Six Things Writers Should Know About the Myers-Briggs Distinction I(N)tuition and (S)ensing

Reblog from writer Victoria Grefer about characteristics of Meyers-Briggs Intuitive v Sensing personalities. As an INFJ and a writer, I find this series interesting and helpful.

Creative Writing with the Crimson League

When time is ticking and you have to pick fast, how conformable are you trusting your gut? That’s one faction in intuition vs. sensing

This post is number 2 in a series about Myers-Briggs types, and will highlight six things writers should know about how their characters will generally favor either sensing or intuition. The first focused on Thinking and Feeling (T/F).

1. In some ways, intuition/sensing is about big picture orientation versus detail orientation. Sensors learn from and start with the details because they start with what they can sense. (That’s where the name comes from). In contrast, people with an intuition orientation tend to spot patterns and work from the big picture or pattern down to the details.
2. If you want to make it evident that a character is intuition-oriented, make sure he or she tends to trust the gut instincts that arise. Right are wrong–and for certain Myers-Briggs types…

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How “Show don’t Tell” means “Let the Reader Make Inferences”

Victoria Grefer talks about how “show don’t tell” means more than its prescriptive command. She also offers some salient examples about letting the reader notice what an author might instead tell. 🙂

Creative Writing with the Crimson League

One of my key rules for writers is, “Respect the reader.” We do that by trusting the reader to make inferences and connections, rather than spelling all of them out.

“Show don’t tell” has become such a common refrain in the writers’ world that we’ve all heard it, and many of us have written about it. I’ve written before in defense of “telling,” because sometimes, it’s just what we need to do. It’s the simplest way to get from Point A to Point B, saving us elaborate and convoluted descriptions that “show” what we can “tell” much more easily.

Today, though, I want to address “showing.” Sometimes the distinction between the two gets fuzzy, but I’ve always thought of “showing” as “letting the reader make inferences.” When we “tell” something, we make that jump of inference for the reader.

People say let readers make inferences is superior to telling because:

1. We…

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Time in Fiction: Addressing the Timey-Wimey, Troublesome Truths

For all you temporal scientists (!) out there like me, Victoria over at The Crimson League discusses the use of time in fiction – and, as I well know, the difficulties that can arise from misplacing time in one’s novel.

Creative Writing with the Crimson League

Time is such a crazy and troublesome thing, both in life and in writing. Some among us (well, the Whovians anyway) might even describe it as “wibbly wobbly” or “timey-wimey.”

Time issues have tripped me up in various drafts of my novels. Handling time in fiction–where the rules of time in the real world aren’t always at play, especially in my genre of fantasy–can be a tricky task. We can expand and contract and change how time works to a greater or lesser extent when writing.

While this is fun, and wonderful, and one of the most creative ways we can execute artistic license, it can also be difficult to keep track of. To keep under control.

Here are some ways time in fiction has caused me problems, or ways I try to be aware of time as a factor when I’m writing. They’re nothing to panic over. Just some…

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3 Ways Creative Writing Shakes Your Complacency

I love this post because it’s so true. In today’s age of instant gratification, it’s so easy to fall into the complacency trap.

Creative Writing with the Crimson League

Snap that complacency in two!

Creative writing is a wonderful thing, for many reasons. Not least of those is how it tends to shake our sense of complacency.

I’ve written about complacency on my other blog, my faith-based blog. It’s a serious problem and a sin that I, in particular, tend to fall into. So I try to be sensitive to it and to act against it.

Even though I often fail ,and don’t challenge myself to grow or to leave my comfort zone as often as I should, I have found that writing does, in its way, draw me out of my circle of complacency. It does that in a lot of ways:

1. MY WEAKNESSES DEFINITELY SHOW UP IN MY CHARACTERS.

I have a tendency to share flaws, problems, and weaknesses with my characters. And that forces me to recognize and confront them in my own life.

I…

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The Two Things Authors Should Balance in Their First Handful of Scenes

Over at Creative Writing with the Crimson League, Victoria considers the balance in those first vital scenes that agents say are so important to have in the right place.

Creative Writing with the Crimson League

I am realizing one major reason the first few chapters of a novel are among the most difficult to edit: balancing world-building and character development that will keep readers informed (and able to understand what’s going on) with action that will keep readers interested.

That isn’t easy. For anyone.

Basically, it is tough going with my work in progress, y’all. But at least it’s going! This post is a result of me deciding I need to add yet ANOTHER scene to the very start of my novel. So I’m writing a first scene for the third time.

The other “first” scenes are still part of the novel. They’re just getting pushed back because I need to focus a little bit more, I think, on character development and also on world-building.

EACH NOVEL WILL REQUIRE A DIFFERENT BALANCE

And I guess that’s the major take-away point I’ve come to. There is…

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A Christmas Reflection

Writer Victoria Grefer speaks about what Christmas means to her as a Catholic. Merry Christmas 🙂

Creative Writing with the Crimson League

I just wanted to take this moment to wish everyone a wonderful Holiday Season, and to my fellow Christians, Merry Christmas!

For me, the Christmas season has always been about remembering the things that really matter in life: catching up with family, renewing friendships, and even taking a breather from all the things that stress me out to simply be grateful for the incredible blessings I’ve been given.

I will be returning to my regular blogging schedule soon. For now, my Wednesday posts for December 25 and January 1 will be moved back to Thursday, December 26 and January 2 because of the holidays.

WHAT CHRISTMAS MEANS TO ME AS A CATHOLIC

Perhaps more than anything else, Christmas (for me as an adult) has always meant rediscovering the completely unmerited but boundless gift that is God’s peace. I tend to lose that throughout the year, with life intervening, and especially…

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What Ogres, Onions, and Parfaits Have in Common With A Good Novel

Creative Writing with the Crimson League

Today–continuing on the topic of content edits in fiction–I want to talk about subplots. About balance between subplots. It’s SOOO hard to do. It’s hard because each subplot has its own tone, mood, and theme. Each also has its own pacing.

Ideally these tones, moods, and themes, as well as pacing, will differ somewhat from the major plot arc and from each other. After all, variety is a large part of what makes a novel readable.

Each subplot brings a different focus and different approach that ideally blend in with the rest of the work without diluting it.

Perhaps “blend” gives the wrong image, though.

You don’t want a smoothie of a novel…. A good smoothie has no variety. It’s uniform throughout. While you want uniform quality, that’s different.

The fact is, good novels blend by striation. A good novel is a trifle.

You want a TRIFLE of a…

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How Video Game Combat Helps With Characterisation

In my packing, I discovered the DS game of The Spiderwick Chronicles, by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, a series I had been in love with (until the film) as a child. I'd abandoned playing this game shortly after beginning, due to my inability to get past the first level or 'chapter'. I hadn't even …