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Character Study: Creating Compelling Characters with the Enneagram

  • Story Parlor 227 Haywood Road Asheville, NC, 28806 United States (map)

Thursdays from 6-8:30 PM

Six weeks: April 10, April 17, April 24, May 1, May 8, May 15

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 tool for deep personal growth, to transform our creative writing practice. We'll dive into the Enneagram’s triads (the gut, the heart, and the head) through teaching, discussion, and the Embodiment Tradition – an experiential, felt sense of the Enneagram that creates deep understanding of type.

Then, we’ll use readings and prompts to create characters of each type. We’ll craft backstories, dialogue, motivations, and dreams for characters, giving them distinct, compelling voices that will carry them through any plot. We will spend half of our time together learning, and half workshopping and sharing characters we're creating for our own projects. No Enneagram or writing experience is required for this course.

$400 for the full course.

Reserve your spot here.