On this submit, I’m going to indicate you three ways in which the Enneagram may help you develop advanced, relatable characters that the reader cares about.
1. Use the Enneagram’s fundamental want and/or fundamental concern for a persona sort to develop your character(s).
As a fast overview, there are 9 major persona varieties within the Enneagram, every of which is assigned a quantity, one via 9.
Every of those varieties is motivated by a novel fundamental want and a novel fundamental concern—that’s what distinguishes the kinds from each other: motivation.
That is essential to know: it’s not {that a} sure habits or set of behaviors defines the quantity somebody is, however that the motivation behind the habits is exclusive.
An Enneagram One and an Enneagram 9, for instance, may each be a serial killer, U.S. president, or a delicate grandma—however the Enneagram One grandma goes to be motivated otherwise than the Enneagram 9 grandma.
Beginning with these fundamental wishes and fears is a good way to develop characters provided that a lot of storytelling is about what somebody desires or is afraid of.
Listed here are the fundamental wishes and fears of every Enneagram Sort:
1—Fundamental want: to be good or good | Fundamental concern: of being dangerous or faulty
2—Fundamental want: to really feel beloved | Fundamental concern: of being undesirable
3—Fundamental want: to really feel precious | Fundamental concern: of being nugatory
4—Fundamental want: to discover a true id | Fundamental concern: of not having significance
5—Fundamental want: to be succesful and competent | Fundamental concern: of being helpless
6—Fundamental want: to be safe| Fundamental concern: of being with out essential assist
7—Fundamental want: to really feel content material | Fundamental concern: of being trapped or disadvantaged
8—Fundamental want: to regulate their world | Fundamental concern: of being powerless
9—Fundamental want: to have internal peace | Fundamental concern: of being separated
(Supply: Take from or impressed by The Enneagram Institute’s web site)
You is likely to be considering, “However wait—don’t we would like all of this stuff? To be beloved and wished and precious, and many others.? And to not be dangerous or undesirable or nugatory?”
Sure…however we aren’t primarily motivated by all of this stuff. We’re primarily motivated by one factor. And that’s our quantity.
If you determine (or uncover, or decide—nonetheless your course of of making fictional characters works) a personality’s Enneagram quantity, you’ve unlocked a world to discover round that character’s want and concern landscapes.
For instance, in my most up-to-date novel, Palm Seaside, Rebecca, the primary character, is an Enneagram One: the Reformer (additionally typically referred to as the Perfectionist). She desires, greater than something, to be a superb particular person. A vegan, an environmentalist, an activist, she holds herself to requirements that most individuals don’t. She is tough on herself…and likewise others, whom she judges. She’s so afraid of being “dangerous” that she will come throughout as, nicely, annoying.
Stayja, a personality in my second novel, Privilege, is an Enneagram Three: she desires, greater than something, to really feel valued by the world. She’s from a poor household and needs to interrupt out, so she’s a hustler, working continually to battle her approach via faculty so she might be anyone. She sees her worth as being what’s spectacular or admirable on the earth’s eyes. Greater than something, she doesn’t need to be poor anymore.
Now, an essential facet of the Enneagram is inside every sort/quantity, there’s a healthiness scale. Your character will fall someplace on this scale, and that may dramatically have an effect on how their motivation manifests—whether or not it’s in wholesome or unhealthy methods.
You may learn extra in regards to the healthiness ranges for every sort right here.
The significance of healthiness ranges can’t be overstated—my husband, for instance, is an Enneagram Eight. When he discovered this out, he was appalled, as a result of dictators are Eights. Saddam Hussein? Eight.
Yikes.
However a wholesome Eight could be very completely different from an unhealthy Eight, and it is a essential distinction.
Right here’s the distinction between a wholesome Eight and an unhealthy Eight, in response to the Enneagram Institute (the first authority):
Healthiest Eights: Turn into self-restrained and magnanimous, merciful and forbearing, mastering self via their self-surrender to the next authority. Brave, keen to place self in critical jeopardy to realize their imaginative and prescient and have an enduring affect. Might obtain true heroism and historic greatness.
Unhealthiest Eights: In the event that they get at risk, they could brutally destroy all the pieces that has not conformed to their will somewhat than give up to anybody else. Vengeful, barbaric, murderous. Sociopathic tendencies. Usually corresponds to the Delinquent Character Dysfunction.
So…PRETTY DIFFERENT.
What does this imply for you when it comes to creating fictional characters?
Nicely, there are 9 ranges of healthiness for every sort. Your character, I’d advocate, ought to fall on the decrease half of the spectrum of healthiness…merely for storytelling functions.
We wish a personality to have room to develop.
Sure, all of us have room to develop. However a superb story reveals critical development—development that isn’t non-obligatory however is important, that feels high-stakes. And that’s extra prone to exist for a personality who falls on the underside half of their Enneagram quantity’s healthiness scale.
