How to Use The Enneagram to Create Gripping Characters

Let's face it, character development can be a daunting task. It's no small thing to pull ideas from your imagination and transform them into authentic and relatable characters that will teach, connect with, and impact readers. That's why I'm going to be sharing one of my favorite (and most effective) methods for creating gripping characters that your readers will fall in love with.

THE ENNEAGRAM

(I bet you never saw that coming.)

Now, you might just be staring cluelessly at the screen like, "What the heck is this girl talking about, and what in carnation is The Enneagram?"

Well, my friend, I would be more than delighted to educate you. *Dramatically clears throat*

"The Enneagram is a system of personality which describes people in terms of nine types, each with their own motivations, fears, and internal dynamics. The Enneagram is an emotionally focused system of understanding people — honing in on one’s core emotional motivations and fears. Each of the nine personality types has its own driving force, which is centered around a particular emotion." (Taken from truity.com)

It's also a subject that I could literally talk for hours on end about, but for the sake of keeping this short, I'll try to control myself. (If you know me, you know...)

For a long time, I STRUGGLED to create characters that were more than just cardboard cut-outs. I knew that a story needed to have sympathetic characters, but I was clueless when it came to actually sitting down to develop them. Then I discovered the Enneagram, and EVERYTHING changed for me. Not only did my readers begin to care about my stories, but I now had a practical, step-by-step process for creating IRRESISTIBLE character personality, internal conflict, and character voice.

In this post, I'm going to be showing you how to...

• Use the Enneagram to pinpoint your character's unique and complex personality.

• Use their Enneagram type to create AUTHENTIC INTERNAL CONFLICT that will be the driving force behind your story.

• Four practical ways to go beyond their Enneagram type in order to springboard rich character arcs, backstory, interactions, and voice.

Alright! *Rubs hands together* We've got a lot to cover, so let's dive right into it! (You may want to grab a cup of tea and a notebook, as well. 😉)

STEP ONE: FIND YOUR CHARACTER'S ENNEAGRAM TYPE

I know what you're thinking. You've heard that finding personality types for your characters is a waste of time and energy. You've filled out countless character questionnaires and checklists that promise to create fully fleshed-out characters with complex worldviews...

...and all they've really done for you is help you figure out what your character's favorite flavor of ice cream is.

Well, my friend, believe me when I tell you, that this is not a waste of time. I PROMISE YOU. In fact, pinpointing your character's Enneagram type will help you create a solid foundation to add depth to your character later.

You have a couple of options here when it comes to finding your character's Enneagram. You can either...

Self access your character, using your own knowledge of the Enneagram to choose a type for them, OR you can take a free Enneagram test from your character's perspective. I use both options for my characters depending on how much I already know about them, and both options are equally effective! (Although, I do find it rather fun to take the test and be surprised by what the results are.)

If you're unfamiliar with the Enneagram, or if you need a refresher on what the types are, I'm going to go over them really quick so that we're all on the same page. (Feel free to skim over this... I know it's long!😅)

TYPE ONE - THE REFORMER

Core Desire: Having integrity, being good, balanced, accurate, virtuous, and right.

Core Fear: Being wrong, bad, evil, inappropriate, unredeemable, or corruptible.

Core Weakness: Resentment—repressing anger that leads to continual frustration and dissatisfaction with themselves, others, and the world for not being perfect.

Fictional Examples: Hermione Granger (Harry Potter), Peter Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia), Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird), Steve Rodgers (Captain America).

TYPE TWO - THE HELPER

Core Desire: Being appreciated, loved, and wanted.

Core Fear: Being rejected and unwanted, being thought worthless, needy, inconsequential, dispensable, or unworthy of love.

Core Weakness: Pride—denying their own needs and emotions while using their amazing intuition to discover and focus on the emotions and needs of others, confidently inserting their helpful support in hopes that others will say how grateful they are for the Type 2s thoughtful care.

Fictional Examples: Samwise Gamgee (The Lord of the Rings), Peeta Mellark (The Hunger Games), Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre), Prince Caspian (The Chronicles of Narnia).

TYPE THREE - THE ACHIEVER

Core Desire: Having high status and respect, being admired, successful, and valuable.

Core Fear: Being exposed as or thought incompetent, inefficient, or worthless; failing to be or appear successful.

Core Weakness: Deceit—deceiving themselves into believing that they are only the image they present to others; embellishing the truth by putting on a polished persona for everyone (including themselves) to see and admire.

