When it comes to “ease of peeling
away from real life to write,” the extroverted writer is at a
distinct disadvantage. To begin with, we defy the traditional
stereotype of writers being quiet, reserved individuals who observe
life at a distance and go home to discover rich depths in their souls
and write about it. Because stereotypes are often based, in the main,
off truth, this means that the majority of our fellow writers won't
empathize with our wiring. They won't understand how hard it is to
cut the chatter and buckle down to a writing session. To the
extroverted writer, peeling away from social life and other humans'
presence is quite an effort before we've even opened a Word document
to begin pouring more energy into our WIP. To leave the presence of
other humans means to cut ourselves off from our “charger” so,
unlike the introverted writer, being alone is not rejuvenation, it is
slow (and sometimes rapid) depletion.
As an extrovert, the way we experience
life is very different from the majority of other writers. Rather
than writing out of careful observation and analysis of the world
without, the extroverted writer builds his work out of a plethora of
personal experiences. In the words of Anais Nin, we “write to taste
life twice.” And in order to taste it twice, we jump at the chance
to taste it at all. Any bottle, any flavor, any way. We want to live.
Later, we'll write, but for now to live is the thing. It is easy to
become wrapped up in tasting once. It is easy to choose to continue
tasting, rather than to savor the flavors and mellow them into a
literary vintage because, I don't know, we might miss the most savory
experience yet if we've pulled away and stopped tasting for a time!
I can see many of your faces bent in
puzzlement and I freely admit that the extroverted writer is somewhat
of a unicorn. At the time of writing this article, of the seventeen
writers who responded to the question on Facebook twelve were
self-identified introverts and three were ambiverts. Only two of the
self-proclaimed writers define themselves as thoroughly extroverted.
I don't pretend to be apt with numbers and statistics, but it is
fairly easy to see that only two out of seventeen in the surveyed
writing population would identify as extroverts. When I look at it
from the logical angle, it makes total sense: what sort of person has
the most to say? He who has hitherto said the least. And who speaks
in social situations less than your average, observing introvert?
Introverts crave quiet, if not solitude, and such conditions are
naturally more welcoming to the Muses who don't feel pushed out by
the Life of the Party already abiding in the house. Introvert
writers, are, in my opinion, the real MVPs.
Great, my fellow extroverts are
thinking, is there any hope for me? I am here to tell you
that, yes, thankfully there is hope – quite a lot of it. Here is a
list of things the extroverted writer is very, very good at:
Writing authentic dialog –
extroverts are experts at conversation. It only makes sense that we'd
be able to translate this capacity into writing. In this respect,
your chat 'em up is a lovely, pre-forged tool for hacking through the
forest of traditional filler dialogue. You know where you're going
with this.
Including vibrant details –
one advantage of living on the go and tasting lots of life, is that
you have much to give back. You walk into a new place and take
everything in, scanning the environment for every possible
conversation, adventure, and interaction and then systematically
sampling them all. An introvert will go into the new place, pick a
chair, sit down, and observe everything within that corner of the
room. Use your “birds eye view” to pick out details the
stationery observer misses and include them in your fiction.
Writing from personal stories and
experiences – the more people you meet, the more places you go,
the more first-hand reconnaissance you'll have as lumber for building
your stories. When you pair your affability with question-asking,
you'll often be rewarded with the gift of hearing peoples'
stories...and I can affirm the fact that truth is often stranger than
fiction. In addition to getting accounts from those you meet, you'll
also be far more likely to meet with your own adventures than you
would be at home on your Macbook, googling the effects of the Black
Plague and what they mean for modernity.
Writing believable characters –
though the extroverted writer might have to work harder to plumb the
depths of human experience (after all, we tend to not think as
sensitively as an introvert might), when we harness our considerable
energy and brainpower, we are able to understand as thoroughly as any
classic deep-thinker. In fact, our understanding of a person or
character will often be very complex because the knowledge is paired
with deep and often intuitive care for the person or character.
Writing them, therefore, is a chance to interact a second time with
someone of whom we are very fond and which extrovert will not
absolutely pour out her soul for that?
Lending prose new paint –
because extroverts are usually possessed of excellent people skills,
we are good at gauging how our words will affect our readership and
tailoring them to exact a particular reaction. We're accustomed to
using this skill in daily life as we interact with people and it is
therefore easy for the extroverted writer to foresee readers'
reactions and curate a certain tone to court the projected reaction.
I love nothing better than writing a piece in a particular voice for
a particular reaction and hearing feedback from readers that affirms
my ability to achieve the goal I had in mind. This ability is
especially helpful in journalism, blogging, and non-fiction, as it
can be hard for some personality types to state the facts from any
angle but straight-on. Not so for the blendable, bendable eight-armed
extrovert! Octipi, unite!
I hope that my fellow extroverted
writers (if such there be) will find themselves refreshed and
inspired by this list. We may not be as naturally equipped as the
amazing introverts for the writers' life, but we also have a few
super-powers of our own. When paired with determination and a daily
hour sector'd off strictly for no-contact writing, the extrovert can
overcome his native sociability and become the writer he has always
wished to be. Then, when the word-count goal is met, it's back to
hobnobbing with us. We have people to meet and places to see.
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