ni, because I'm not a Gamma NT, lol.

For whatever it's worth, many of these typings make about as much as sense to me as to you, it seems.

Though I happen to agree Rowling is as Si/Ne as they come. I have no idea where people get this ridiculous idea that her writing has anything to do with Se/Ni.

[cracka]

I just took an entry from my blog that I kept while traveling Europe a few weeks ago... It's pretty much my writing style in a nut shell, though because it's a travel blog, it's full of stuff that happened instead of writing a story or anything of that sort. Does it seem written by an ESE? Sorry if it looks like a huge wall of text...lol.

Now in Germany



The Prague blog... written on a train to Munich. We just got to our hostel and are about to grab some beer soon.

Ok, so I know I didn't update this at all while we were in Prague, but we kept pretty busy while we were there and I didn't like sitting around on the netbook while there was beer to be drank. Prague was another stop where we pretty much held to a strict liquid diet, as people say, Czech beer is good... I'll give them that, but it's not really anything to write home about. Personally, Anthony and Cliff both make better beers... but telling the Czech's their beer isn't totally awesome would probably open up another war or something crazy like that, so I'll just say, the beer was good enough. For the most part we drank Budweiser and Pilsner Urquell... Not the Bud we get back home, but the actual original Budweiser that was started here in the Czech Republic, they taste nothing alike. Beers are served with a huge head on them, but the glass usually has beer up to the .5 liter mark so it's ok... Apparently some of the American folks don't like that much head... once I figured it was supposed to be that way, it was cool with me.

So, our first night in Prague, we get in late because trains don't know how to be on time, ever. So our train left Budapest an hour and 30 minutes late, which got us into Prague around 11pm. We decided to see if we could find something to eat but again, only one meal that day since everything close to the place was closed or no longer serving food. Unlike the states, when it's late, bars stay open and serve alcohol, not food... they know their role it seems. We went to this place called music and blues bar... A joint owned by some old dude who was hanging out with his wife at a table, with another couple Englishmen sitting at another table. We had just went to an ATM to get some Czech currency and picked up 3000 Czech Koruna, the exchange rate is around 20-1... so 3000 Koruna was around $150, we both picked up this much and now have some left over, for 3 days in Prague, I figure that's pretty good.

The bar we went to, that was practically empty, and had no actual music anywhere in the vicinity... was actually a pretty neat place. The walls had framed pictures of the Beatles, BB King, and many other big artists that have come along.... along with a few instruments hung up on the brick. So, we stopped in there looking to find the Candle-light type of place in Eastern Europe, we've still yet to find it. Since we'd just left the ATM, and each had 3 1000 Koruna bills, we ordered our beers, the choices were Light or Dark...lol. When we went to pay with a 1000 Koruna bill the bartender/owner of the bar said he couldn't make change. So now you've got us staring at two full beers after an entire day on a train thinking, shit, we can't even drink... :-( But the guy was cool and said to have the beers, so we did. We sat there for awhile and when we left we told him we'd be back and we tried every day for the next three days to see if the place was open at all, and it never was again. We can't say we didn't try to hook the guy up, we really just wanted to pay what we owed and buy the man a beer for showing us the hospitality. I think our good karma is still intact enough though, even though we never did pay the guy back, since we tried so many times to do so.

After that we went back to the hostel, a huge one... pretty much a big ass party every night. Prague is a young person's party city, in every way. Kids can drink beer at 16 and hard alcohol at 18, so as one can imagine, the bars will have a much younger clientele in some cases. Our room was filled with 3 English guys, a guy from Amsterdam, and as funny as it sounds... A guy from Tennessee, Franklin, TN to be exact. Random, I know. We got in fairly late but sat on the porch of the hostel drinking budweisers for 30 Koruna, about $1.50 for a half liter, 22 ounce beer. Pretty good deal if you ask me... The hostel sold them out of a fridge that you just pull it out, pop the top off of it, and throw the guy working there a few coins... it was a sweet setup. That night we pretty much sat around in the outdoor party area drinking with people from pretty much EVERYWHERE. One guy we hung out with was an Englishman, who lives in Australia, who is in the end of a trip from China, to Russia, through Poland, and through other parts of Europe, before going to Greece and catching a plane to the UK to see his family he hasn't seen in ages. I thought our train trips were long, but he was catching trains that his ticket would say shit like 29 hours of travel time on one train...crazy.

