Tag: Writing

How to Use The Enneagram App to Create Better Characters

2021-06-20 / James

The Enneagram for Writers App is a handy little pocket guide to the Enneagram. Read on to find out how to use it to improve your characters…

Characters in stories need to feel complete and whole and real.

What does this mean? Well it means they need to be full of conflict. But also consistent. As a writer you get told these things all the time: make your characters consistent. Oh and full of surprises. Yep, Writing is hard.

Fortunately the Enneagram can offer just that: Consistent characters that are brimming with contradiction…

For a brief introduction to what the Enneagram is, and how it can benefit your writing, I have put together a complete introduction to it here.

How to use the Enneagram

If you’re already familiar with the Enneagram, then let’s go into a bit more detail.

How the Enneagram can help

Let’s start with where most writers go wrong. (many? some? I actually don’t have the stats… but bear with me.)

The first mistaken trying to create interesting characters is just to make characters randomly quirky. You know the one: Big ego, terrified of snakes. Okay bad example. But you know the thing. There needs to be some inner consistency to the character, some inner gravity or they’re just going to fly off like a set of loose cannons.

This is where the Enneagram helps. Each personality type has a core idea running through them like the writing on a stick of rock.

One of the other biggest mistakes writers make is to write characters just like themselves (particularly the heroes).

In these stories, everyone is anodyne and doesn’t really have flaws or contradictions, and all the characters are alike.

This in turn pours cold water on any chances of conflict (A writer doesn’t want bad things to happen to people like them! They don’t want that character make stupid decisions that they then have to pay for! To suffer pain…) So conflict gets set aside.

But that’s exactly what we need from a character in a story!

With the Enneagram for Writers you have psychological templates for nine different types of people. Each type is like a different chemical element, or a different flavour of personality. Each type is anchored to a particular way of seeing the world, a particular belief, that affects how they interact with the world – described through their various traits.

So the Enneagram offers a writers a core personality and belief that the individual character can be built around.

Download the Enneagram for Writers on the App Store

How to use the Enneagram for Writers App in your writing

The first thing to do is make sure you understand the different types. Spend some time looking around the various traits that each character type displays. You’ll start to pick up that common notion that drives everything a particular character does.

The next job is to assign each of your characters a particular type. This is most important with your main character, but also with your secondary characters so you’re making sure you have a wide range of viewpoints and potential reactions.

You can go to the My Projects section to create a new story and store the personality type of each character.

Don’t feel you have to cover every base. It can work well if you hero and villain are the same type but with different approaches. Both could be after exactly the same thing and show there are many routes to a goal – but offering the audience the chance to consider which one they approve of. Also we hate the things we recognise in ourselves right?

Then for the major characters consider where and when they are going to display elements of the various traits. The more they do display, the more rounded they will appear.

This is where the Enneagram journey comes in.

The Enneagram Journey

A character usually starts in Act One displaying a notion of their Holy Idea (effectively the Thing They Believe is Very Important). Fairly early on the character will make it clear that “this is the sort of thing that’s important to them” – whether it’s justice (Reformer) or being original (Individualist). However in that first act we’re also going to get a sense of their Ego Fixation (effectively the Thing They Obsess About). This is also sometimes called their flaw. Remember the Enneagram deals with psychology so you need to think of a way for that flaw to manifest itself. It’s no good having the character just say “But I do get angry when I see injustice…”!

By having the character express their Holy Idea (through action) but also inadvertently display elements of their Ego Fixation we instantly see a character in inner conflict…

In Act Two, the character is propelled to try to achieve something in the real world. In this act they’re balancing two other traits.

The first is their Burning Desire that pushes them towards something and the second is their Great Fear that they subconsciously are constantly avoiding.

Most of your screenplay is going to be about putting your character in a situation where they want to reach the thing they desire and the thing they fear is in the way.

The Enneagram also describes the Temptation of the character type – that behaviour they revert to (or are tempted to revert to) in their darkest hour. Most characters reach a point in the story where they go to this place. They become, for a while, un-likelable. It’s necessary if they are to be saved again…

In the latter part of the story the characters must face their Vice and a Virtue. Usually they are presented with a choice that is theirs to make alone.

Whether they chose Virtue (a selfless expression of ourselves – putting ourselves before others) or Vice (the selfish path) should only become clear at the very end. This is the point that we the audience decide whether we’ve seen an up ending or a down ending… Either way we’re kept waiting to see how it turns out… guessing to the end about a character we really feel we know…

Conclusion

By adding an Enneagram type to each character we suddenly have a set of consistent, but contradictory actions that offer almost endless possibility AND a fully formed character arc.

