Hey…remember my post about ennegrams earlier? Well the person who introduced me to them, Laurie Schnebly Campbell, is giving an online course on how to use them. She is a brilliant tutor so if you are interested, check this out:
MOTIVATION FOR CHARACTERS (AND REAL-LIFE PEOPLE)
We don’t care much about the cabbie who drives our hero to the train station, so that cabbie doesn’t need any particular motivation…any particular personality type.
He doesn’t need to overcome any problems in his life.
But every major character has to overcome something in order to evolve during the course of the book. And that’s why writers need to know our characters’ fatal (or not-so-fatal) flaws.
So it’s handy that enneagram theorists have identified nine personality types…each with its own unique strength, and each with a flaw that happens when that strength is taken to extremes.
We can use the nine types (Perfectionist, Nurturer, Adventurer, Romantic, Observer, Skeptic, Enthusiast, Leader, Peacemaker) to generate conflict BETWEEN and WITHIN likable, realistic characters.
Want to know more? You’ll find it in Laurie Schnebly Campbell’s yahoogroups class during October, “Creating Your Hero’s Fatal Flaw.”
If you’re interested, click http://www.WriterUniv.com — and feel free to forward this to anyone else who might be interested. Thanks!
WOW – I love this! It’s made me stop and think on my own characters and where they would fit… Thanks for sharing!
Cole
That’s great, Cole. I can really recommend Laurie’s courses–I have been on two so far in real life, and read an online one as well.