Figuring Out the Flaw

Hi all!
 Today I want to talk about character flaw!

So if you're a writer, you know about character flaws. The story can't exist without the inner struggle of the character. Now, believe it or not, I didn't know about this element before I took a creative writing class online. Now I can't imagine developing a character without a flaw, or several. If you want your character to be real, someone that you could imagine talking with, they need flaws. Everyone has them, your characters should too!

It took me a while (and I'm still learning) how to figure out what flaws to give my characters. What I've found works best for me is figuring out their background. Something in their background made them have the inability to trust or make them feel envy or lack of confidence. Now this method make not work for you. You may do it differently and that's fine. As I said in my last post, everyone has their process.

Now the reason I came up with this ideas for a post on this was because I was having a hard time figuring out one of the flaws for my main character in my new book. Her flaw was the inability to trust and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she had this. She trusted her family, she trusted her close friends.  But then I realized: there are all types of trust. There's trust in others, there's trust in our friends and family, there's trust in strangers, there's trust in ourselves and there's also trust in society as a whole and the world around us. So once I figured that out, it was easy to say "Okay my character has this flaw because..." and then it clicked.

So if you are struggling with finding a reason behind the flaw you have given your character, go back to the basics.  Interview your character if you want (I know it sounds silly but I've done it a few times and it works and its super fun). Pretend you are a reporter interviewing a famous person and asking them about where they grew up, their likes and dislikes. But I digress!

So I hope this has helped you in some small way! I love sharing my writing experiences! We're all in this crazy journey of writing together!

So go forth and write!

Until next time,

RA Odum