So in summary the Enneagram

Gives us a core personality to shape the specific character around
Tells us how a character will most likely react in a given situation
Defines the sort of goals, flaws, desires, fears, bad behaviour a character type possesses, and their potential to become a true hero or despicable loser.
Gives us the framework for our character journey
Gives us a unified view of character that still bubbles with contradiction
Guarantees we won’t just write ourselves – and even if we do we have the tools to explore those flaws we know are there!
Provides a ready made, but infinitely adaptable character arc

So if you’re interested in exploring the Enneagram more and finding out about each of the character traits, head over to the App Store to download the Enneagram for writers app. You’ll understand your characters – and just maybe the other people around you – more!

How to Create Richer Stories with the Themes for Writers App

2021-06-19 / James / 0 Comments

The Themes for Writers App is a handy way of tracking the theme of your story in order to be sure it resonates with something the audience cares about. In this post we’ll explore why every story has a moral, why that moral belongs to one of the seven themes and how you can make your writing richer by going deeper into the world of your themes.

So let’s start with the basics…

Your story’s moral and your story’s theme.

Most stories have a moral, all stories deal with a universal theme.

The moral of the story is an answer to the question “what is the story really about?”; what’s the universal truth wrapped into your story? When you finish a book or a film you’re often left thinking about the questions it raised – is killing ever justified? Are we caring for the people we love or are we smothering them? What’s more important: loyalty or justice? At the end of the tale the writer shows us a world and says: like it or not the world is like this. The moral can usually be summed up as a phrase: “good will always triumph over evil” or “you can’t beat the system”.

Your story’s theme is, for want of a better phrase, the sphere of human experience that the moral explores.

These thematic areas are basically the seven things that human beings care about deep down: the quest for love, the urgency of survival, the need for justice, the journey of knowing oneself better, forging riches, establishing power or the need for recognition.

In the Themes for Writers App these are summarised as:

	Love
	Survival
	Justice
	Self Awareness
	Money
	Power
	Glory

The Seven Story Themes for Writers

The idea that there are only seven themes was first attributed to celebrated writer Goethe. When I heard about I couldn’t get it out of my head. There are a fixed number of things that we care about. Our stories always circle around at least one of these themes. I hope that once you get to know these themes you’ll begin to find them in the heart of each and every story.

Sometimes you will find several themes being covered in a single tale. However the most common approach is to explore many different aspects of a single theme and this can help create a really rich story.

Morals in Themes

In most stories, the theme is fairly obvious – a romantic comedy is about love: the importance of love; how love isn’t always easy to achieve. Morals of a love story could be: “To love someone else you have to let some part of you go”, or “to find love you have to first conquer your fears”. These are “love morals” and your story, while being about love in general, should depict (but not hammer home!) the moral.

It’s quite common, particularly in films for the moral of the story to be clearly stated by some character other than the hero – very early on. Pretty much every film will have some character deliver some piece of advice like “You know, if you want to find love, you’ve got to let something go.” At the time, it just sounds like another wise piece of unhelpful advice. But as the movie plays out that – without ever saying it again – that statement will nag at the audience. Is he/she going to be prepared to let that thing go? Surely he realises he can’t have her and the trophy? Oh you idiot don’t go after the trophy – go after her! The audience is practically screaming it at the screen…. The hero is the last to realise…. Wait, it’s not the trophy that’s important… its her! This is when we the audience get a kick! Yes! Finally! It’s an incredibly satisfying moment for the audience. Tease them with it then give it to them in the end.

(Or kill him or her off and tell them “well you’ve learned a lesson today folks” depending on what sort of mood you like your audience to leave in.)

The points are

Bury the moral early, so the audience have it in the back of their minds
Never repeat it verbally, just show it playing out
To do this, know your theme
Your moral relates to one of the themes.

Once you’ve seen this in one movie, you’ll spot it in pretty much every one. For more on this and other brilliant movie-writing advice (“Theme Clearly Stated”) check out “Save the Cat” by the late great Blake Syder.

Values and Themes

Just as there are seven themes, there are also different flavours or values in that theme. It’s your job as a writer to offer a rich journey through all the different aspects of that theme.

In a story about Love there are often lots of different types of love: Romantic love, Buddy love, the love that comes from knowing someone for decades, the love that is better for being fleeting or unobtainable. The more of those elements you throw into your screenplay mix, the better, the richer it will be.

