Wow, Kelly,
I love that you use that depth of detail for your characters. (Interesting article, by the way.) I’ve seen in one of the recent updates in Plottr that they’re now enabling the use of both Enneagrams and Myers Briggs attributes in their software, but I don’t know nearly enough about Myers Briggs to use that system. I barely know much more about Enneagrams - only what I learnt from Clair in her online class. But I’m fascinated with both.
The aspect that I particularly liked about using Enneagrams for the characters is to show how, as the character arc develops, they can move up or down the ladder within their E-type; showing how a tragic character, for example, would react as they descend into the unhealthy ranks of their E-type, which might well be different from how I would react … maybe. Can you use the Myers Brigg system in such a way, or as an adjunct? I can imagine that the two together would almost write the character for you—very powerful.
When I took the Enneagram test, I came out marginally strongest as a Type 5 (6 points), but with “4-point wings” on both sides, and 5-point scores each for Type 1, 3 and 9. I can’t figure out how that can be—spread out too widely. Perhaps it means I wasn’t entirely honest when responding, or maybe that I don’t really know myself well enough to respond genuinely. Who knows, but I am fascinated by the whole thing. As far as writing characters, I can be a lot stricter in making them “follow the rules”. Lol.
It’s been lovely to hear someone else is interested in these techniques for writing characters.
Kind regards,
Kathy