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How to give characters flaws
11 March 2015 02:49 pmI continue to be puzzled by instructions on 'how to give characters flaws' -- the only context I've come across this is in the is my character a Mary Sue debate, where people apparently insert lists of flaws into their sapphire-eyed flame-haired orphan enchantresses in the hopes of proving that they are not Mary Sues...
Maybe it's a thing they do on creative writing programmes. I find it hard to imagine any writer cold-bloodedly sitting down and deliberately trying to give their characters defects: people aren't lists of talents and liabilities, they're, well, people. But then I don't sit down and bother to think about what my characters look like, either, which may be a genuine flaw in my writing: they tend to appear as a set of characteristics as required by the scene at hand, and then develop further if and when the story provokes it. I still haven't the faintest idea what colour hair and eyes Célestine or old Mathilde in The Choices of Raoul may have, although I have a fair feel for their personalities despite having made them up more or less on the spot and as I went along.
Célestine is almost all defects, come to think of it, which is probably not what you would call a well-balanced character. And Mathilde is almost entirely benign. But they're not major protagonists. I hope they're 'human' for all that.
And coming across the statement "Giving your characters flaws can be difficult" still provokes blank confusion and disbelief ("why would anyone want to sit down and mutilate their own characters?") on my part...
L'Aiglonne is an Original Female Character and the heroine of a swashbuckling romance who eventually kills the villain in hand-to-hand combat, making her prime Mary-Sue material: I certainly didn't go round inserting drawbacks into her, though since she isn't a Mary Sue I dare say she must have some. Getting scared, angry and confused in the normal human measure, I suppose. The Nose would be an obvious candidate, save that she is scarcely conscious of it for most of the story!
Maybe it's a thing they do on creative writing programmes. I find it hard to imagine any writer cold-bloodedly sitting down and deliberately trying to give their characters defects: people aren't lists of talents and liabilities, they're, well, people. But then I don't sit down and bother to think about what my characters look like, either, which may be a genuine flaw in my writing: they tend to appear as a set of characteristics as required by the scene at hand, and then develop further if and when the story provokes it. I still haven't the faintest idea what colour hair and eyes Célestine or old Mathilde in The Choices of Raoul may have, although I have a fair feel for their personalities despite having made them up more or less on the spot and as I went along.
Célestine is almost all defects, come to think of it, which is probably not what you would call a well-balanced character. And Mathilde is almost entirely benign. But they're not major protagonists. I hope they're 'human' for all that.
And coming across the statement "Giving your characters flaws can be difficult" still provokes blank confusion and disbelief ("why would anyone want to sit down and mutilate their own characters?") on my part...
L'Aiglonne is an Original Female Character and the heroine of a swashbuckling romance who eventually kills the villain in hand-to-hand combat, making her prime Mary-Sue material: I certainly didn't go round inserting drawbacks into her, though since she isn't a Mary Sue I dare say she must have some. Getting scared, angry and confused in the normal human measure, I suppose. The Nose would be an obvious candidate, save that she is scarcely conscious of it for most of the story!
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