As well as the positive side of the theme, equally important are the negative side, the neutral side and the deepest, darkest side.

In the Themes for Writers App we refer to those values as

	Neutral
	Positive
	Negative
	Nadir

Themes for Writers: the extremes to visit in your story.

I’ve listed them in this order as this is usually how we meet the flavours of these values in the story. I’ll now explain

Neutral – When we first meet our characters they are experiencing the neutral version of the theme. They’re ticking along – but something is missing. There is a lack of Justice. They’re Surviving by just living an ordinary life. But there is a sense that something needs to change…. Love is missing from someone’s life, the prize is just out of reach, our hero is effectively powerless. The hero is clearly lacking something in that thematic space.

Positive – Then the opportunity to experience the positive version of that theme is presented to the character. They see how good the world could be! They meet someone they could love! They are presented with an opportunity to win something amazing. So they go after it. And pretty soon they meet the…

Negative – Life isn’t smooth. Nice things don’t always come our way. Here is a fundamental truth: when we become aware of the positive side of something we care about, we very quickly uncover the nasty side of it too. In a world where true love is a goal, we need to be aware that there is a nasty, seedy side of love too. To reach the positive we have to learn how to cope with the negative.

Most of the rest of the tale is about swerving between not just one of these positive aspects of the theme, but many different versions of the positive and negative aspects of this theme. Amazing romantic gestures have to sit side by side with the saddest, most pathetic, heartbreaking version of anti-love. And at some point we have to reach rock bottom. This is the…

Nadir. The Nadir is the very lowest point of the tale. Not only has everything gone wrong, it’s gone irretrievably wrong. It’s a moment in the story where the very worst version of the theme rears its ugly head. Often the Nadir has a hint of deception surrounding it – the person we thought loved us was actually cheating on us, or using us. The power we have was used to cause unbearable suffering. Justice lets us down, rewarding the wrong-doers.

The Nadir serves a very specific purpose. It is this

The Nadir stretches the elastic of our despair so that when it is overcome we are catapulted into a joyful place. The worse things get, the better it is when they are resolved. In other words – the key to a satisfying ending is to precede it with a very real and terrible possible outcome…

In this way the Theme also helps structure our story.

If we were to draw a diagram of how the themes play out in our story it would look like this

The Story Themes arc showing where significant versions of the theme present themselves.

In the above schematic we see that we begin in the world where there is an absence of a specific thematic value. In a Money story, say, we start with someone getting by – just ticking along, but then an event opens up an opportunity for them. A positive vision appears: someone just gives them a million pounds, or a secret treasure is revealed. This gives them a purpose and drive.

The story then plays out and at some point they realise that this thing they’re chasing isn’t all its cracked up to be… There are negative aspects too – they’re going to have to learn how to be sensible with their money or that not everyone can have money, and those that do aren’t always deserving. This is where you have to be at your most inventive – present the audience with all the joys and horrors that the quest for this theme can bring.

This whole host of good and bad aspects of the theme make the picture actually looks more like this:

After a few of these ups and downs, there comes a moment where the hero faces the worst of all version of the theme. You as a writer also need to come up with some extreme negative – but the Themes for Writers app should be able to help. Here in the Nadir the hero faces extreme corruption perhaps – they are invited to become part of an elite of secretive billionaires controlling the world: this is what money can do to people!

So having faced that awful situation, they are finally prepared to make the right choice. Again, it’s up to you to tell the audience what that is: “it’s better to live in poverty than to be part of this elite cult”, or “the hero uses their riches for good rather than evil,” but usually there is a positive ending.

It isn’t always a positive thing that crashes into the hero’s world. In a horror for example the arc might look like this where a big negative (a monster) kicks off the story; there is a moment where the heroes think they know how to beat it; it reveals a deeper horror (they’re one of hundreds of kids slaughtered this way) and perhaps they never quite escape…

Negative Theme Story Arc — As long as you are mixing up various aspects of the theme you will find the story is rich and eventful.

Conclusion

I hope this post has helped you

Understanding how important having a clear theme is in your story
Inspired you to take a theme and run with it
Think about how to enrich your story by visiting lots of aspects of your theme
Given you the tools to think about where to place significant Theme moments in your writing for maximum resonance with the audience

The Themes for Writers app can help you keep track of the themes of many stories, or the multiple themes in one story.

2016-02-06 / James / 0 Comments

Welcome

I’m James Marson. I’m a writer based in south London and author of comic sci-fi novel “The Colour of Robots”, which you can read more about here.

