Characters: Imperfection

I am hoping that Freya will write a post on finishing a story soon. I can never sick with stories, so I'm hoping her post will help. In the mean time, I will write yet another  post on characters. Today is imperfection.

Ask any person, and chances are, they will say that no one is perfect. If they say that, they are correct. Jesus was the only person who ever lived that was 100% perfect. It's true that some people were close, but close is not 100%. So naturally, you can't have a perfect character... with a few exceptions. If your character is perfect, or close to it, at least call attention to it in the story, otherwise people are going to think your characters are weak and unrealistic. If your characters do have flaws, don't let them say sorry every time. Unless you're writing a bigography on a Saint. No one can identify with characters who don't hurt, or get angry and mean it. They can to be mean sometimes, or rude, or even hateful. It is okay to do that to your character, even when he's the hero.

Weaknesses are another thing. Even superman had  a weakness. So did Mr. Incredible, he had a soft spot for junk food and his family. The weakness doesn't always have to be negative as you can see with the latter example.

So make your characters real. Make them human. Give them bad habits. Give them a short temper. It's okay, you can do it.


Fill all the lines of a notebook page with flaws you can give characters. Keep it for future reference.

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