Flaws
I’m late too, Sasha. I hate being late but so much of the time I’m behind. It’s a fault I have. Much of the time I’m late because life is super hectic in my house–three kids (four–if you count my husband, which I pretty much do) two dogs, and two cats.I hate to use excuses but any one of these humans or animals can change my schedule in a matter of minutes. But when it comes down to it, it’s a fault and I can’t stand it, and trust me, I am trying hard to fix it.
So, this late thing kind of leads me into what I want to blog about this morning and that’s, “flaws,” or “issues,” characters must have. I’ve done quite a bit of critiquing over the past few years of manuscripts and judged a handful of contests and one thing I have seen repeated from writers is that they’re heroines are perfect. I’m sure those of you who write out there have heard it before, “Give your characters flaws.” It makes them real. It gives them a three dimensionality that if you write them without flaws, forget it. It won’t work.
Yes, you want to have readers love your heroine, but I can tell you that if her only flaw is she bites her nails then again–no deal. What I’m talking about is internal flaws here. The kind that stem from issues–typically leading back to child hood. They are flaws like insecurity, self-esteem issues (but you have to be careful here not to make her out as a victim, because just as perfect heroines aren’t likeable, neither are victims.), control freak stuff, demanding, posessiveness, spoiled–I can go on, but when you start out writing your heroine make a list of possible flaws and how they developed, and then as you write her story you develop her story arc, which should be a natural progression of working on her internal flaws. They never go away completely. Flaws are part of what makes peolpe/characters who they are, but people improve or not (but your heroine needs to) as her story unfolds.
I have two different mystery series that I write, so I write two very different heroines. In my wine lover’s mysteries my heroine Nikki Sands manages a winery in Napa Valley–she’s torn between two men in her life and she has the misfortune to come across dead bodies frequently. Nikki’s has a few flaws but her major internal flaw is that she has trust issues. This stems from childhood from an emotionally unavailable mother. It affects Nikki as an adult with her relationships with men and even her friends. However, from book one to now book 5 (which is due now), Nikki has slowly learned to let go and trust more, and because of that she has found true love and cemented some great friendships. She is still dealing with this issue, but has gone back to the root cause of it and looking at her relationship with her mother.
In my horse mysteries, Michaela Bancroft is my heroine. Michaela is fairly bitter in the first book after working through a horrible divorce and dealing with a tragedy in her life. She also has some control issues as she’s watched her codependent mother coddle her father and his gambling addiction for years. Michaela is a little more complicated than Nikki, but like Nikki her growth is progressive. By the end of the third book TACKED TO DEATH, Michaela has also learned to love a man again, and she has let go of some of her control issues–not entirely, but some and is still working on it.
So there you have it–FLAWS are vital. It’s what will make your heroine interesting and real. I wish in real life we didn’t have them. Then I’d be on time, but it’s not the case. I’m still working on my flaws and so are my characters.
Cheers,
Michele
www.equestrianink.blogspot.com