You may examine healthiness ranges on any Enneagram website, however, once more, I just like the Enneagram Institute.
2. Use the Enneagram’s stress traces to determine your character’s go-to stress responses.
As all of us (most likely) know, in any story, it’s actually essential to permit your characters to expertise stress.
Pressure is what stretches them, which leads them to endure a bit, which ends up in a perspective shift…and that makes the story.
A narrative is a perspective shift.
However how do they endure? As a result of all of us endure otherwise, which is to say, all of us reply to stress otherwise.
For instance, I:
- Eat CheezIts
- Get very bossy
- Let laundry pile up
- Resolve {that a} dramatic life determination like shifting will repair all my issues
- The entire above
Bingo, it’s (e), all the above!
However my husband doesn’t do any of this stuff. To let you know what he does, I need to return to the Enneagram, as a result of it could additionally assist us create our characters’ stress responses!
For every quantity on the Enneagram, there’s a stress line—a corresponding quantity that that particular person is prone to act extra like once they get wired.
Listed here are the numbers and what different quantity we act like after we get wired (once more, when it comes to healthiness, you’re taking a look at how the typical or unhealthy model of that quantity behaves):
A median to unhealthy wired 1 acts like a mean 4
A median to unhealthy wired 2 acts like a mean 8
A median to unhealthy wired 3 acts like a mean 9
A median to unhealthy wired 4 acts like a mean 2
A median to unhealthy wired 5 acts like a mean 7
A median to unhealthy wired 6 acts like a mean 3
A median to unhealthy wired 7 acts like a mean 1
A median to unhealthy wired 8 acts like a mean 5
A median to unhealthy wired 9 acts like a mean 6
When you’re considering, “WHAT?! This simply became calculus!”…don’t fear, it’s not that sophisticated. You may learn in regards to the common numbers right here, and it’ll actually allow you to flesh out how your character, whose Enneagram quantity you’ve already determined, acts once they’re careworn.
So to get again to my husband for instance, who’s an Enneagram Eight…Eights, when they’re wired, typically exhibit behaviors of Common Fives.
Right here’s how the Enneagram Institute describes an Common 5:
More and more indifferent as they develop into concerned with sophisticated concepts or imaginary worlds. Turn into preoccupied with their visions and interpretations somewhat than actuality. Are fascinated by off-beat, esoteric topics, even these involving darkish and disturbing components. Indifferent from the sensible world, a “disembodied thoughts,” though high-strung and intense.
One essential observe earlier than we wrap up stress traces—stress traces will not be essentially a nasty factor. These are simply how we cope.
Not all characters are going to own the identical diploma of self-awareness, similar to characters may have completely different coping mechanisms, completely different habits and vices, and completely different baggage they’re carrying round from childhood. A extra self-aware character may use their line of stress to navigate to the more healthy finish of the spectrum.
However, once more—usually talking, the more healthy the character, the more durable it’s going to be to take care of an inner stress, which is crucial to story. I nonetheless advocate trying on the common to unhealthy character descriptions within the Enneagram, as a result of we would like our characters to have room to develop emotionally, and that offers them the most important attainable vary of development.
3. Use the Enneagram’s passions and virtues to chart your characters’ emotional development.
The Enneagram, when you get into it, is a posh system, should you haven’t inferred that but. However there’s yet one more facet of it I need to contact on that may be helpful to you when creating fictional characters: the passions and virtues.
Every Sort has a novel ardour and a novel advantage.
The passions are our emotional habits, our kneejerk responses.
The virtues are the states of being that permit us to expertise our true essence and transcend these emotional habits.
Listed here are the passions and virtues for the 9 varieties:
One—Ardour: Anger | Advantage: Serenity
Two—Ardour: Pleasure | Advantage: Humility
Three—Ardour: Deceit | Advantage: Authenticity
4—Ardour: Envy | Advantage: Equanimity
5—Ardour: Avarice | Advantage: Non-Attachment
Six—Ardour: Concern | Advantage: Braveness
Seven—Ardour: Gluttony | Advantage: Sobriety
Eight—Ardour: Lust | Advantage: Innocence
9—Ardour: Sloth | Advantage: Motion
You may learn extra in regards to the passions and virtues right here.
The cool factor in regards to the passion-to-virtue trajectory is that this may make a strong inner emotional arc for any character—provided that these get to the basis of what we wrestle with, overcoming our previous coping mechanisms that now not serve us, you would think about letting the passion-to-virtue arc in your character’s Enneagram quantity information their strategy of self-discovery via your story.
In fact, it’s as much as you to do the writing that leads them to that self-discovery—you have to permit them to endure, and thus wrestle, and thus come to a recent perspective.
There’s extra the place this got here from…
When you’re fascinated with studying extra about how you should use the Enneagram to develop your characters, you may join my electronic mail record right here. I’m placing collectively a way more strong Enneagram coaching for writers and might’t wait to share it with you, however you’ll have to be on my electronic mail record to seek out out about it!