We are now on the train from Prague to Munich, Germany... a 6 hour trip which is why I'm blogging the hell out of some stuff right now...lol. The Czech countryside is a beatiful scene from the train, Anthony's passed out again, imagine that.

Our first full day in Prague was spent doing all the touristy shit that the city has to offer, which is cool except for the fact that the only people we ran into, were tourists... which I don't care much for. Everyone pretty much spoke english there too, so no language barrier again. The hostel had a bbq for free, so as you can imagine, all the kids who are traveling with a small amount of money were there for some free sausage and rye bread. There were a ton of English guys, bunch of Americans, two Swedes, a few women from Canada, some Germans, and a few other people littered in here and there from all over... After the BBQ we went to have some real food, 2nd meal of the day if you add a sausage on a piece of bread together with a kabob we had earlier in the afternoon...lol. The only day in recent memory where we've eaten more than one meal. :-) Then we went to this bar that a bunch of people from the hostel were gonna meet up at... It's a karaoke joint, owned by a guy from Indiana, and the bar is ran by a big, crazy bastard from Amsterdam. I think it'd be a cool place if you want to feel like you're back in the states... because everyone there was a regular and were from the US. When the hostel crowd left the hostel and made their way up to the Blind Eye tavern, we were pretty beat so we ended up leaving... it seemed like too young and loud of a party than we wanted to deal with after the looooong day of sun and walking we'd endured up to that point. It was beautiful weather, but when running around in the hilly, cobble-stone streets of the city, can make it unbearably hot. We did get to a huge stairway that goes up to a castle... when we started up the stairs from Hell, I looked to my left and saw a quaint little pub/restaurant with two rocking chairs and a table in the shade. We decided to have a beer... or two. It ended up being a great spot. We saw all the tourists come around a corner and almost every time say, "shit", "oh God", "noooo" and pretty much all those other words that describe something you really don't want to do.

We stared at this lady with a paper hat on her head for a while and thought it would actually be cool to have one...lol. We decided we had no need to look that cool though...haha.

Our last night in Prague, we hung out with the dude from Tennessee and went to a local beer garden that was absolutely packed. We ended up at this smaller beer-garden, part of a restaurant that was connected to the big garden. After finding 3 chairs and a place to put them, we started to drink beer, and lots of it, while watching the Spain - Portugal match on a big screen. Myself and the other Tennessee feller made friends with a couple German ladies while sitting there, both very nice and quite attractive. We sat with them for a bit before going out separate ways and making our way back to the hostel. Where we sat around drinking with a new bunch of budget travelers than the previous night. I made very good friends with a beautiful French girl named Lorene, she'll probably be that one chick I'll remember from this trip that I would love to be able to meet again but most likely never will... oh well. We drank til 4am and woke up at 8am this morning to catch the early train to Munich... saying I feel like complete crap is probably a big understatement...haha.

The English guys we met ove the course of being in Prague, all said that the Czech people were always rude to them and didn't like to speak much english at all... after being around them for a few nights, I found them pretty loud and obnoxious (like I hear Americans are some times???) but for the most part, really cool and nice to all of us at the hostel... other than the loud part...haha. They always went on pub crawls and came back around 5am or close to it... sleeping with the window open, they usually woke me up before they even made it off the street to the hostel. Most clubs there don't even open until 1am... all the way through the week. I figure the person who wants to party and go out to clubs every night would be in heaven if they went to Prague.

Our last day, we took a trip on the train to the town of Kutna Hore' where we checked out a big cathedral and "The Bone Church" it was cool and nice to get away from the city a bit.

