Leaderboard

This forum looked so lonely. So… Let’s talk about creating flawed characters! Like I don’t mean “omg he’s so tortured it’s sexy” kinda flaw, I mean non-sexy flaws. Things that add a little bit of ugly to an otherwise attractive character. I personally think every character needs a little ugliness added, especially in smut fics (Not counting PWPs in this statement. Everything goes out the window for PWPs) where most of the main characters tend to be on the sizzling side. I think lots of people have a line they draw in the sand between redeemable and not-redeemable. Like if your character is super sexy, but he keeps raping neighbourhood grandmothers, I probably won’t root for him no matter how many animal shelters he donates to or how many sonnets he writes. But there’s ugliness to me that is redeemable that isn’t so redeemable to other readers. Someone who kills, for example. (In fiction only!) Someone with explosive diarrhea (though I wouldn’t necessarily want to see him in an anal sex scene). Um… What else? Scars and stuff are too attractive, but horrific burns over half their body aren’t so much. A penchant for completely inappropriate jokes? Racism?

38133 (a spoiler alert box on Count to Infinity? That’s new.)

In some ways, I do and yet I don’t really care whether every reader even likes any or all of my characters much less holds out hope for some form of redemption. I will provide the redemption in my own way, even though most will not see it. As with all things, there is a balance most commonly sought between the readers' perception of right/wrong, good/evil, etc. The character traits that I tend to instill within my original works are more along the lines of attitude and personality because it's so much fun to let out the evil now once the reader has 'fallen in love' with the character. Unless of course, they're looking for a goody-goody which is entirely boring! Characters that have the ability to reach out and grab the hearts and minds of the reader should be just as diversified (within the contextual setting) as people are in real-life. People, in my opinion, are like diamonds, there are many facets to an individual personality. Which one sparkles depends greatly on which way you turn the diamond, so it should apply to characters. I’ve read through numerous stories in the archives and honestly, the ones I love the most are the ones that hold my attention because as a reader there is some level of redemption sought, but it’s the fact that I didn’t get my way that makes the story so much more appealing to me.

Authors can never be redeemed because they’re the master villains

So, none of us here is redeemable?

Hmm.. maybe I’m just too cynical (I am getting old now!), but I believe that characters, like people, are mostly selfish. That’s the most realistic flaw you can write into any character, whether they’re yours or not. Sure, they all have moments of altruistic selflessness, as do we all, but I really think at the end of the day the great majority of the world goes around thinking about itself. And usually in quite a small way too, rather than master!villain selfishness. ie. worrying what other people think is probably pretty high up there for most people. Sad but true. I don’t exclude myself from that either. Whether a character is redeemable or not (let’s imagine they have a more major flaw for a moment) is an entirely different kettle of fish. I don’t think the two are necessarily connected. Bad things happen to good people, the same as they happen to bad people, and vice versa. Doesn’t mean anything. Doesn’t make them better, or worse, than they were before said event. I like irony. I like it when characters doom themselves in surprising ways, and make traps for themselves, sometimes millennia in the making, and they still don’t see it coming. That satisfies my evil muse. The problem with redemption is that it’s largely a mythical concept. Kind of like: everywhere you go, there you are. You can’t escape yourself. No character is redeemable in that sense. Ok, so a character could maybe stop doing a load of despicable stuff like murder, rape, dismemberment etc. But unless they’ve had some kind of drastic conversion that’s changed them completely into someone else, underneath they’re still pretty much the same dickhead, they’re just.. well.. dry drunk. Sorry, I can’t think of any other easier, short way to describe it. And then there’s the outside world, and how that can interact, because characters don’t live in a vaccuum. I said I like irony. The redemption of characters can be argued for or against, but if they then go and damn themselves via what is generally supposed to be one of their “good” qualities – what then? Or better still, if on the path to some kind of “redemption” they’ve gotten hold of the very instrument of their doom… then what? If the character really deserves their fate, taking into account everything they’ve done, isn’t that kind of balancing? Sorry if I wandered off topic a little. I tend to do that a bit.

Here’s a good piece of article on how to write character flaws.

Well, in the above example, the *why* to their nose picking could be a different trait...like an obsessive compulsive disorder (to keeping their nostrils clear). Perhaps the character had a near drowning experience and though they nearly died due to a stuffed nose? Just feeding the plot bunnies…

Character picks nose and eats off his finger. Can’t use the “It’s good for immune system” excuse. Otherwise decent person, just a disgusting habit they’re semi-oblivious too. Other character wants to break them of it. It works then… they start chewing their toenails. Because flaws are interesting.

It’s the example I point to as where my database helps, so I can track these things, because I had ages ago, listed a more generic shellfish allergy. This was after cursing Google for pushing diarrhea cures when I wanted to trigger it… go figure. When I do want to bring some significance to a character, I’ll roll the dice, effectively, and run a utility I have that picks random lines out of a file. I’ve got files for personality traits, hobbies, allergies, occupations, and phobias. So, I’ll pick, say 10, and see what makes sense, and create a character for that. I use the random thing, since although it’s easy to say “I want the character to have flaws”, trying to pick those traits while also not overusing a few favourites, that’s tougher.