Need some inspiration for creating a new character? In a post on DIY MFA, Mary Adkins suggests using the Enneagram. Adkins suggests three ways:
- The Enneagram’s basic desire and/or basic fear. Each Enneagram personality type has a different motivation: a basic desire or basic fear. For example, the basic desire of a 1 is to be good and the basic fear is being defective. “Starting with these basic desires and fears is a great way to develop characters given that so much of storytelling is about what someone wants or is afraid of,” Adkins says.
- The Enneagram stress lines that reveal your character’s go-to stress response. According to the Enneagram, a stressed person begins acting like their opposite number. For example, an unhealthy stressed 1 acts like an average 4.
- The Enneagram passions and virtues can chart emotional growth. “Each Type has a unique passion and a unique virtue,” Adkins writes. “The passions are our emotional habits, our kneejerk responses. The virtues are the states of being that allow us to experience our true essence and transcend those emotional habits.” For example, an Enneagram 1’s passion is anger, and their virtue is serenity. “The cool thing about the passion-to-virtue trajectory is that this can make a powerful internal emotional arc for any character,” Adkins adds.
