Dialogue (18 page)

In reality, achievers don't have boring lives. They live more interesting

lives than many of us, always doing something, always engaged in some exciting activity or new project. They're driven by the need to succeed.

How does this show itself in dialogue? The achiever has to win arguments because she has to succeed, and she can't look dumb or like she doesn't know something. In dialogue, the #3 will be talking fast. Sometimes another character will be talked into something and not know how that happened. The #3 can easily overwhelm the more sensitive #5 (the observer) or #9 (the peacemaker). And the achiever really knows how to "work a room." In group dialogue, the #3 will bounce from person to person, networking, exchanging information, working hard to impress others with what she's capable of.

#4 — the artist

Artists are motivated by the need to experience their feelings and to be understood, to search for the meaning of life and to avoid being ordinary.

As a #4 myself, this Enneagram number is a little difficult to discuss objectively. It seems like I can find something negative about all of the Enneagram numbers but this one. I wonder why that is? I recently asked a friend to tell me something she found annoying about the #4. She knows I'm a #4, but that didn't seem to stop her.

"Oh, it gets old that everything has to be a big drama," she said. "And they're so myopic."

I gulped. "Myopic?"

"They're so focused on themselves, you know, everything's about them."

"Oh yeah..."

"And they can't seem to be happy with what is—they're always missing what they don't have—"

"Okay, that's enough," I told her, feeling depressed.

I found a #4 in Jane Feather's novel
The Accidental Bride.
The protagonist, Phoebe, is definitely a drama queen and quite a handful for her new husband, Cato. It's a marriage of convenience, which makes her feel less than special. And artists need to feel special. In the following scene, Phoebe has just spilled red wine on her wedding gown at the feast after the wedding. When Cato scolds her for the way she's scrubbing at her gown and making the stain worse, her clear and dramatic #4 self emerges.

"I fail to see what difference it could make, sir," she responded acidly. "It's a hideous gown and it doesn't suit me."

"What on earth do you mean? It's an extremely elegant and expensive gown," Cato said, frowning. "Your sister—"

"Yes, precisely!" Phoebe interrupted. "On Diana it was exquisite! On me it's hideous. The color doesn't suit me."

"Oh, don't be silly, Phoebe. It's a very fine color."

"For some people."

Cato had given her only a cursory glance as she'd come up the aisle. Now he looked at her closely. She was looking so flustered and rumpled, with her hair escaping from its elaborate coiffure; even the motherless pearls had somehow become twisted around her neck. Maybe the gown didn't suit her as well as it had Diana, but there was no excuse for such untidiness. She just seemed to become unraveled before his eyes.

Phoebe continued savagely, "But of course new gowns are a frivolous waste of money."

Cato felt unaccountably defensive. "There is a war on, Phoebe. Your father felt—"

"He felt, my lord, that the money should be spent on pikes and muskets and buff jerkins," Phoebe interrupted again. "And if I have to wear this ghastly ivory concoction, then so be it."

"You're making mountains out of molehills," Cato declared.

Exactly. That's what artists do—they love making mountains out of molehills, and they really don't understand how others can just see a molehill when the situation is clearly a mountain. There's a dialogue scene later in the book where Cato is trying to teach Phoebe how to ride a horse and the lesson turns into a disaster rather quickly because of Phoebe's pension for drama. She ends up calling him a "horrid teacher," "a damned tyrant," and tells him quite directly that she wants a different teacher, because no one could learn anything from him. Phoebe's emotional outbursts seem to baffle Cato, but they don't surprise me at all.

Okay, for the #3 or #8 who just wants to get something done, or for the #5 who wants to withdraw and think about things, all of this loud emotion and unnecessary drama could be disconcerting, I suppose.

I probably don't have to tell you how to use an artist in a scene of dialogue. While they are full of creative ideas and relate warmly to others, they're also the ones who are bursting into tears at the smallest thing, blurting out angry words before they can get hold of themselves, expressing

fear before there's anything to be afraid of. There's always a kind of flurry of excitement in their corner of the room. Think about how you might use this character in a story; he can be a lot of fun, even though, okay, a little annoying.

#5 — the observer

Observers are motivated by the need to know and understand everything, to be self-sufficient, and to avoid looking foolish.

The observer in your story is not the life of the party and is not the center of attention. She's the one standing off to the side watching, observing, taking notes, reading, thinking, and playing mind games with herself. If someone does engage her in interaction, she chooses her words carefully, so sometimes it takes her a while to form her thoughts and put them into words. In a scene of dialogue, this character can often seem withdrawn, detached, and even arrogant. She is definitely an introvert.

I had a #5 friend who, in a group, no matter what we were discussing, would just sit there and listen and watch. He was a deep thinker and I knew he had something to contribute, but I always had to ask him to do so. And when he did, it was interesting, important, and everyone listened.

In Robin Lee Hatcher's novel
Promised to Me,
I'm guessing Jakob is probably a #5. Here he is, his typical self, in a scene with his wife Karola after their barn has burned down. He's angry and closed off to Karola, not wanting her help and really just wanting her to go away.

"I don't have time to rest, Karola." He straightened again, this time scowling at her. "You don't have any idea the trouble we're in."

