I'm not really sure why. I just write what I imagine my characters to be, and they always end up the same. Incredibly nice, always generous, attractive, smart, etc. I am working on the basics of my characters and story right now, so it's not completely thought out and everything. Which may be a reason to my dull characters.
Well, not perfect I guess. But irritatingly good at many things. I feel like I know my characters, but just the surface of them. If that makes any sense.
Great idea, I will definitely try this out! And that second part is also helpful. In sticky situations my characters always seem to figure things out the correct way. I think I need to practice a bit with having them make wrong decisions. Thanks for adding your thoughts! I appreciate it a bunch.
@Andrew Rosemel I can't write a perfect character for the life of me. I have a whore as my MC. I've got guys with PTSD and my antagonist is a pedophile. Personally, I can't related to a character that doesn't have some likable fault. Need an dysfunction? if you can't come up with one on your own, just flop open the DSM and pick one.
This helped put things in perspective for me! I've heard of making sure your character changes the story. But having the character change the story through their flaws, is a new one. And I really like the idea of that. Thanks a bunch for your contribution! I appreciate it. P.S. I will definitely try out the "twisted version" of my character, I think that will make for a very interesting point of view.
It might not be the end of the world, believe it or not. A lot of thriller type novels seem to get away with this just fine.
On the contrary, that's where some of the most annoying perfect characters come from. Everyone is flawed, but not everyone can see their own flaws.
There you have some very fertile seeds for flaws. Nice? Ask yourself, why are they nice? Because they hate and avoid conflict? Because they grew up believing they had to be nice or no one would like them, and they really, really want to be liked? Suppose there's no pathology behind the niceness. Fine. But are they nice when they should be hardnosed and firm? Do they avoid shaking things up when they really ought to, and how does that failure come back to bite them in the rear? And generous? Resources can be/usually are limited. Does he give away his last dollars to a stranger and let his family go hungry in consequence? Does she smother other people with gifts they don't want and can't use? Attractive? Do they grease in on their good looks, and maybe get promoted to positions they can't truly handle? Are they tempted to be unfaithful to the lovers or spouses they're committed to, because they're so Damn Good-Looking they get sexual offers right, left, and center? And how are they smart? No one is up on every subject. But maybe your characters don't understand this, so they start talking off their subjects or trying to take charge where they have no expertise. Maybe they're unintentionally arrogant about how much they know, and it irritates others. Ergo, conflict. You get the idea. You don't have to strip your characters of their good qualities and give them the opposite flaws (i.e., suddenly they're all mean, stingy, ugly, and dumb). Just take their virtues and imagine all the ways those "good" qualities can make your characters screw up. It's how we humans are.
I was insulting him jokingly calling him flawed and then you come in and take it one step too far calling him a full-fledged narcissist.
I wasn't calling anyone in particular a narcissist. The reason that self-insert MCs are generally looked down upon is because it's hard for anyone to examine themselves deeply and write a character based on that, warts and all. If you're conscientious enough to get over that and write yourself as you truly are, rather than some idealised version of yourself, that's grand. I, and I'd say the majority people, aren't able to do that.
That's one of multiple reasons Oscar Leigh the character is not me; "Oscar Leigh." That and other Gary Stu related reasons. (A number of the differentiating factors are in common with my brother, lol.) And yeah, don't write you. Isn't that boring anyway? There's nothing different, it's you. I like my character because I connect with what we share but I love exploring the differences, particularly with ones that are quite different i.e Talia Kane, on of my favourites.
You say they are flawless and perfect. Considering it is impossible to achieve perfection, good luck with that. To be human is to be flawed, no body is without flaw. When I write characters, I at least make them seem like real persons (at least I try to). They get tired, screw up, and even sweat. To error is to be Human. So as for flawing up your characters, try giving them quirks, fears, incompetence (at something), dislikes, hell give them a stutter and a lazy eye. If people were the pinnacle of perfection then we would all be lame.
