Obedience hardly ever begets innovation.
—Neil deGrasse Tyson
Can learning about personality type help you make the most of your natural writing style?
ENTP writers enjoy the pre-writing stage. They may come up with many good ideas quickly. Often skilled at detecting patterns and envisioning outcomes, they trust their insight and resist prescribed methods. The writing process itself may prove tedious to them, but if they persevere, their work is often thorough and multifaceted.
The ENTP personality type is one of 16 identified by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a popular psychometric instrument used to determine how people prefer to gather information and make decisions. The initials ENTP indicate the following:
E: Extraversion preferred to introversion
ENTPs get their energy from people and activity in their external world. Spending time alone can leave them listless and bored. They enjoy interacting with a large group of friends and acquaintances. They generally act before reflecting.
N: iNtuition preferred to sensation
ENTPs are abstract thinkers, placing more trust in flashes of insight than in experience. They’re less interested in sensory data than in the patterns perceived by the unconscious mind. ENTPs tend to be intellectually restless—they want to change the world.
T: Thinking preferred to feeling
ENTPs prefer to use their thinking function when making decisions. They place more emphasis on the rule of logic than on the effect that actions have on people. They tend to be skeptical in evaluating ideas, whether their own or someone else’s.
P: Perception preferred to judgment
ENTPs like to keep their options open. They enjoy beginning new projects and exploring opportunities as they arise. ENTPs think in terms of possibilities rather than likelihoods.
Are you an ENTP writer? If so, the following information may give you some insight into how temperament influences your writing style. Use these insights to help you play to your strengths and compensate for your natural blind spots.
Writing Process of the ENTP
If you’re an ENTP, you may approach a writing project in the following ways:
- You’re rarely at a loss for ideas. While many people struggle to find a topic, you may have difficulty limiting yourself to just one. You may enjoy exploring controversial subjects or devising clever solutions to problems. Have fun playing with different possibilities, and see where they lead you.
- You can benefit from collaborative writing projects. Chances are, you prefer an active, high-energy environment. You may enjoy discussing and debating your ideas with others. You will probably assert your individuality even within the group. If someone else is leading the project, be careful that your natural tendency to ignore authority doesn’t undermine the team. If you maintain goodwill, you’ll stand a better chance of convincing someone else to do the actual writing.
- You may do well to compose an article, essay, or story by speaking into a voice recorder. If the thought of transcribing the recording sounds unbearably tedious to you, consider paying (or persuading) someone else to do it. To sustain your enthusiasm, gather visual elements to use in the piece. Devise your own strategies to make the writing process more interesting.
- You are motivated by a desire to innovate. You tend to seek a unique approach even to ordinary topics. Conversely, you tend to be good at making complex subjects clear and interesting. Stay focused, and let your desire to prove your competence and ingenuity drive you forward until the project is complete.
Potential Blind Spots of the ENTP
As an ENTP, you may experience the following pitfalls:
- You generally enjoy brainstorming but may not feel motivated to write until you feel the pressure of a deadline. To avoid a time crunch at the end of the project, set milestones along the way. Make your best guess of how long each step should take, then double it. Schedule enough time to take breaks so you can consider new possibilities. To stay energized, try working in a variety of settings.
- You may excel at satire, and humor can liven up your work. Make sure your tone is appropriate for the piece and for the audience. You may find it helpful to include a personal story or two, rather than relying on cold logic alone to make your point.
- You tend to grasp the big picture and to focus on the future. Ensure that your work contains enough background material and concrete detail. To avoid tangents or a cursory treatment of the subject, keep the central thesis or purpose of the project in mind while writing. Solicit feedback from someone whose competence you trust.
Remember, there’s no right or wrong approach to writing. Each individual is unique, so don’t let generalities limit you. Do what works best for you.
Do you have any tips for ENTP writers? Leave a comment and share your experience.
Also, for more information on this subject, check out the sources below.
Sources:
Write from the Start by Ann B. Loomis
What Type Am I? by Renee Baron
Your Personality Type and Writing: ENTP from the Villanova University website
@neiltyson on Twitter
ENFJ – ENFP – ENTJ – ENTP – ESFJ –ESFP – ESTJ –ESTP
INFJ – INFP – INTJ – INTP – ISFJ – ISFP – ISTJ – ISTP
Write with Personality 
Thank you so much for this article! That explains a lot and the trick with the tape recorder is so simple and yet is a blessing for people of our type.
I’ve heard good things about Dragon Dictation. I use the free iPad app, but there’s a desktop version as well.
Interesting. I’ve noticed that my writing style and activity tends to be off the cuff, and quite often I’ll publish with minimal editing.
As for a tool that I’ve found that seems to help, it’s using different media for different kinds of posts.
I have three blogs, one to cover personal stuff, one to cover life and philosophies, and one on politics. I started keeping prose, short stories and general rants either to Facebook and in my Google drive acount for future use.
Old constatation: when writing, you’ll turn your introverted parts outwardly. So INTPs will appear like ENTJs and INFPs will appear like ENFJs, for instance. It’s like as if they are showing their own inner stage to a virtual audience. In my case, i have nothing to lose so i’ll just type further and further, hoping that it might be fruitful here or there. In the case of ENTPs, their writings would look like a mixture of Ni and Te; that’s maybe why uClassify is constantly telling INTJ although i constantly score extremely low on conscientousness. Inside my head, i’m trying to be extremely disciplined. Outwardly, it’s rather chaos to the extent that i’m a social misfit and cannot function normally in this shitty SJ-society. And the MBTI is for beginners. You can directly switch to the Big Five when you progress and also add neuroticism and some sub-facets, then it’s not so much like stereotypical boxes anymore.
You can make it as differentiated as you please.
Thought process regulations that might be inborn or conditioned. You basically always compare two thoughts and evaluate them upwards when they match. The Big Five dimensions are statistically proven, so the MBTI is definitely no full BS.
In the case of ENTPs, we would never type so clinically.
What do you mean?
ENTP is one of the 16 MBTI types?
We are THE ONE of the 16 MBTI types lol.
Solid post if a little narrow in reach
Appreciate the reminder about know your crowd… The stories I could tell you, cough cough two British Prime ministers and a Latin speaking babe.
Using Neil Degrasse Tyson quote is hilarious.
I told him off about his podcast Via a verbal illustration of what he is presenting to the World, since apparently others complaints went unheard (Hi Neil! Love ya! Sorry mate! But needed to be said!)
There’s not much more to say, other than do a part 2. You lazy b*stard, lol.
Update it, you do not want the wrath of an ENTP 😉 (ask Neil, and I was nice :D)