"Then you should tell me."

"I don't want you to worry."

Exasperated, she said, "How can I not worry with you acting this way?"

"You don't understand."

Karola took a deep breath, trying to control her sudden anger. He was being bullheaded. He was pulling away from her again, the way he used to. He was keeping things bottled up inside and excluding her.

She took another deep breath. "I will get a pair of gloves and help you. Two will make the work go faster."

"You can't help me." He motioned with his hand, a gesture of dismissal. "Your skirts might catch fire from a live spark."

"I can tuck my skirts into my waistband."

"No."

"Then I will put on a pair of your trousers."

Jakob shook his head. "Karola, I'd rather be alone."

"But you are not alone. I am with you, and God is with us. Do not shut us out because of this misfortune."

"You and God aren't going to get us a new barn." He slapped a blackened glove against his chest. "I've got to figure out a way to do that."

Karola stared at him, heartbroken and furious at the same time. "Jakob Hirsch, have you so soon forgotten what Christ accomplished for you? You have made him too small in your eyes. Do not be arrogant and prideful. Ask him for help. Pray and ask."

"You'll have to do the praying, Karola. You're the pious one in this marriage. I've got to take action."

If Karola comes off as the "pious one," it could be because she's a #1 (the reformer), always pointing out what's right and wrong in her perception. This could be irritating to a #5 who reads and studies and thinks he knows what should be done in a given situation. In the above scene, Jakob thinks it's silly to sit around praying when it's clear what needs to be done.

You can see by this example how you might use an observer in your story. In conversation, they sit back and make observations, thinking things through for what can seem like a long time before offering anything to the subject at hand. Let the other characters draw your #5 out. If she thinks others really want to hear what she has to say, she'll offer her opinions, and once she gets going it can be difficult to shut her up.

#6 — the questioner

Questioners are motivated by the need for security. Phobic questioners are outwardly fearful and seek approval. Counterphobic questioners confront their fears. Both of these aspects can appear in the same person.

I suspect that most published authors don't have the Enneagram specifically in mind when creating characters for their stories. Still, I think some of this stuff is intuitive because skilled authors create characters who are consistent with the points of the Enneagram. The other day, for example, I was reading Anne Tyler's
A Patchwork Planet
and could clearly see that the protagonist's mother was a questioner. The protagonist is Barnaby, a young unconventional male who was married for a short time to Natalie and with whom he had a daughter, Opal. In the following scene, they've been divorced many years. Opal has come to visit her father and he has taken her on his rounds. He works for a company called Rent-a-Back, Inc., helping old and disabled people in their homes or in nursing homes perform chores they're too feeble to do by themselves. In this scene, he's talking with his mother about a recent visit to a nursing home. He took Opal with him and his mother, the #6, doesn't like this.

"Barnaby Gaitlin," my mother said, "what could you have been thinking of?"

"Huh?"

"Taking a nine-year-old to a nursing home!"

"So?" I said. "You have a problem with that?"

"She says there were people in wheelchairs everywhere she looked. Old people! A woman with a tube in her nose!"

"Geez, Mom," I said. "What's the big deal? We're keeping it a secret there's such a thing as old age?"

Yes, we were evidently, because my mother threw a meaningful glance toward Opal, who kept her eyes downcast as she stirred the salad. "We'll just let Opal stay with me the rest of the day," Mom said. "I'll take her to see Gram and Pop-Pop."

"Well, I don't know what you're so het up about," I told her.

Barnaby's mother was so "het up" because she was scared. Of old people? Who knows? We don't often know what a #6 is afraid of. The #6 often doesn't know himself. He just is.

In the very next scene, Barnaby's mother is worried that Opal, in Barnaby's care, isn't eating right.

Mom was miffed when I told her we'd have dinner at a friend's house. "Friend?" she asked. "What kind of friend? Male or female? You might have told me earlier. Is this a person who knows how to cook? Who'll give her fresh vegetables, and not just a Big Mac or whatnot?"

"It's someone who'll serve all the major food groups," I assured her. "Well, I want you to know that I'll hold you to blame if Opal gets a tummy-ache," Mom said.

A few scenes later, when Barnaby's new girlfriend remarks to his parents, "You must be very proud to have raised such a caretaking person," his mother shows her surprise and says:

"Why, thank you, Sophia," my mother told her. "That's sweet of you to say." She glanced down the table to Dad. "It's not as if he hasn't caused us some worry, in times past."

Questioners are
always
worrying and are skeptical of any kind of encouragement or kind words, not really believing in the sincerity of the words. I sense that maybe Barnaby's mother doesn't believe Sophia when she tells her what a caretaking person Barnaby is and how, as his mother, she's raised him to be that way. Hmmm, maybe Tyler does use the Enneagram to develop her characters.

In any case, when the questioner speaks, it's out of a place of either fear or skepticism, especially if he's feeling insecure. This kind of character can be a lot of fun to develop in a story because in a scene of dialogue he's jumpy and questioning everything the other characters are doing or saying, never accepting things at face value, always suspicious of everyone's motives. The questioner's fear is endless. In any one scene of dialogue, he could be fretting about everything from earthquake preparedness to nuclear war to, like Barnaby's mother, if someone is eating right.