In all seriousness, I don't think that's true. I'm not suggesting to write a character that is yourself in every aspect, but a lot of the questions on here do seem solvable if people did consider what they would do in a similar situation. For example, if you can't think of any flaws to give your characters why not just consider what you are bad at? If you aren't good at math why not make your character bad at math since you know what its like to be bad at math. Even things a little bit more personal like being bad at public speaking or being afraid of heights or something. Seems like it would be easier to write in a character flaw you are familiar with rather than something random just because it's a sin to write characters like yourself. If you love heights, writing a character that is afraid of heights isn't going to be the easiest path. Honestly, I think a lot of the greats used their own flaws to make more believable characters. They write a character with fears and aspirations that come from familiar places. I don't really have to back that up since your claim that it wasn't okay to do that was general as well. I know "writing from experience" is common advice and guess what, if you are writing from experience then you have to be imposing your own personal traits on characters in your story.
One thing I would be wary of is simply giving your characters handicaps or weaknesses just so that they have handicaps or weaknesses so that they aren't 'Perfect'. Characters don't need superficial flaws to be complex, and sometimes this just makes their perfectness more noticeable. (For example, in Twilight, Bella is perfect, but 'Clumsy'. Being clumsy doesn't make her character interesting, it's just a meaningless addition that never really influences her.) Instead, I would give your character a useful set of skills, and then throw a problem at them that they're totally unequipped to handle. If they are going to be in an action story, then give them skills which are unhelpful to fighting. Or make them a great warrior, but start the book with them getting captured in a hopeless situation, and then disarmed. Suddenly their amazing skills aren't so useful, and they have to work out a way to save the day from a different direction.
I think it's important to consider both large and small flaws. We all have both. The main difference in both what they are and how many is between large flaws mostly. Think about it this way; everyone can mispronounce a word accidentally, trip, make a rude comment in a bad mood, forget something, or miscalculate something little. In people who seem mostly perfect, these little flaws can add up and expand. In a really bad mood, in a bad situation, it can make kind, forgiving people choose harsher, unfair decision or be selfish or something. And you can make very big mistakes. These kind of things are important for doing the less obviously flawed characters. The ones without tormented pasts or gambling addictions. Though, if your work is supposed to be particularly dark you might want to give most of your characters obvious flaws ala Penny Dreadful or some such.
That reminds me of a cool scene I had in a D&D game. My character was an illithid telepath(brain-eating tentacle monster with psionic abilities) who was very smart, but also fairly impulsive and arrogant, and combat-wise xe was a squishy caster. His teammate was a two-headed troll fighter who was very strong, loyal and tanky, but also quite dumb. We came across a room that my illithid suspected might be trapped, but xe assumed the traps were only on the floor because they wouldn't be expecting someone with xyr abilities. So xe used a levitation ability and started crawling along the ceiling to check things out. It turned out there were traps on the ceiling too, and somehow my character ended up stuck in a pit with a trapdoor over his head, and the pit was slowly filling with water. The troll would have tried to free my character, but at the same time, he'd gotten trapped near the trap controls by a falling gate. So instead he went to check out the controls, which had instructions on them in Dwarven. Neither of our characters knew Dwarven, but it's closely related to Giant, which was the troll's native language, so he could sort of make out some of the controls, enough to know he had to solve a logic puzzle and input two words that would release the lock and allow him to free me. So we ended up with my character trying to talk the troll through the puzzle, when my character couldn't see the puzzle and didn't know the language the puzzle was in, and the troll wasn't actually smart enough to figure it out himself. It felt pretty awesome when we succeeded. So both of us ended up in situations where the other character's skill set would have been more useful. The troll wouldn't have actually fit in the pit trap, was strong enough to force his way out, and even if he'd been trapped in there, drowning can't overcome a troll's healing factor, so we could have taken our time getting him out. Meanwhile my character could have easily solved the puzzle if xe was looking at it and knew the right language for it. But because we got stuck in the opposite roles, that turned out to be the most challenging encounter in the entire dungeon for us.