AND THEN IT HAPPENED.

We're waiting for the train back to Prague, when Anthony and this other guy look at eachother and are like, "holy shit, Anthony?" "Chris?" Yeah... no shit. We'd talked about this the previous day actually... The fact that we haven't ran into anyone we knew yet... since it's been my experience in life to run into random people I know in the strangest of places. So there we are, on a train platform, in a city the size of Forest Grove, OR or Jamestown, TN... and Anthony actually meets someone he knows there. The world is indeed, a really small f'n place. We sat with Chris and his wife on the train back to prague in awe that we would run into someone from the US that we actually knew. They were on their way to Vienna and Budapest and I told them how awesome of a time I was sure they'd have, since Budapest was the coolest place on earth as far as I'm concerned...haha.

While also on that train platform, I was sitting on a bench and a bird was situated above me and decided to piss right on my arm. After being all pissy for a while and using a bottle of water to wash my arm off, we moved to a different bench with no pigeons over head... We did however keep an eye on that little bastard in case he decided to screw with me again. Fast forward about 20 minutes, we're waiting on the train, and these two couple come and sit on the bench next to us... the one with the pigeon above....yes. So, we decided that we are bastards and didn't warn the people that they could possibly be in a pigeon-shit zone if they're not careful. So, we didn't warn them... and I said, watch, the hot one is totally gonna be the one that gets shit on... and then yes, a few minutes later Anthony looks up and says, oh shit, it's turning around... so we start giggling a bit and then see it happen again. Right on her hat, like napalm bird shit covering everything in site...haha. We tried not to laugh but we played it off like we were looking for another one above us.

My final thoughts on Prague:
I thought it was waaaaay too touristy for me, they are fixing a lot of issues with big buildings and bridges, which caused me to get fairly crappy pictures quite a bit... I didn't like that much at all. It is a beautiful city though, I think I'd go again, but I'd still be sure to hit up Budapest first if given the choice. The hostel we were in was probably my favorite part of being there, the common areas always had people around to chit chat with, and everyone was friendly... along with being able to grab a beer and sit around for really cheap. I don't have anything bad to say about Prague, but I thought I'd like it more than I did.

We just crossed into Germany, a place I once called home as a toddler, it's cool to be back. It'll be nice to be able to understand some of the people here, unlike everywhere we've been thus far.

We're now off to Munich, where we have two nights booked at a hostel, then a night in Heidelburg, then two days in Belgium, including the Rock-fest I'm sure I've told most people about... then off to Amsterdam for my 30th birthday. This is the first time we've actually been all booked up for more than a day or two since we started the journey, it's kinda nice, but now it seems like we're a bit limited if we find a place we'd like to be in longer. I'm sure we'll deal with it fine.

This was one entry of many, I just thought it was long enough to get an actual feel for what you're reading. I'm not much of a writer kind of person but found it cool to write about the trip while I was gone. Thoughts?

[somavision]

I just took an entry from my blog that I kept while traveling Europe a few weeks ago... It's pretty much my writing style in a nut shell, though because it's a travel blog, it's full of stuff that happened instead of writing a story or anything of that sort. Does it seem written by an ESE? Sorry if it looks like a huge wall of text...lol.



This was one entry of many, I just thought it was long enough to get an actual feel for what you're reading. I'm not much of a writer kind of person but found it cool to write about the trip while I was gone. Thoughts?

I liked - I got the feeling of the atmosphere and people. I think you relate well to the reader. I'm not sure how it relates to socionically entirely, however I sort of noticed things (I'm not great at literary stuff)
You describe situations more than places.
your descriptions are quite immediate.
Your descrbe people as they fit withn a situation - you give little concrete information about them howver your style paints a picture of who they might be. The same applies to the places.
I get the impression of someone who falls effortlessly into an easy comeradieie.
I liked you description of the czech beer drinking - it was subjective, you did not dewcribe the qualties of the beer, but how you and others related to it - Czechs think it's great, other Americans didn't like a large head, it was good to you but not that good.
I think type can be seen in not just the style of writing, but the focus and subject It is clear from what you have written what was significant to you.