Fictional Examples: Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter), Boromir & Gimli (The Lord of the Rings), P.T. Barnum (The Greatest Showman), Emma Woodhouse (Emma).

TYPE FOUR - THE INDIVIDUALIST

Core Desire: Being unique, special, and authentic.

Core Fear: Being inadequate, emotionally cut off, plain, mundane, defective, flawed, or insignificant.

Core Weakness: Envy—feeling that they are tragically flawed, something foundational is missing inside them, and others possess qualities they lack.

Fictional Examples: Liesel Meminger (The Book Thief), Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables), Faramir (The Lord of the Rings), Mr. Rochester (Jane Eyre), Jo March (Little Women).

And myself. XD

TYPE FIVE - THE INVESTIGATOR

Core Desire: Being capable and competent.

Core Fear: Being annihilated, invaded, or not existing; being thought incapable or ignorant; having obligations placed upon them or their energy depleted.

Core Weakness: Avarice—feeling that they lack inner resources and that too much interaction with others will lead to catastrophic depletion; withholding themselves from contact with the world; holding onto their resources and minimizing their needs.

Fictional Examples: Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes), Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice), Haymitch Abernathy (The Hunger Games), Elrond (The Lord of the Rings).

TYPE SIX - THE LOYALIST

Core Desire: Having guidance, security and support.

Core Fear: Feeling fear itself, being without support, security, or guidance; being blamed, targeted, alone, or physically abandoned.

Core Weakness: Anxiety—scanning the horizon of life and trying to predict and prevent negative outcomes (especially worst-case scenarios); remaining in a constant state of apprehension and worry.

Fictional Examples: Susan Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia), Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit), Marilla Cuthbert (Anne of Green Gables), Ron Weasley (Harry Potter).

TYPE SEVEN - THE ENTHUSIAST

Core Desire: Being happy, fully satisfied, and content.

Core Fear: Being deprived, trapped in emotional pain, limited, or bored; missing out on something fun.

Core Weakness: Gluttony—feeling a great emptiness inside and having an insatiable desire to “fill themselves up” with experiences and stimulation in hopes of feeling completely satisfied and content.

Fictional Examples: Meriadoc Brandybuck & Peregrin Took (The Lord of the Rings), Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice), Peter Pan (Peter Pan, Dust, and Shadow), Laurie (Little Women).

TYPE EIGHT - THE CHALLENGER

Core Desire: Protecting themselves and those in their inner circle.

Core Fear: Being weak, powerless, harmed, controlled, vulnerable, manipulated, and left at the mercy of injustice

Core Weakness: Excess—constantly desiring intensity, control, and power; pushing themselves willfully on life and people in order to get what they desire.

Fictional Examples: Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games), Scarlett O'Hara (Gone with the Wind), Inspector Javert (Les Misérables), Thorin Oakenshield (The Hobbit).

TYPE NINE - THE PEACEMAKER

Core Desire: Having inner stability and peace of mind.

Core Fear: Being in conflict, tension, or discord; feeling shut out and overlooked; losing connection with others.

Core Weakness: Sloth—remaining in an unrealistic and idealistic world in order to keep the peace, remain easy-going, and not be disturbed by their anger; falling asleep to their passions, abilities, desires, needs, and worth by merging with others.

Fictional Examples: Legolas (The Lord of the Rings), Jane Bennet (Pride and Prejudice), Prim Everdeen (The Hunger Games), Harry Potter (Harry Potter)

Once you've found your character's Enneagram, it's time to use it! In the next step, I'm going to show you how to dig deeper into who your character is at their core. It's important to note here, that while it can be fun to decide what your character's favorite ice cream flavor is, true character development centers on discovering your character's unique internal perspective. This leads us to step number two...

STEP TWO: DEVELOP YOUR CHARACTER'S INTERNAL CONFLICT

This, in my opinion, is the single most important part of creating characters. Why? Because it's what makes you character relatable and sympathetic to your reader.

So what is internal conflict exactly?

Your character's internal conflict is the war raging inside them that acts as the driving force behind every thought they think and every decision they make. In short, character internal conflict consists of two ingredients: DESIRE (the thing your character wants more than anything) and FEAR (the thing that's holding them back).

Now, it is 100% possible to create your character's internal conflict without using the Enneagram, but it can be hard (as least for me) to come up with an authentic desire and fear that will carry throughout the course of the story.