I never decide on what my characters will be like ahead of time. Except for a vague notion. I let their attitudes emerge in a scene. My WIP character Finlay - I knew he'd be a bit unusual before I started writing but as I constructed a scene to introduce him the real him emerged. Kooky, childish, and most important his need for control in his love/hate relationship with his mother. I think having two characters in a scene and giving them conflict is one of your easiest and best ways of revealing character. It's a way of showing your mc's flaws/opinions/beliefs without being so tell-y about it. And to make your characters believable they don't necessarily have to be over flawed. Sometimes idiosyncrasies can be just as fun. One of my favorite classic movies scenes is in Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House and features Myrna Loy trying to describe in goofy painstaking detail what paint colors she wants for each room in her house. The man in charge listens patiently accepting swatches, a piece of thread, a snippet of wallpaper and then hands off the mess to the painter. You get all that? He asks. The painter frowns and says yes - red, blue, green, yellow and white. It's funny and reveals a bit about each character no matter how minor.
Really? How cool, it's so interesting reading the different methods on how people come up with their characters/stories. And that is true about that last tid-bit. It was fun to see the different personalities of the characters reflected in a simple scene. Thanks for your suggestions! I appreciate it. And to everyone else - I have read every comment on this post, but I don't have enough time in a day to reply to all the comments. I do want to thank everyone that have offered tips and suggestions, and even a few chuckles. I really do appreciate all the help, it has really benefited me!
In my opinion, when looking at character flaws, it's less about what the trait is itself; but the way that trait is treated by the narrative/world. Is it something any character finds legitimately annoying? Does it land the character in bad situations? Because sometimes you can take flaws in a story, yet make the story in a way that the flaw never actually appears to be a flaw.
My favorite trick for giving my characters flaws: make it the same thing as their greatest strengths. One of the main characters in my Doctor Who fanfic is incredibly compassionate towards the innocent victims of evil and she is willing to die protecting them from the bad guys because she genuinely cares about them (protective: positive) ... And she is also a bloodthirsty vigilante serial killer who tortures Bad Guys to death in the most vicious ways possible (vindictive: negative). Her lieutenant on the other hand is incredibly quick to come up with several possible fighting tactics (creative: positive) ... But can't choose between one and another without his serial-killing best friend choosing one for him (indecisive: negative). Last time I mentioned this trick, the OP told me that their villain's greatest trait was his commitment to achieving his goal by any means necessary, so the positive aspect of "resolve" that I came up with to counter ruthlessness as the negative was the idea that the villain might be particularly creative and unconventional in the solutions he comes up with for overcoming obstacles that other characters in a similar position wouldn't have thought of. @Andrew Rosemel , do any of your characters have strengths that you feel you could turn into weaknesses easily?
I'm gonna try and take a different approach to this problem since I do the same thing sometimes by making perfect characters. So I came up with a little brain game. The thing is, you only see your characters how you want every other one of your characters to see them. So try this. Make two more characters. You don't need to add them to your story, just experiment with it. -Make a character that adores your protagonist. Just loves everything that he/she does, but doesn't completely obsess. Just someone that looks up to your character like a family member or that one kid down the road with the mean sibling. -Conversely, make a character that despises your protagonist. What are the reasons why this character would despise him/her. Now here's the fun part. For the first character... crush his/her dream. Think of a scenario in which your protagonist goofs and loses the respect of this character. And then think of a scenario in which the second character might think "hmm, this one might be alright." The thing is. Characters are three dimensional and have reasons for liking and disliking things. Finding that middle ground is what makes us human because nobody is perfect. This should help you dig into your character's heads a bit more so that what's in your head translates a little easier onto the paper.
Flaws, problems, secrets, and goals; these are what makes characters. If you think your characters are perfect, create tension by having another character despise those perfections. One person's perfection is another's constant source of irritation. Have you ever met someone who thinks they're perfect? Let me tell you this for nothing: they are a bore. Never put a foot wrong; always in the right. Or so they say. What of your character only makes out they're perfect when inside they are falling apart from insecurities. Take a look at Shakespearean characters for inspiration. Othello is a great and proud warrior, but he is flawed by jealousy which becomes a tool for the antagonist to use to his advantage. Hamlet is crippled by indecision; Macbeth is consumed by ambition. These are great characters who appear almost perfect except for a small chink in their armour that their enemies are keen to take advantage of.