You might also be interested in the Little Apps for Writers which are little handy app tools for storytellers.

Please get in touch if you’re interested in hearing more about any of my current projects.

And now on to my latest batch of silliness: The Lazy Planet Guides….

How to Beat the Blank Page…

2016-08-21 / James

…Well, don’t have one in the first place.

No, not a trite answer, despite how it sounds. The trick is to always have ideas. Always let the ideas flow. They’re like butterflies and you have to catch them. And then you have to squeeze them into little boxes to make them look pretty to other people so they’ll go “Hey that’s pretty neat” and not recoil in horror at the half-crumpled dead insect you have in your hand.

Okay, maybe I took that analogy too far.

Let me explain.

An idea for a show or a movie usually comes in two forms – an image or a “what if…” It comes out the blue, WHAM, and suddenly you feel like you have a great idea for a movie/tv series You see it in your head, or you imagine a situation – and your brain quickly extrapolates it out – you think “I want to see that movie!”.

That’s your butterfly. Catch it.

Because that is exactly how you want people to feel when they read about your show in the paper or online. You want them to feel the way you did at that moment. Because at that moment it is a great idea for a movie.

Basically in writing you start with a brilliant, perfect idea then stretch it into 30, 60 or 110 minutes without fucking it up.

But a great movie or TV show needs to do lots more than just be one great scene or image. A great script has to do lots, lots more. But, you need to catch your butterfly and write it down.

Yes. Have a notepad with you. Or something like Evernote. Or iOS Notes. Capture what you thought.

Have a notebook. Yes it's an order. — Have a notebook. Yes it’s an order.

Now you need to fit in the presentation case, or if the dead butterfly with the pin in it analogy is upsetting you, you need to create a lepidopterarium, or butterfly house, and yes I did have to look that up.

I’ll talk more about that in the next post… but in the meantime, here are the key takeaways.

Carry a notebook with you
Learn to recognise story ideas
Learn to catch them in as few words as possible…

Back soon
photo credit: Pencil, books, and notepad via photopin (license)

photo credit: Specimen via photopin (license)

Capturing Your Screenplay Idea in One Line – Part 2

2016-08-22 / James

Capturing your Screenplay Idea in One Line – Part 1

2016-08-22 / James

Of course you can’t compress your idea into one line, can you?

Well here’s the bad news. You’ll have to.

At some point someone is going to ask you to summarise your project in one line. Usually with a 140 character limit. This is a recent thing stolen from Twitter but at least it stops writers creating the kind of tortuous sentence that leaves a reader gasping for breath even if they haven’t read it out loud, just to make sure they’ve covered everything.

So, you might as well do it up front.

For this, I take the advice of a couple of experts who definitely pointed me in the right direction here.

Firstly here’s a great technique for catching your ideas in a form that makes them juicy and enticing.

It’s from advice by the marvellous Stephanie Palmer. Stephanie writes an insider blog on the business of being a screen writer and offers great advice to about how the system works. This is mostly the US Studio system but more and more these days the UK recognises this as a good way to work. Only without the studio system they have over there.

I would urge you to check out Stephanie’s Site – Good in a Room. Not now obviously! Bookmark it or something. Thanks.

Anyway Stephanie says you should capture your idea in the following form, which is a little bit how you would describe it to anyone else:

My story is a [GENRE] called [TITLE] about a [HERO](in a situation) who wants [GOAL] despite [OBSTACLE].

(full glorious post here ). Same rules on running off. This is the important bit here:

Do this for every one of your ideas. Write them all down. Then look closely at them. Does it have a clear genre? Medium ?(TV, Film, Radio) AND Genre? (Comedy, Sitcom, Family Drama, Crime Drama). Does the title MAKE SENSE with everything else? Do you have a single LEAD CHARACTER? Of course if it’s an ensemble piece the HERO can be a group… Do they WANT something tangible? Are they properly OPPOSED? Is there going to be some, or better LOTS, of CONFLICT (which is basically the single most crucial thing EVERY story needs.)

If you have made good decisions about all 5 elements here – chances are you’ve got something you want to write! If not – you have a problem. You won’t know it yet, but if you have a weak element in these 5 areas then your story will be flimsy and will fall apart in the writing, the explaining or the selling.

Here’s a (bad) example:

My story is a show called “Chocolate” about a group of people working in a call centre.

Okay, here we go.

