Write a novel

How to use the Enneagram to write conflicted characters

What’s the secret ingredient to an epic character? This is a question that many writers ask themselves. But most of them get the answer wrong. They believe high-peril action sequences are they only way to make a (female) character look strong. This is simply not true.

These authors write two-dimensional characters. They write characters who are the punching bag for the plot.
Readers put such books down quickly. They can't understand the characters. Is that what you want? If that's your goal, congratulations. You'll reach it sooner or later if you keep doing what you're doing. But if you want readers to love your book, congratulations too: because this article shows you how to achieve that.

INTERNAL CONFLICT

Characters need a goal, a fear that prevents them from achieving the goal, and a misbelief that is proven true by their past.

The golden rule here is (open notebooks, please!): Characters become strong when they conquer their fear, realise their misbelief (aha moment) and achieve their goal. No matter how physically strong they are, they only become really strong when they resolve their inner conflict.

So much for that. Last week I had written about how to transform prompts into working prompts. There you will also find inner conflict as the "main ingredient". "Why prompts might not work (+5 steps to make them work)" 

Without plot, your story is boring. But without characters with inner conflict, it's meaningless.

THE ENNEAGRAM

The Enneagram helps to make your characters three-dimensional. It provides you with a complete toolbox on a silver platter.

Actually, the Enneagram is meant to help you understand yourself and your fellow human beings better. But it's great for writing great characters and realistic relationships between them!

There are nine personality types (we'll get to the wings later). Each type has a basic fear, a basic goal and patterns that it repeats. Each type is attributed with characteristics. So Type 1 is the Reformer, the Rational, Idealistic Type: Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic. On the Enneagram Institute's site you will find a lot of helpful information as far as type descriptions are concerned. Just follow this link: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-descriptions

OTHER HELPFUL ARTICLES ON WRITING:
- "How to develop characters" 
- "Write what you know — settings" 
- "Tips for motivation to write a novel" 

The personality types are arranged in a circle. (It is best to look at a picture of this now.) You see that the 4 lies between the 3 and the 5, the 5 between the 4 and the 6 and so on. This fact is the basis of the so-called wings. For example, there is the type 8w7 and the type 8w9. The small "w" stands for Wing.

But what do the wings mean? The point is that one type (for example, type 9: the Peacemaker) is split into two subtypes (9w8 and 9w1). This makes everything even more precise. (So now there are the subtypes 9w8: "The Referee" and 9w1: "The Dreamer").

In addition, there are arrows between the types. These show how the character or person changes under disintegration or integration. Would you like an example? When moving in their Direction of Disintegration (stress), driven Threes suddenly become disengaged and apathetic at Nine. However, when moving in their Direction of Integration (growth), vain, deceitful Threes become more cooperative and committed to others, like healthy Sixes.

In addition, you will find information on the website about relationships between the individual types and much more.

If you want to know more about all this, you can find ...
... many helpful videos on YouTube, for example this one: https://youtu.be/hkJT-4Zx0Kg
... on the website of the Institute for the Enneagram lots of information: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works
... on Pinterest lots of interesting graphics.

UPDATE: You can also ask ChatGPT for writing prompts with inner conflict, e.g. like this: "Think of creative writing prompts with inner conflict for writers. Arrange them according to the Enneagram type of the main characters. The result should be a table.“

Because you have read the article to the end, I will give you a free download of my analysis of Type 4, which I made for the protagonist of my next book. Click on File -> Make a copy if you want to adapt it for yourself. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E5gsJH2CC1KguKH6VRZmZTZCo0IeNDjn8Yy-J5wFzuE/...


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Write on,
Evie