The Enneagram is not the end all be all way to develop characters, but it can be an INCREDIBLY helpful tool and starting place. This is how I originally started using the Enneagram for my characters because I needed a springboard to help me get to know them better.

If you read through the nine types listed above, you may have noticed how each one has a core desire, core fear, and core weakness. This is what you'll be using to develop your character's internal world.

"Now Ava," you might be saying, "Doesn't that make for a really stereotypical and cliche character? Won't this result in a bunch of characters that are exactly the same?"

No.

You see, you don't have to copy and paste your character's desire, fear, and weakness directly from their Enneagram profile (although doing so is also a great option). The Enneagram is simply a tool to help springboard their internal conflict.

FOR EXAMPLE:

In my current wip, The Seven, one of my point of view characters has a very servant-hearted and caring personality.

Taking the test from the little I knew about him, I was matched with (can you guess?)...

The Type Two.

Type Twos are incredibly generous people. However, when they're unhealthy, they can be manipulative with their generosity in hopes that they will receive love and admiration through the good things they do for others.

From that point on, I was able to dive deeper into Skylar's personality and explore the deepest parts of who he is. While I didn't copy and paste EVERYTHING from his Enneagram type into his character profile, this helped me IMMENSELY and gave me a great starting place to flesh out his character.

Guess what the DESIRE and FEAR is for the Type Two?

That's right,

Type Twos desire to be loved, appreciated, and wanted by others. Because of this, they're terrified of being rejected, unworthy, needy, and dispensable.

Here's an example of me brainstorming ideas for Skylar (I literally just pulled this out of my messy Scrivener files from the early brainstorming stages of my novel)...

Okay, so I imagine this character to be just a very kindhearted person and he wants to be needed by people. He wants to be seen as a helpful and admirable person. I'm thinking that something REALLY SAD happened in his past, and because of this, he thinks he's unworthy of love. So he tries to prove himself to be worthy by helping people. BOOM.

It's a little rough and cliche, yes, but it's a start.

(You could try doing this too, by the way. Literally just rant and obsess over your story in a document until you can flesh something out. Plus, nobody is going to read it except for you. I find that talking myself through my ideas REALLY helps me find clarity and triggers some pretty awesome ideas.😉)

After brainstorming and working out the details for Skylar's internal conflict, I was able to come up with a rough sketch that looked something like this:

More than anything, Skylar wants to be seen as a hero. Deep down, he believes that he is unworthy of love because of the tragic event in his past. He sees himself as a monster... not the hero that he wants to be. Because of this, he strives to prove his worth by offering endless generosity to others in order to avoid his greatest fear: being discarded and seen as the horrible person he believes himself to be.

SKYLAR'S DESIRE: To be seen as a hero. To receive admiration and love from his actions.

SKYLAR'S FEAR: Being seen as the monster he believes himself to be, thus being rejected and discarded by others.

Do you see how I was able to take his Enneagram type and use it to transform him into an authentic and conflicted character? His internal conflict might not be the most original, but it's what makes him a strong and well developed character.

More than being original and iconic, your character needs to be sympathetic and relatable to your reader.

Remember, no one can tell your story like you can. It's your unique perspective and extraordinary imagination that will make your character truly set apart.

I've also discovered that by combining different types, I can create more diversity in my characters. Did you noticed how I combined Skylar's Type Two with the Type Three? This makes him more success driven and increases his desire to be seen as a hero.

There's endless inspiration and countless options you have through this resource, so have fun experimenting with it!

STEP THREE: FOUR WAYS TO GO BEYOND YOUR CHARACTER'S TYPE

Now that you know how to find your character's unique type and transform it into gripping internal conflict (aka the backbone of your story), you're ready to move to the next level. Below are four different ways you can go beyond your character's enneagram and add more dimension to who they are.

1) CHARACTER ARCS:

The Enneagram is all about growth, discovering your true self, rejecting the lies you believed about the world, and finding health.

Sounds a lot like a positive character arc, doesn't it?

If you look at most Enneagram websites, there's usually a section that explores the levels of health for each type, going from when the type is at it's worst to when it's living at its best.

Here's an example I pulled from The Enneagram Institute (which is one of my favorite Enneagram sites):

Type Seven—Levels of Development

Healthy Levels

Level 1 (At Their Best): Assimilate experiences in depth, making them deeply grateful and appreciative for what they have. Become awed by the simple wonders of life: joyous and ecstatic. Intimations of spiritual reality, of the boundless goodness of life.