That’s right we’re going to tear it apart

1. 1. Show? What is it? Theatre? TV? Reality TV? Is it meant to be funny. Am I meant to laugh? Or be scared? Be better than that. Give me detail. Detail is what brings something visually to life. All writers have to be POETS. You have to learn HOW TO DESCRIBE SOMETHING VERY SPECIFIC IN AS FEW WORDS AS POSSIBLE. Use what I call visually explosive words. Be as specific as possible. Identify brand. I learned this reading the pilot screenplay for Breaking Bad but I should have learned it much sooner. Find it online. Read the action – Vince Gilligan calls out VERY SPECIFIC things we SEE. So distilled detail is what we’re aiming for here:
    
    My story is a TV sitcom called “Chocolate” about a group of people working in a call centre.
  2. Title? Chocolate? Why the fuck is it called Chocolate? “Oh because their lives revolve around talking about their favourite chocolate.” No good. It needs to be clear why it’s called what it’s called, without having to offer up an explanation. It’s needs to change to something more relevant. How about “Call Me”? So now we have:
    
    My story is a TV sitcom called “Call Me” about a group of people working in a call centre.

Hero? Who’s it about? What sort of people are they? Focussing on one character makes things clearer so why not pick a twenty-something woman. Why her? Well perhaps a reverse engineer from the title – call me? Maybe she’s looking for love and ends up fantasising about the lives of the people she talks to.

My story is a TV sitcom called “Call Me” about a day-dreamy twenty-something girl working in a call centre who fantasises about falling in love with the people she talks to.

Now she has a goal (to find love) and there is sort of a conflict between reality and fantasy – but it would be even better if there’s a tangible real world antagonist… How about her (…who would be the worst person..) – a sleazy office manager? Or a love-lorn friend. I’ll pick the latter as it feels less likely to be uncomfortable.

My story is a TV sitcom called “Call Me” about a day-dreamy twenty-something girl working in a call centre, who fantasises about falling in love with the people she talks to while managing her love-lorn friend.

(And the more astute of you will realise this is more than 140 characters so if I only had the Twitter pitch I could use the following (you can drop the title because you’ve usually given it, and arguably you’ve already mentioned the genre:

Sitcom about a girl working in a call centre who fantasises about falling in love with her callers while looking after her love-lorn friend.

Sitcom about a incurably romantic girl working in a call centre who fantasises about falling in love with the people she talks to.

Both sell the idea – but capture it for yourself using the single sentence rule above.

Either way – which of the following can you SEE?

Sitcom about a girl working in a call centre who fantasises about falling in love with her callers while advising her love-lorn friend.

vs.

Sitcom called “Chocolate” about a group of people working in a call centre.

And the most important thing is to capture the most inspiring version of this idea… one that when you come back to it, you’ll immediately think “YES I WANT TO WRITE THIS NOW!”

Start with a simple idea… then surround it with the right elements to make it burst into life.

Do this, do this for every idea you have.

Save them in the one document so when you think you’re running out of ideas, come back to them. I currently have over 60 of these… From ideas for horror films to one-off TV dramas to situation comedies.

Don’t have blank pages… have stacks and stacks of butterflies, all safely captured in such a way that shows off their beauty in the best light….

Right, I’m off to write a TV Sitcom about a day-dreaming girl working in a call centre who fantasises about falling in love with the people she talks to, while tending to her love-lorn friend.

🙂

How Do I Know I’ve Got A Great Idea For a Show?

2016-08-21 / James

You don’t.

Here’s the truth: No-one does.

As brilliant screenwriter and guru William Goldman once said – “No-one in Hollywood knows anything”.

People think they do otherwise they wouldn’t spend millions of dollars/pounds/bitcoins making what they’re convinced is a hit movie or TV show. They just wouldn’t. Every penny invested in making a movie or TV show is done so because someone thinks it’s going to make them lots of money.

You’ll have realised that “making lots of money” isn’t the same as “being a great TV show”. And there’s the problem. Unless you have an idea that someone thinks is going to make money, it isn’t going to get made. This is true of publishing, theatre or any other form of writing.

So if no-one knows anything, how do you give your brilliant idea the best chance of getting made?

Well, here is the curious dichotomy of the creative world. And it all comes down to the following:

Originality vs Forecast

I’ll unpack that statement.

One one side, audiences (and producers and commissioners) love originality. Who doesn’t? A new character we haven’t seen a million times before, a new setting, a glimpse into a world that we have no idea about, a new moral lesson about the world we live in now, a fresh perspective. We yearn for new experiences. The novel (as in new) is exciting! If you are going to write – YOU have to write. You have to write AS YOU. You have to write ABOUT THINGS YOU CARE ABOUT, about places YOU KNOW ABOUT. Your job is to come up with brilliant new ideas and stories from your imagination. NEVER FORGET THAT. This is yours.

