I’m excited to welcome CJ Lyons, author of the phenomenal Angels of Mercy series, to post today!
The Voices in My Head
One thing about being a full-time author, now no one looks at me funny when I tell them I’m busy listening to the voices in my head!(that never happened when I was still a pediatric ER doc, lol!)
But I don’t only hear my own characters. When I read, I hear the words on the page and the characters’ voices as well. So it was a huge shock to me when a discussion on a list-serve revealed that I was in the minority. That most people don’t hear ANY voices while they read.
I’ve always been a student of psychology and love the way personality tests reveal telling insights on our behavior. One of the most marked traits revealed by the Myers-Briggs test is two ways of seeing the world: sensing and intuitive.
Sensing types experience the world via their senses: what they see, feel, smell, touch, hear. Intuitives experience the world from the inside out–they see patterns and possibilities and apply those to the outside world (in a broad sense, this is the difference between “detail” folks and “big picture” folks–but there’s a broad spectrum, of course!). The general population is estimated to be 75% sensing and 25% intuitive.
I’ve taken the MB several times and every time scored 100% intuitive (hey, someone has to be on the edge of the bell-shaped curve, right?) The psychologists who were giving the test to my med school class were highly relieved that I wasn’t planning a career as a surgeon. Translating this division of perception to readers, I wonder if there aren’t two kinds of readers out there?
Sensing type readers use the details the author provides to build the world of the novel and “see” the story, like a movie projected onto a screen. And intuitive type readers who “fall into the world” of the story and “feel” it unfold, creating the world with the author by filling in possible details on their own.
What do you think? Are you a sensing reader or an intuitive one? Is a book like a movie for you, where you’re an observer at a distance? Do you hear voices in your head and feel like you’re part of the story? There’s no right or wrong answer, of course! But isn’t it amazing how differently we can all experience the same story?
And if you want to take a quick version of the M-B and see where you fall, check this site out: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
Thanks for reading!
CJ
About CJ:
As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about. In addition to being an award-winning medical suspense author, CJ is a nationally known presenter and keynote speaker.
Her first novel, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), received praise as a “breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller” from Publishers Weekly, was reviewed favorably by the Baltimore Sun and Newsday, named a Top Pick by Romantic Times Book Review Magazine, and became a National Bestseller. Her award-winning, critically acclaimed Angels of Mercy series (LIFELINES, WARNING SIGNS, URGENT CARE and CRITICAL CONDITION) is available now. Her newest project is as co-author of a new suspense series with Erin Brockovich. To learn more about CJ and her work, go to www.cjlyons.net.
Thanks to the publisher, I have copy of CJ’s latest book, Critical Condition, to give away to one lucky winner! To enter, please fill out the form below. Open to US & Canadian residents only, please. No P.O. Boxes. The winner will be announced Friday, December 17th. Good luck!
