Our favorite characters feel like people we know. Their conflicts and desires leap off the page, and they linger with us long after a story ends. But writers commonly struggle to create characters whose vibrancy matches people in their favorite books, or in the real world. Even when a character emerges initially with a strong voice and backstory, we often lose that intensity and struggle to rediscover it as a project continues .
In this workshop, we’ll use the Enneagram, which has long been employed as a profound transformational tool for personal growth from fixation to essence, to transform our creative writing practice. Over three sessions, we’ll dive into the Enneagram’s three triads, or centers (the gut, the heart, and the head), and explore the Enneatypes in each through teaching, discussion, and the revolutionary Embodiment Tradition – an experiential, felt sense of the type that creates deep, empathic, and holistic understanding.
Then, we’ll use readings, prompts, and exploratory questions to create fictional characters of each type. Through working with the personalities of each type, the movement of the pattern the instincts, and the wings, we’ll craft backstories, dialogue, motivations, and dreams for characters, giving them distinct, compelling voices that will carry them through any plot. We’ll share our creations with the group in a supportive setting.
Note: This workshop is open to anyone who feels called to creative writing – whether you’re a published author or use writing as a private, reflective tool – as well as anyone who would like to use creativity to explore the types more deeply for themselves and their personal growth. There are no prerequisites, and no previous training in the Enneagram is required. Feel free to come in with characters you’ve already created and would like to workshop. Attending all three sessions is recommended, but not required.
About the instructor: Ali McGhee, PhD, is a creative writer, a Core Faculty member of the Enneagram School of Awakening, and an Accredited Professional with the International Enneagram Association. She completed her doctorate in English Literature at the University of Rochester and has taught writing at UR, UNC Asheville, and Warren Wilson College. Her fiction has been featured in publications including Dark Mountain and Slippery Elm Literary Journal, and she was a finalist in new fiction contests for Glimmer Train and New South. She was selected to perform her work as part of Craft With A Stranger and Object as Poet, collaborative exhibitions for the Center for Craft in Asheville, NC. She is currently finishing her first novel.
Time: 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Cost: $100/session ($275 total if you join all three)
Virtual: Meetings will be live, and Zoom recordings of sessions will be released to participants afterwards
Attending all three sessions is recommended, but not required:
Saturday, Nov. 13: The Gut Triad (8,9,1)
Saturday, Dec. 11: The Heart Triad (2,3,4)
Saturday, Jan. 8: The Head Triad (5,6,7)