On the other side, if someone is going to lay several million pounds on the table to make a TV Show or a movie then they better have some idea it’s going to work.

How can they possibly know that?

Well, this is where formula and forecasting come in. And here are the main rules:

Things that were well received before, stand a good chance of being well received again. (hence Sequels and Franchises)
Movies and TV Shows that follow certain formulas and tick certain boxes tend to result in higher audience satisfaction and therefore viewing figures/sales (more on this in later posts)
Movies and TV shows that can be summed up in a single line that makes the listener or reader SEE that movie/show (and like it) are more likely to get eyeballs in front of it. (just as you felt when you had your idea).

And the rest is marketing. Stars are marketing. Big posters are marketing. Don’t worry about that now.

So suddenly your best chance of success is to be both amazingly ORIGINAL and DEEPLY PREDICTABLE. Or, if you prefer, RELIABLE…

How?

It starts with the idea. The idea needs to tick a few boxes to even get of the starting block. Here is what it needs to do:

Post itself in a GENRE
Have a great TITLE
Give a sense of CONFLICT
Have a sense of IRONY
Hint at the AUDIENCE

In one line.

How?

For this one, I’m going to turn to the experts…. You can read about it here.

Welcome

2016-01-20 / James / 0 Comments

Welcome to the Little Writing Apps blog.

Thanks for visiting.

I expect you’re wondering why I brought you here. Well, the fact is, one of us is a murderer and I intend to find out who it is.

Sorry, force of habit.

I expect you’re more likely wondering what the devil Little Writing Apps are all about.

Little Writing Apps came about because I write – and there were a handful of little shortcuts and ideas I came to rely on in my own writing. When designing a cast of characters I would reach for the Enneagram so I could be sure I had a diverse group at my disposal. When coming up with ideas for episodes and stories I would always turn to the same universal Themes for ideas. To structure, the Hero’s Journey would help both fire my imagination and keep me sort of on the right track.

I wanted these things with me all the time, so I could tinker with my ideas and capture them. And I thought others might feel the same.

The result is a combination of this blog and the apps. The apps let you have these shortcuts with you at all times in a fun and interactive way, this blog explains the thinking behind them, and for what it’s worth, how I use them.

As it takes less time to create a blog post than it does to write an app ( now there’s an understatement), I expect the blog will be somewhat ahead of the apps… So if you like a post and would like to see an app – let me know!

Disclaimery bit

I don’t claim these ideas are all mine, and I will let you know where they’re from so you can check them out first hand if it helps. I don’t claim they’ll help you make brilliant stories, with vibrant characters who have clear things to achieve in the rich worlds they live in, which you’re able to convey to the reader with an eye for pared-back detail that brings a scene to life through a few choice words and promises conflict and emotional journey. That’s your job. But they might help that journey be more fun.

Enjoy.

Happy Writing.

James

The Enneagram – Part 1

2016-02-03 / James / 0 Comments

Part 1 is an explanation of how the Enneagram works. Part 2 will explain how to use it in your writing.

Quite simply, the Enneagram is a neat little way of categorising your characters by their psychology.

According to Enneagram theory, everybody falls into one of nine character types and each character type exhibits certain behaviours, based on what drives them. For some it’s the need to put things in order, for others it’s the need to be in control, or be original, or be helpful.

As a writer, I use the Enneagram a lot.

Here are the character types, along with a brief description:

The Reformer or Perfectionist – who likes to see things in order.
The Helper or Giver – who likes to assist others and receive love.
The Achiever or Performer – who likes to win.
The Individualist or Romantic – who dreams and likes to be original.
The Investigator or Observer – who likes to know everything going on.
The Loyalist or Skeptic – who needs to trust and be trusted.
The Enthusiast or Epicure – who loves to indulge in everything life has to offer.
The Challenger or Protector – who craves security and control.
The Peacemaker or Mediator – who brings harmony to situations.

It’s easy to see how having a relatively short list of potential character types immediately creates a range of characters who all have different goals and desires – which opens the door to a wide variety of conflicts, much more subtle than simply good guys versus bad.

