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Does Your Personality Type Change The Way You Write?

By on October 20, 2016
Does Your Personality Type Change The Way You Write? - Writer's Life.org

It’s natural to think that the way you view the world, your past, your experiences and knowledge are all going to have an effect on your writing. This is what you will draw from, how you will understand emotions. In fact, it is tough to write without using what you know as inspiration for many of the characters and their journeys - even if you don’t consciously intend to.

But it is not just the things we see and do that shape our writing. Our personality type can also have an effect. If you are naturally bold and assertive, this will come through in your writing, the kind of language you use and the choices you make. If you are playful and cheerful, calm and gentle, shy and awkward, or organised and practical-minded again the way you write - the way you work and ultimately the stories you tell will be influenced by this.

Understanding your personality type can help you interact and appreciate others as well as understand yourself better, and getting to know the strengths and weaknesses of it can also benefit your writing.

There are an enormous number of personality tests out there, and each has different ways of describing them, some, such as the famous test by Carl Jung’s and Isabel Briggs divide personalities into sixteen types, and you can be a combination of more than one. Others keep things simpler and use animals to define different types of personalities - a lion for a brave, strong type, a bird for a flitting, crowd-pleasing, socialite and so on. However, they do tend to all look for the main dominant aspects of your personality and then can pick out the positives and negatives of each.

Let's take a look at some of the main types

Those who consider themselves brave, confident and determined are fantastic at writing because they will persevere, they have determination, are focused on their goals and won’t give up. They aren’t likely to procrastinate and prefer to just ‘get on with things’ - very helpful when it comes to writing!

However, they can also be arrogant - therefore unwilling to accept criticism (however constructive) and find more ‘menial’ tasks rather dull, which means going through their manuscript with a fine tooth comb is something they dread!

More social, communicative individuals who love people tend to feel creatively free, they love to experiment, have a natural flair and are great at networking and building relationships (it’s useful to be charming in the writing game)! However, they can quickly run out of steam, can be quite disorganized too!

If you are highly organized and practical, this can be incredibly useful when it comes to writing your book. You will have done all your research thoroughly, mapped out each chapter, and know all your characters inside out. You’ll be methodical and analytical, can enjoy editing, and always push yourself to do more.

However, being so systematic can stifle creativity, and you can end up getting so bogged down in plotting and organising that you can run out of steam before you begin!

Calm and laid back types are brilliant to work with, they don’t get stressed out, are dependable and work consistently. However, this can be a problem when it comes to self-motivation. This personality type tends to dislike change so if significant edits are required this can also be a problem!

All these personality types have different strengths and weaknesses that will affect the way your write in a positive or negative way. The good news is that whichever one you think you are, if you can identify areas that you excel in, and more importantly the ones you don’t, you can then begin to build upon your strengths and work on your weaknesses to become a better writer all round.

So, what kind of personality type are you?!

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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