Hello People!

I just thought I would start off my writing session with another post here. I guess I am like most starting writers when it comes to character creation. I have been reading several books on the subject just so I can find the best way on how to create characters. To be more exact I need to find my own way to create engaging, interesting and stimulating characters.

I have had in my possesion Karen Wiesner’s “First Draft in 30 Days”. It has several templates in it that range from the setting to research. One of them is a Character Sketch template. An example of which is below…

Physical Description:
==============

Character Name:
Birthdate/Place:
Character Role:
Age:
Race:
Nationality:
Marital Status:
Eye Color:
Hair Color/Style:
Skin tone:
BodyBuild/Weight:
Style of dress:
Characteristics or Mannerisms:

Personality Traits/Background:
====================

Internal Conflicts:
===========

External Conflicts:
============

Occupation/Edcuation:
===============

Character Description:
===============

This is pretty self explantory. I have been using this for awhile in so far as creating characters is concerned. Now today I have been reading “Believable Characters: Creating With Enneagrams” by Laurie Schnebly. So far I think that this book on character creation is quite good. An enneagram by defintion is a circle with nine personality types drawn around the outside of the circle. Each personality has a major flaw which is in the 3rd column below. Each personality type has 2 elements of other personalities as characteristics, traits or subtypes which is in the second column below.

1. Perfectionist      4 and 7      Major flaw     Anger
2. Nurturer            4 and 8      Major flaw     Pride
3. Achiever            6 and 9     Major flaw      Deception
4. Romantic           1 and 2      Major flaw      Envy
5. Observer           7 and 8      Major flaw      Avarice
6. Skeptic              1 and 3      Major flaw       Fear
7. Adventurer        1 and 5      Major flaw       Gluttony
8. Leader               2 and 5     Major flaw       Lust
9. Peacenaker        3 and 6     Major flaw       Sloth

Now remember this. Each personality is capable of each flaw. Because any character might feel any of these flaws given the right circumstance. Each one of the nine personality types has a couple of elements of the other nine and one major flaw. The two elements and the major flaw will help to create both the internal and external conflict aspects to any story. Let’s say you have a Adventurer protagonist versus a Perfectionist antagonist. Things could get very heated here. A Darth Vader type of antagonist being the perfectionist he is does not tolerate mistakes and will kill anyone in his employ who makes them. He will also kill anyone else who tries to get in the way of his plan. Then you have Luke Skywalker who in my opinion is something of the Adventurer personality that opposes Vader. We all know the rest of the story. To get a really good feel for what the enneagram looks like you may want to google it or by this book. It is quite interesting. Well that is it for now. I will be back for another posting. William out.