More of this in part 2…

Additionally the Enneagram describes some key traits of each type:

HOLY IDEA – what the character truly believes in. Where their moral compass firmly points.
EGO FIXATION – when they’re at their most selfish, they’re here.
BASIC DESIRE – what they really want on a psychological level
BASIC FEAR – what this type of person hates and takes great pains to avoid.
TEMPTATION – what is the characters compulsive behaviour. What they revert to under pressure.
VIRTUE – what redeeming behaviour this character has learnt. What they’re capable of at their best.
VICE – what they’re up to at their worst. What foul habits they have.

Again it can really help to build a character from being mostly driven by one particular aspect of their personality. It comes to define them and drive.

The traits a character displays are all related and form a consistency that makes it easy to build up an image of a particular type that is easily accessible.

Perhaps you’d like to try to work out which type you, or some of your (favourite) characters are!

To summarise the various traits of the types I’ve grabbed this little table. All of this, and descriptions are available in the App.

Type	Ego Fixation	Holy Idea	Basic Fear	Basic Desire	Temptation	Vice	Virtue
Reformer	Resentment	Perfection	Evilness	Goodness	Hypocrisy	Anger	Right Thing
Helper	Flattery	Freedom	Being Unloved	Unconditional Love	Manipulativeness	Vainglory	Altruism
Achiever	Vanity	Hope	Worthlessness	Value	Pleasing Everybody	Deceit	Truthfulness
Individualist	Melancholy	Origin	Commonness	Originality	Self-blame	Envy	Equanimity
Investigator	Stinginess	Omniscience	Uselessness	Competency	Overthinking	Greed	Detachment
Loyalist	Cowardice	Faith	Vulnerability	Safety	Suspicion	Fear	Courage
Enthusiast	Planning	Work	Boredom	Experience	Rashness	Gluttony	Sobriety
Challenger	Vengeance	Truth	Loss of Control	Self-Protection	Rejecting Help	Lust	Magnanimity
Peacemaker	Indolence	Love	Loss	Peace of Mind	Submission	Indifference	Serenity

Click to go through to the App store

If you’d like to have a pocket guide to carry around with you, then please check out the App

And, in case I haven’t laboured the point enough already… more on how to use the Enneagram in part 2! (which is coming soon)

Thanks for reading. I always love to hear your comments! – James

The Enneagram – Part 2

2016-02-17 / James / 0 Comments

So.. how to make the Enneagram work for your writing?

The Enneagram for Writers

The Enneagram, to my mind, serves two main functions.

It helps avoid some common problems by creating a consistent set of diverse characters.
It helps fuel the imagination about character-specific plot points.

What more could you need from such a simple tool! Let’s look at these in turn.

Avoiding Problems

The first and most obvious way, is to make sure that you’ve got the bases covered – that all your characters are different types.

Designing the Cast

When designing your cast – make sure you have Reformers, Achievers, Helpers, Individualists… Having a diversity of Enneagram types creates a diversity of characters – who all see the world in different ways, want different things and react differently.

Write Distinct Characters

One of the biggest traps writers fall into is to write all the characters the same. By having different types the chance of this happening is greatly reduced.

Don’t Write Yourself

Another problem is writing every character as yourself. And that means characters sound like you, and act like you. They do what you’d do (because, you know, you’re a hero too).

By getting a handle on a particular Enneagram type you can make sure you don’t make this mistake – (be the hero of your own story, not the one you’re writing!)

Fuelling the Imagination

But more importantly, the traits of the Enneagram can really help bring rounded characters to life. How? Let’s have a look.

Acting to Type

Start by giving a particular character a type, then get to know that type

Reformers like things to be neat and perfect

Look at the various traits and drivers that a Reformer has – they’re perfectionists and they like everything to be in order. This means different things are going to bother them (messiness for example) and they’re going to have a distinct reaction to being under pressure (they get angry). With seven different traits for each character there’s plenty of scope for creating well-rounded variations of Reformers.

It can help to build extreme characters (i.e comedy or small characters) around one particular trait – a Reformer who gets REALLY ANGRY about things (Basil Fawlty, anyone???)

Stoke Conflict

Having a range of different characters also creates that all important conflict.

Individualists are dreamy and creative

An Individualist (who is dreamy, touchy and obsessed with their output) and an Achiever (who is driven, competitive and sometimes deceptive) are going to create a unique dynamic. There’s a sitcom right there…

You could put them on an oil rig, in space, or in a chip shop. Or in a chip shop on an oil rig in space – but the core conflict is going to be there. And it’s those human conflicts we crave – when two people want different things – and go about getting it in different ways…

Unity

We’ve talked about differences here. But there’s also something unifying in recognising your character as a certain type. Examining the traits of a Challenger, for example, it becomes clear that they’re driven by a need for security… They challenge as a way of protecting themselves. They want to know the truth. They risk pushing others away… And this adds a completeness to the character… As an audience member we GET this character. Immediately a back-story begins to emerge… what hurt them? Why do they want to be protected?

