In a post on Writers in the Storm, Laurie Schnebly Campbell discusses writing about relationships that don’t work out. “Just about every such failure — whether it’s between spouses, friends, business partners, siblings, neighbors, or whoever — can be boiled down to a single statement: ‘We don’t see things the same way,'” Campbell says. This is especially important in fiction, because your protagonist’s world view drives the story.
Even when your character has a positive world view and goals – such as making the world a better place – they are accompanied by negative traits. Your hero may insist on always being right, may be over-committed or too opinionated. They may focus on facts to the detriment of their feelings or cause drama in pursuit of their ideals. Taken to an extreme, any good quality can be cast as a flaw, Baguchinsky notes.
These ideals, coupled with flaws that flow from them, create natural conflict. Baguchinsky uses the enneagram to make her point about different character types and combinations.
