Of course this is silly, but who doesn’t enjoy playing around with their Myers-Briggs Type? So, this from Book Riot:
16 GENRE RECS BASED ON YOUR MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE
I [Kate Scott] made a list of genres and Myers-Briggs types and paired them up. Sure enough, certain Myers-Briggs types and genres go together like ham and cheese. Of course, there will be exceptions, but here’s which genre I think best fits each personality type….
Good, good, sounds like fun! I’m skipping straight down to INTJ. Let’s see what Kate suggests for me and all you other INTJs out there —
INTJ | MYSTERY
INTJs are curious, independent, and private. We like solving puzzles and finding explanations for the unexplainable. Mysteries tap into INTJs’ love of problem-solving, our tendency toward secrecy, and our fascination with the unknown.
I do enjoy mysteries! But the logical can-I-solve-it thing is not what I like best about this genre. For me, character and setting are primary qualities of mysteries, with the clever plot coming a distant third. That is why I really liked Barbara Hambly’s (“Hamilton’s”) Abigail Adams mysteries. As mysteries, I don’t think they are very mysterious. As a look at the historical period and at Abigail Adams within that period, they’re wonderful.
I was talking to Tamora Pierce about those mysteries at . . . must have been ArmadilloCon . . . and she asked when I realized that Ninth Daughter was actually by Hambly. In case you’re interested, it was when a particular character moment happened, so that a character suddenly moved from being a bad guy to being a good guy. That was a classic Hambly moment. At that point, stylistic elements suddenly made me realize “Hamilton” was Hambly, which a google search quickly confirmed. So, yeah, character is something I’m likely to focus on!
Okay, now, what Myers-Briggs type is supposed to be into fantasy? Let’s look:
INTP
INTPs are cerebral, theoretical, and logical. They like to generate new ideas and speculate about all the possibilities, often walking the line between the fantastical and the scientific. Science fiction taps into INTPs’ fascination with the far reaches of what is possible.
Not bad! I used to be INTP before I shifted more toward the J end of that spectrum. Actually I’m moderately impressed that Kate Scott managed to pick two genres that I do focus on for INT-whatevers. Even though she thinks I should be more focused on SF than fantasy, which is definitely not the case. For fantasy, she’s suggesting more INFJ, which I guess is not that far off for me either.
For each type, she provides links to lists of “great mysteries” and “best epic fantasy” and all like that, though massive lists of the hundred best whatever don’t strike me as all that helpful. But if you would care to click through and check out those lists, there they are.
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Hmm, I am an INTJ who can occasionally slide over into INFJ depending on the day, which means my massive Agatha Christie/Dorothy Sayers/Ellis Peters/etc collection AND my massive fantasy collection are spot-on with her predictions. Although my love for mysteries is based less on the puzzle-solving aspect and more on the justice aspect–I like stories which give a clear promise that even though the world might not be perfect, truth and justice will overcome in the end. And the detective novel, at least as Christie, Sayers, et al did it, is the perfect genre for that.
Oh, yes, that’s very important for mysteries! I’m sure that’s another reason I like mysteries and detective novels.
I was SO OFFENDED by Tana French’s In the Woods because it seems to be a detective novel, but the bad guy gets away with murder plus destroying people’s lives right and left. That also shows how important market categorization is, because if it had been presented to me as literary fiction, a horrible ending might have been expected (and also I probably wouldn’t have read it). Instead, it was like reading a romance where instead of a HEA ending, the male lead betrays the female lead and strolls off whistling.