Male VS Female Mental Sex

[VTFischwire]

I recently purchased a book full of psychology tests for the characters in your story. They ranged from everything, for example "What would your character do at a family picnic?" to "How would your character feel on their death bed as an old man/woman?" It was written by a psychologist and after every test (set of 20 or so questions) he gives a list to analyze what the answers say about your character.
While looking through this book the other day, I had the thought - "Wouldn't this be a good idea for determining a character's mental sex?" There good be a list of 20 questions with mulitple choice answers and at the end you could add them up and depending on how many A's or B's or whatever know your character's mental sex. Also a Beer and Doer test would probably be useful for somepoeple.
I don't know if such a test exists or if it is even possible but as someone who can never seem to figure out just what mental sex my character actually is, I would greatly appreciate one. And the Doer/Beer test would be highly valued by someone just starting to learn the program.
Let me know if there is a test or if there are plans.

Thanks,
-Harry

[Chris Huntley]

Hi Harry. No, there isn't a test for determining someone's mental sex (though Melanie and I had one fairly early on that was too simplistic but somewhat accurate), at least not in the Dramatica sense. At least I'm not aware of any. It has only been in the last ten to fifteen years that men have opened up to the idea of "mental sex," though it is still verboten in many psychological circles. Go figure.

Female mental sex characters are EXTREMELY DIFFICULT for male authors (male mental sex authors, that is) to understand and empathize with. The same is true for male audience members. We just don't "get it" clearly. There's a long explanation about it on Melanie's site (Storymind.com) if you want the nitty gritty.

I would not be surprised if there is a test for Do-er/Be-er. It wouldn't use those labels, but might identify people/characters using similar criteria. I do not know of one specifically, however.

When picking Mental Sex and Approach for your main character, answer the questions based on what you want it to be rather than trying to figure out what it might be. You can drive yourself crazy looking for coulds, woulds, and shoulds. The storyform ALWAYS reflects what IS.

[VTFischwire]

dfy4649837,

Are you really spamming your Blog on my question? Must say I am disappointed to find a new perspective only for it to turn out to be an uninteresting blog. Are there some sort of group rules for this or something?

[Chris Huntley]

I have been banning all spammers, but they're probably automated bots doing it, not real people.