{"id":10628,"date":"2014-05-16T03:00:37","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T10:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/?p=10628"},"modified":"2014-06-15T18:45:42","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T01:45:42","slug":"on-enneagrams-for-writers-by-carol-malone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/16\/on-enneagrams-for-writers-by-carol-malone\/","title":{"rendered":"On Enneagrams for Writers by Carol Malone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WhatIWishILearned\"Welcome back our author, Carol Malone<\/strong><\/a> as she continues her theme, \u201cWhat I Wished I Learned First.\u201d She answers the question posed at the end of her last month\u2019s article: How can we change our reader\u2019s experience and have them say our books have transformed their lives?<\/strong>\u00a0She shares about using enneagrams for writers.\u00a0Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

About Fatal Flaws<\/h2>\n

The first workshop I took in January of this year was \u201cFatal Flaws\u201d<\/a>\u00a0taught by the excellent instructor, Laurie Schnebly<\/strong><\/a>. \u00a0As a romance writer, we all want to write about the perfect hero \u2013 a giant of a man, an alpha male, strong, determined, handsome-to-die-for, kind to kittens and small children, a friend to humanity, able to fix all the problems of the heroine, sexy as he#@, and all the rest of the outstanding qualities we expect. However, these characters are unrealistic and frankly \u2013 boring. Nobody can be Superman all day long.<\/strong> Eventually, our characters need to transform back into the geeky Clark Kent, the man who is unable to speak to the woman he loves.<\/p>\n

Would it make a great read if the hero and heroine solve their difficulties in chapter one? {Hint: No<\/em>.}<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Would we keep reading if they were immediately happy with each other in chapter two, and have no arguments or conflicts the rest of the book? Even though we wish this were real life, it would be a totally tedious story to read.<\/p>\n

What Laurie teaches is how to make our heroes and heroines believable, realistic, and submerged in a battle for survival.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How do we do that? <\/strong><\/h2>\n

We make them like us. We give them personalities with strengths and flaws.<\/strong> Sometimes we need to give them, \u201cfatal\u201d flaws. Having these fatal flaws cause conflict.<\/p>\n

Conflict drives the story forward.<\/strong> Fatal flaws create personalities in our characters so they not only butt heads with other characters, or their love interest, but wage internal war with themselves.<\/p>\n

How often has your inner turmoil held you back, kept you from reaching out to others, or had you losing out on love?<\/strong> That\u2019s why we want to read about characters who\u2019ve overcome their fatal flaws, or at least faced them, and hopefully change.<\/p>\n

How do we give our characters fatal flaws?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Laurie explains to understand fatal flaws within our own characters, and in ourselves, we need to delve into what is termed, \u201cpersonality types.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Laurie on her website<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

“One tremendously useful tool for that is the <\/em>enneagram (pronounced ANY-a-gram) [system.] “<\/em>Ennea” is the Greek word for “nine,” so you can guess how many types there are within the enneagram system! \u2026 People have their basic enneagram number, but they also have traits of the numbers they’re connected to, and of the numbers on each side of their own. [insert enneagram pix] If you’d like to see which type you are\u2014or your character is\u2014you can take the enneagram quiz on this website, or see <\/em>The Enneagram Made Easy<\/a> by Renee Baron and Elizabeth Wagele<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What are \u201cenneagrams\u201d? <\/strong><\/h2>\n

And how do we utilize them to create deeper, more substantial characters?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"EnneagramTypesName\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Enneagrams are a system of psychological tools to help with personality discovery<\/strong>. But far deeper than knowing what your character\u2019s type is discovering what lies buried beneath the surface, or under the fa\u00e7ade they display to the world.<\/p>\n

Questions to brainstorm:<\/strong><\/p>\n