Well, since Jace finally kicked my inner writing soldier back into action, I am happily continuing on my journey of creating non-sob stories. *evil laugh* However, due to my long author hiatus, I have come back with a strange new writing disease, which I affectionately call: STOP ACTING LIKE YOU'RE AN ENTP.
This disease has affected all of my characters, most of whom aren't even close to ENTPs in nature: INFJs, ESFJs, and the like. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, then fie - and go look up Myers-Briggs because it's a beautiful system for the 5-10% of us Rationals who actually care [and for our Idealist boyfriends and girlfriends, who get involved in the system to show that they love us]. ;) [Yeah, okay, that was a lot of stereotypes all at once; take it or leave it.])
Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure there's anything I can do about this sickness since I'm already fully infected. Recently, I've been watching an anime whose main character is an ENTP (Edward Elric, ENTP | Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood), one of my in-real-life work associates is an ENTP, and I've been scouring every single Youtube video on Vic Mignogna's con panels that exists in the internet world (because he's an epic, voice acting ENXP). Basically, I'm already pretty "far gone."
(And, yes, I put "far gone" in quotation marks because, as much as I want to get my story done before a certain date [i.e. the day when I become living-challenged], I really just love seeing six or seven ENTPs go at each others' throats with their snarky ingenuity.)
But, seriously, guys, ENTPs are pretty great characters.
They're surprisingly original, not necessarily in the problem-solving realm only (*cough RATIONAL STEREOTYPES cough*), but in how they speak and choose to phrase their mindsets. They're energetic and determined, relentlessly, passionately, and simultaneously chasing after countless ideas. And, best of all, they're knowledgable but insensitive/arrogant, which gives them plenty of room for character development. Here's a standard description of ENTPs (for the SJs), a description of ENTPs in a post-apocalyptic survival environment (for the SPs), and an organized data spread of ENTPs' growth functions (for the NTs). (Why don't I have a resource for NFs? Because THEY DON'T NEED ONE, those crazy-amazing, empathetic sponges.)
Lastly, here are three habits that ENTPs tend to frequent that might help you out in your own writing to give an ENTP charrie more depth and description:
1.) Like most Rationals, ENTPs tend to have finger-tic habits. While INTJs tend to be a bit more fidgety (playing with rings, tugging on a shirt, fiddling with glasses, etc.) and ENTJs tend to be a bit more deliberate (massaging fingers, cracking knuckles, flipping a pen, etc.), ENTPs will often tap their fingers along any available hard surface for this soft, SJ-infuriating "thump thump" sound.
2.) ENTPs also tend to move their eyes quickly when they talk. This isn't a submissive movement, like shifting the gaze down and then back up; it's more like they're finding something stunningly interesting within the opposite walls of the room every split second, flitting their eyes back and forth and blinking fairly rapidly.
3.) Think about Robert Downey Jr. and how he constantly starts and stops sentences, not in a stuttering manner, but as if he has too many thoughts going on at once and as if all those thoughts are vying for attention so that they all kind of tumble out in a cascade of snipped, incoherent phrases. Yeah, that's an ENTP thing.
That said, I'm now off to go rip my brain out and clean it in SJ and SP juice until it quits thinking like an NT or an NF so that I can get back to my story. I'll let you know how my efforts go. x)
Write on!
Clove
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