Create Fictional Characters That Don’t Suck—Without the Endless Rewrites.
Great characters don’t just react to a story—they drive it. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to use the Enneagram to create a compass for your characters, mapping out their worldview, motivations, and internal struggles so they stay true to themselves while evolving throughout your story. This compass will guide you through every scene, ensuring your character’s growth feels authentic and inevitable.
By the end of this three-hour VIRTUAL session, you’ll walk away with:
✅ A clear understanding of how Enneagram personality types and traits are formed.
✅ A defined Enneagram type for your character, shaping their core motivations and fears.
✅ A first-draft character compass outlining your character’s worldview, strengths, challenges, and emotional arc.
✅ Insight into how the Enneagram’s dynamic framework can take a character from a self-aware guru to a complete psychopath in nine steps of development—and how to harness that transformation in your storytelling.
This workshop will give you exclusive access to a proven character-mapping technique that only a select few writers use—giving you an edge in a competitive market. Whether you're working on a novel, screenplay, or short story, this workshop will transform the way you craft characters forever.
$125 - Intro to Writing with The Enneagram (3-HOUR VIRTUAL WORKSHOP)
When you sign up for the waitlist, I will reach out to you within 24 hours to schedule your spot in the virtual workshop. Each 3-hour session is limited to a maximum of 6 participants to ensure a personalized and engaging experience.
What is the Enneagram?
It’s a personality profiling system that blends the knowledge of ancient wisdom, eastern spirituality, and western psychology. It’s a map of human personalities that divides all the billions of people on earth into 9 Types—showing that we all have nine different ways of seeing and interacting with the world.
It’s a game-changer for character development, revealing the psychological blueprint that drives every choice, struggle, and transformation.
Who Am I?
Dash Donato
Filmmaker + Certified Enneagram Teacher
As an award-winning director (D.G.A.), screenwriter, and certified Enneagram teacher in the Narrative Tradition, I bring a unique blend of storytelling and deep character work to the table. My films have been showcased at renowned festivals worldwide—including Cannes, SXSW, Tribeca, Sidewalk, deadCenter, Outfest and more.
My passion for storytelling has shaped my career, from winning the Grand Jury Prize at the DTLA Film Festival for my latest pilot, The Last Record Store, to directing my feature debut, Gossamer Folds, which earned a GLAAD Media Award nomination for Best Picture (Limited Release) and recognition as Best New Director at the Brooklyn Film Festival.
In 2023, when the writer’s strike put my film work on hold, I turned to my other passion: The Enneagram. This powerful tool for understanding human motivations inspired me to earn my teaching certification, merging my love for storytelling with the transformative potential of personal growth. Using the Enneagram’s dynamic framework, I’ve discovered 27 unique character archetypes and 91 paths of development—a game-changing approach that brings complexity and authenticity to every character journey.
Writing is hard enough without getting lost in the weeds of plot mechanics and character inconsistencies. That’s where the Enneagram comes in—it serves as a character compass, guiding your storytelling with clarity and emotional depth. Through coaching sessions and workshops, I help writers map out their characters’ motivations, fears, and inner conflicts, ensuring their arcs feel natural and compelling.
The power of writing w/ the Enneagram.
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Emotional Authenticiy
The Enneagram unlocks the fundamental structure of human personality, allowing you to craft characters with real emotional depth. By understanding their core fears, desires, and shadow selves, you can create authentic inner conflicts that drive compelling narratives. This framework helps you tap into the raw, often unspoken motivations that shape your characters' choices, ensuring their actions feel organic and inevitable. The result? Stories that resonate on a deep, emotional level—keeping readers and audiences fully engaged.
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Character Mapping
The Enneagram offers a dynamic roadmap for character development, revealing how personalities shift under pressure, stress, or growth. By mapping your character’s journey through nine transformative stages, you can track their evolution—whether they rise to their highest potential or spiral into their darkest self. This approach brings fluidity and unpredictability to character arcs, ensuring their growth (or downfall) feels natural yet surprising. With the Enneagram as your guide, your characters won’t just change—they’ll transform in ways that keep audiences captivated.
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The Character Compass
By mapping out your character’s worldview, core motivation, core fear, avoidances, focus of attention, and the lesson they need to learn, you create a foundation that makes them feel real—far beyond stereotypes or clichés. Rather than forcing characters to fit into a plot, this approach lets them drive the story from the inside out, ensuring that every twist and turn is rooted in emotional truth. And just as a compass keeps travelers from losing their way, this framework keeps you anchored during the writing process, guiding every scene, arc, and moment of growth with clarity and purpose.
Every Enneagram Type has 9 unique levels of health, making it easier to map out your character arcs. This workshop will demonstrate how your character can go from an enlightened guru to a psychopath in 9 steps.
“The Enneagram is an ancient system of human development that shows us the limiting stories that keep us stuck in unhelpful patterns, and invites us into more expansive stories.”
— Chichi Agorom, my mentor & coach