On writing characters

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When writing characters we usually stumble upon a term like “flawed characters” this of course refers to flaws for everyone on your cast, aimed to make them more human, more relatable, and more realistic. That’s the general gist of it.

Now I often see people asking for flaws they could give their characters, as an afterthought, which isn’t bad at all (it’s even good that they want to write flaws into their characters) but I’m a very avid advocate of writing characters as they are, human, complete with flaws and all. So for this lovely challenge, brought to life by Sybil, I’m going to share my general process when writing “character flaws.”

Truth be told it usually just happens naturally and I don’t have any plan when writing up a character, but something to consider is that you can always write flaws from virtues. A character who’s too nice for instance. Being nice is a virtue, being too nice might lead to being very selfless, being naive, etc. These are flaws that come from positive traits. It’s very realistic, relatable, and very human.

While writing from virtues is a good way to write flaws, there are a million other approaches. I tend to poke fun at my own flaws, exaggerate them, and embed them into my characters. Things like over confidence, naivety, suspicion (sometimes paranoia), not taking anything seriously, selfishness, and many more. These flaws add more depth to the characters, you could even say that they give them more character, which is what makes these flaws so interesting.

Their flaws should be present, but don’t necessarily need to be “overcome” by the end of the story. A selfish character doesn’t always have to commit (heroic) selfless deeds and the shy heroine doesn’t have to speak up, but these are things to consider and things to work on. We love watching characters grow and what better place to do that than their flaws? I mean we still want people to be better, right?

My character flaws usually attribute to not being able to express oneself. It’s a flaw, in a sense, that (drastically) affects how the characters act. It’s one of the most interesting to me because it’s close to home. It can manifest in in-eloquence, indecisiveness, indifference, conflict, and a whole lot more. Communication is really important and not being able to properly communicate your thoughts or emotions is quite a hindrance.

So then how do you handle that? Well, characters help each other. As they get to know one another and as they develop a bond, they make note of character A’s trouble with expressing themselves and they help them by trying to find the words hanging from character A’s lips. It’s a flaw that does not need to be overcome. It’s a flaw that’s very present in he story and it’s a very human flaw.

Writing character “flaws” is not a thinking process for me, as you might have noticed. I just try to make my characters human, based off of my own humanity or on those around me. That’s what ultimately makes them flawed.

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Happy reading and writing everyone!