Audiences are not particularly forgiving of inconsistent characters either. Would your Challenging protector trust someone they had only just met because it helps your plot? Not for a second. They might appear to trust them but would certainly take steps to hedge their bets, or find more about their new friend. This is rewarding to the audience. of course they’d do that… they say. How do they know? They recognise the type…

Character-specific plot points

As you can see from the above, simply by assigning characters an Enneagram type puts a spin on their interactions with everything – in a justifiable and satisfying way… How each character reacts to the same situation is a very telling route into the character – think about how each of the characters in The Usual Suspects reacts to being interviewed by the police. We know instantly that these are very different individuals.

Themes for Enneagram Types

I will touch on various story themes in another post – but for the time being it’s worth understanding that there are certain themes that suit certain Enneagram characters better.

The various story themes. To be covered in another post…

For example a moral crusade tale suits a Reformer at its helm, a detective tale might suit a driven investigator type – and a lone hero action movie would almost certainly want a Challenger taking the action to the bad guys.

The Enneagram Journey

The Enneagram Journey relates character traits to major stages of the character story

Relating specifically to storytelling I have also created something called the Enneagram Journey. This particularly applies to the hero, but can apply to any character.

The idea behind the journey is that a character must grow and change throughout the story. And each of the traits that a character displays can be indicative of a certain stage of that journey.

Journey of a Hero

Act One Ego Fixation and Holy Idea

When we first meet a character they are often self-obsessed and unreformed. Here their dominant trait is their Ego Fixation – that dark little part of themselves. For an example, an investigator type, who is Stingy and ungenerous when we first meet them.

But they also hold, or are aware of, a noble concept – their Holy Idea – for the Investigator this is Omniscience – they long to know everything – to uncover the truth. In our detective story this might be to uncover the murderer – and more importantly HOW it happened. Their Holy idea is a chance at redemption.

Act Two Basic Fear and Basic Desire

Pushed into the second act, into new circumstances they have to face their Fears and Desires. They are tested Our detective has a strong desire to appear competent and capable, and face situations where they feel useless – back and forth proving themselves, failing and trying again…

Crisis Temptation

Normally they reach a crisis point towards the end of the second act where they face their Temptation – that behaviour they resort to when they’re under intense pressure. For the Investigator this can be Overthinking – paralysis through analysis – being stopped in their tracks – unable to see the way forward. To proceed, they must overcome that temptation…

Act Three Vice and Virtue

Finally in the showdown finale there are two possible endings – They face their all-consuming and damning Vice to achieve their redeeming Virtue.

For the Investigator, this is a choice between being overcome by greed – being corrupted as the killer revealed tries to bargain them out of it, or having an opportunity to profit immensely by keeping the truth hidden. Or maintaining that cool analysis and delivering the truth while those around around them lose their heads. Either can be the result keeping the audience guessing to the end. A positive ending or a negative ending – just make sure you’ve given the audience enough reasons for them to reach that end (if they fall victim of their vice, we like to see it coming, if they’re rewarded for their great virtue it’s because they’ve earned it)

So I hope you’ve got a sense of how the Enneagram can help keep track of your characters and inspire your imagination.

As always take as much or as little as you like from this – it is not prescriptive merely intended to help fuel your imagination as a writer.

To get a handy pocket guide for the iPhone to keep with you, study and store your own character types head over to the App Store!

Click to head over to the App Store!

Thanks for reading and as always all comments welcome!

James

Tag: Writing

How to Use The Enneagram App to Create Better Characters

The Enneagram for Writers App is a handy little pocket guide to the Enneagram. Read on to find out how to use it to improve your characters…

How the Enneagram can help

How to use the Enneagram for Writers App in your writing

The Enneagram Journey

Conclusion

How to Create Richer Stories with the Themes for Writers App

Your story’s moral and your story’s theme.

Morals in Themes

Values and Themes

Conclusion

How to Beat the Blank Page…

Capturing Your Screenplay Idea in One Line – Part 2

Capturing your Screenplay Idea in One Line – Part 1

How Do I Know I’ve Got A Great Idea For a Show?

Welcome

The Enneagram – Part 1

The Enneagram – Part 2

Avoiding Problems

Fuelling the Imagination

Welcome

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