I am intrigued as to what was awesome about Budapest, as it's somewhere I would like to visit.

[Brilliand]

Here's a forum roleplay thread that I'm the most prolific writer in:

Troubling Heaven

I'd describe my writing style as a group of characters that each follow fairly mechanical rules (mainly with regard to abilities, but also personality somewhat) moving through a series of new situations - which Aiss mentioned in her description. I mainly just form a situation, play out naturally what happens in that situation, then find an excuse to move on to the next situation that I (or whoever I'm letting guide the story at the time) have in mind.

How is that ... hmm... probably in that the situations that I come up with are all very mechanical, and play out according to the characters' explicit powers most of the time (I favor combat scenes over talk scenes).

[DirectorAbbie]

How is that ... hmm... probably in that the situations that I come up with are all very mechanical, and play out according to the characters' explicit powers most of the time (I favor combat scenes over talk scenes).

Really? I favor talk scenes. I like being able to thoroughly expose my character's personality. This is why I don't care for Chonsia. She has some unique items and an adequate history, but no personality.

By the way, since we're on our Vth act you should add it to the first post. Maybe call it "Into the Eye" or something like that.

[Brilliand]

Really? I favor talk scenes. I like being able to thoroughly expose my character's personality. This is why I don't care for Chonsia. She has some unique items and an adequate history, but no personality.

By the way, since we're on our Vth act you should add it to the first post. Maybe call it "Into the Eye" or something like that.

We aren't on that act yet - when all the characters that are going to leave the planet do so, we pause for a day or two and I add the act-start post and the link to it. Then act V starts. I want that to happen before anyone enters the Eye, though.

[jughead]

Asthon your shared differences with betas fits pretty well with the relation descriptions ,as well as simply theoretically, at least SLE/SEE and ILI/IEI have the same base function but different creative means to that end.
Oviously LIE/EIE and ESI/LSI will have some overlap as well in the means but not the end.

[Logos]

Nice catch on INTj Arthur Miller, that also makes sense to me, although we ought to look into his lengthy (and godawful irritating) prologue and introjections in The Crucible to see what light they shed on his typing and vice versa.

I am not sure that Arthur Miller is an LII. Most of his works feature "working men." He has an almost odd fascination with the Average Joe (as opposed to the Disco Joe) blue-collar working type. I do not think that we can take Ashton falling to sleep while reading his works as strong evidence of Alpha-ness. :wink:

[Clarity]

This is good stuff, Aiss.

List of writers I have so far from each quadra; probably some missing. This is what came back when I queried the DB for 'writer', 'novelist', and 'author'.

How do you conclude ESFp for Toni Morrison? Certainly Ni/Se of some combination.

[pianosinger]

My writing typically tends to go like this...

I get an amazing idea. I mull it over in my head over and over and over to cement it. I sit down to write, sometimes a disconnected scene, sometimes I will try to start from the beginning...I rarely get very far. Life interrupts me, I have trouble getting back to it, and if I wait long enough a newer idea strikes me and the whole thing starts over again...

When I was in high school, I actually managed to finish a couple of short stories, but it doesn't happen very often.

I like to put in elements of hidden meaning here and there, but usually I try to stick with face value. I always write with the ending in mind, though I have a hard time actually figuring out how to get there. I get bogged-down in details. I love writing dialogue, but descriptions are difficult. I once dreamed of being a playwright.

I like to think up unusual plots and concepts; the more fantastical the better. I've come up with a lot of good sci-fi type plots, too, but I fail when it comes to the "science" parts. I love making up my own fantasy worlds where anything can happen, and I don't have to be tied down (though I do strive for consistency within the world that I have created).

I wrote a pretty good allegory once (at least, I thought it was good, others may not agree).