Level 2: Highly responsive, excitable, enthusiastic about sensation and experience. Most extroverted type: stimuli bring immediate responses—they find everything invigorating. Lively, vivacious, eager, spontaneous, resilient, cheerful.

Level 3: Easily become accomplished achievers, generalists who do many different things well: multi-talented. Practical, productive, usually prolific, cross-fertilizing areas of interest.

Average Levels

Level 4: As restlessness increases, want to have more options and choices available to them. Become adventurous and "worldly wise," but less focused, constantly seeking new things and experiences: the sophisticate, connoisseur, and consumer. Money, variety, keeping up with the latest trends important.

Level 5: Unable to discriminate what they really need, become hyperactive, unable to say "no" to themselves, throwing self into constant activity. Uninhibited, doing and saying whatever comes to mind: storytelling, flamboyant exaggerations, witty wise-cracking, performing. Fear being bored: in perpetual motion, but do too many things—many ideas but little follow through.

Level 6: Get into conspicuous consumption and all forms of excess. Self-centered, materialistic, and greedy, never feeling that they have enough. Demanding and pushy, yet unsatisfied and jaded. Addictive, hardened, and insensitive.

Unhealthy Levels

Level 7: Desperate to quell their anxieties, can be impulsive and infantile: do not know when to stop. Addictions and excess take their toll: debauched, depraved, dissipated escapists, offensive and abusive.

Level 8: In flight from self, acting out impulses rather than dealing with anxiety or frustrations: go out of control, into erratic mood swings, and compulsive actions (manias).

Level 9: Finally, their energy and health is completely spent: become claustrophobic and panic-stricken. Often give up on themselves and life: deep depression and despair, self-destructive overdoses, impulsive suicide. Generally corresponds to the Bipolar disorder and Histrionic personality disorder.

If you're struggling to map out character arcs for your characters, I highly recommend referring to their Enneagram type. Being able to see how your character will likely react and make decisions based on their internal conflict and personality is SO HELPFUL when it comes to actually sitting down to construct their internal journey.

This can also be reversed to create negative arcs as well. The possibilities are endless.

2) CHARACTER BACKSTORY:

Another awesome use the Enneagram has is helping you pinpoint your character's backstory. That is, the thing that happened in their past that made them who they are today and formed their current internal conflict.

Just type up "Enneagram childhood wounds" in the browser on your computer, and you'll find tons of articles that explore the early wounds each Enneagram typed likely experienced in their life.

Again, this is not the end all be all of developing your characters. But it can be a powerful and insightful way to prompt you if you're stuck.

3) CHARACTER INTERACTIONS:

This is probably my number one favorite way to go beyond my character's Enneagram type.

The Enneagram Institute has an entire section of their website dedicated to understanding relationships between different Enneagram types. I find this to be incredibly helpful because it gives me a starting point for figuring out the dynamics between my characters.

There are so many resources and studies done on the relationships between Enneagram types, but I especially love The Enneagram Institute because it pays attention to both the strong points and the conflict points between each type.

4) CHARACTER VOICE:

Character voice is a huge topic, and this could honestly be a post of its own. However, a lot goes in to crafting character voice, and I find that personality is one of the most important ingredients.

Yep. You guessed it. THE ENNEAGRAM HELPS WITH THIS TOO.

Really, the possibilities for writing with the Enneagram are endless. And the awesome thing about it is that you can use it as much or as little as you want! There are no rules, and you certainly don't have to be as obsessive as I am. 😂

I hope that you found this post helpful, and that it provided some great resources to boost your character development process. The Enneagram literally changed my life, and I hope it does the same for you!

RESOURCES FOR YOU

I realize that this is a lot of information packed into one post. That's why I compiled a collection of resources for you guys that have been helpful to me in this area so that you can explore this for yourself.

Take a free Enneagram test here.

Websites I recommend:

- Your Enneagram Coach

- The Enneagram Institute

- Truity

LET'S CHAT

Are you familiar with The Enneagram? If so, what type are you? Have you ever tried using it to develop characters? Do you know what your character's Enneagram is? Do you love personality types half as much as I do? WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR OF ICE CREAM? I'd love to hear all about it in the comments!

Now go change the world,

-Ava