by Robert Lambert

Created on: March 08, 2010

All writers seem to agree: characters who are not flawed are boring, and your readers will fail to relate to them. I agree that these statements are essentially true in most cases, but let us analyze why this is the case and how we can apply this knowledge to the craft of fiction.

What precisely is a flaw? Here is where we meet our first roadblock, as people holding different beliefs can strongly disagree about whether a given trait is a flaw or not. For example, an Objectivist would consider faith to be a negative trait, a flaw, whereas a Christian would consider it a positive trait, an advantage. However, said Christian would not likely claim that a character having faith makes them less interesting. So it seems we must look at a flaw as something different from simply a negative trait.

Flawed characters are often contrasted with perfect characters. And what is perfect? Well, consider a perfect circle. Two perfect circles, in fact, both the same size. Any two circles of the same size are by definition identical. Here we come to the first reason why "perfect" characters are considered less interesting. Two perfect characters are identical, there is nothing to distinguish them from one another. But let's go back to our circles. The problem is that we started with perfect circles, which are a mathematical abstraction. All real circular objects are imperfect. They're only approximately circular. And this is what we mean by "perfect." A perfect character is an abstraction with no identity of its own, it is the base model that we start with in order to sculpt a real character from it. It is a blank slate. Casting a perfect character in a novel is rather like serving a pile of raw ingredients in place of a finished meal.

In the same way that all perfect circles are identical, all perfect characters are as well. And conversely, in the same way that no real circles are identical, no real characters are identical. Flaws are those things that differentiate them from one another. Therefore, we can say that flaws add specificity to a character. Think of a character as referring to possible people. A perfect character could refer to any person at all. But introduce a single flaw, and that character can now only refer to people who have that flaw. In character-driven fiction the goal should be for your character to refer to as few people as possible, to make them as specific as possible, because that's the way the readers can relate to them

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