Character Flaws

An optimistic character is flawed, because they will be blind to small signs of problems.

Maybe flaws have more to do how you write a character than the character's personality. The flaws are inherent in every character; the writer just needs to see them and make sure they have consequences.

Or like you say, we don't need to think in terms of flaws at all. Flaws are not separate entities that can be removed from a character.

 

An optimistic character are flaw if and only if that optimism is a cause of problems during the story.

 

sorry, double post

 

While other replies in this thread are very good for academic discussion, I think this is the best and most practical approach a writer should adopt. Don't impose flaws on your char's personality, just make sure you create scenes where they are tried and tested, if the char you have created is realistic their flaws will naturally come out at some point.

 

Yeah, the academic approach was interesting and I could have engaged in that conversation, but I didn't feel it was actually useful to us as writers at all, except for tying us in more knots about how to write characters.

 

I agree completely. When I hear 'my character needs flaws,' I immediately think of those fun fill in the blank character creator charts that I loved so much when I first started writing. What better way to imagine your character than throwing a ton of adjectives into different boxes?

But the problem with that approach, at least for me, is that it doesn't actually solve the problem of who this person is- it just provides a series of descriptions and judgments of them, with no demonstration through their actions. Often, traits would feel random, disconnected from other aspects of the character. I think the problem begins when we separate the supposed 'good traits,' from the 'flaws.' Because one person's stubborn, pigheaded control freak is another's focussed, detail-oriented multi-tasker. Viewed from the lens of the enemy kingdom, the heroic, relentless knight is nothing more than a murderous thug.

So at the end of the day, we're still left with the question, who is this person? And as always, the only way to know is to show us. I don't buy into 'a good character needs at least one flaw,' because if that character is in fact a good character, they are by necessity already limited, incomplete. Because that's what people are. Even the best singer in the world, to certain ears, is a soulless, screeching hack. The things we label as 'flaws,' can simply be demonstrated through your writing- at what point does their determination go too far? When do they pass the boundary of nice and become an over-trusting liability? Surely if your hero is the bravest man in all the world he's either caused himself great injury or is responsible for the death of a friend for continuing to push a fight that he/they simply could not win. The best flaws, in my opinion, are borne from the same characteristics that make your character exceptional.