Have you ever read or watched movies about those perfect characters? Where their story is perfect. They fight good. They please everyone around them. Outwardly, they are good at hiding inside emotions.
Have you ever written these characters? Here's some good examples about hidden flaws.
Perhaps their only flaw is that they can't keep a very good secret. So they tell their fiance about the secret organization that they are working for. But after the organization finds out that the fiance knows, they kill him. Suddenly the character is really good at keeping secrets. (Alias, anyone?) This, at first glance, seems like a perfect character. Sydney Bristow in Alias is good at everything. She's an amazing fighter. Is brilliant. Seems to get out of every bad situation. On the outside, she seems perfect. But there is a drive inside of her soul that is hidden. A drive to find out the truth. A drive to tell the truth. A drive to be the best, moral person. She can't show this because she is a double agent and she risks her life everyday. Every once in a while she gets caught, but she always escapes unscathed. Maybe a bullet wound is left in her shoulder. But she is a very good example. Sometimes it's annoying to watch her play her double agent roles where she seems so perfect. There's these hidden flaws inside of her that show every once in a while. These hidden desires no one else knows about.
Another example of a perfect character on the outside, but has hidden desires and flaws is Olivia Dunham from Fringe. Both these TV shows were created by J.J. Abrams. A brilliant man, I might say so myself. But there is some similarities in Olivia and Sydney. Olivia is able to fight. She's a genius. She has her life inside work figured out to perfection. When she's alone, she shows just how scared she is. There's a drive inside her soul, too. A drive to figure out all the reasons behind the universes secrets. A drive to be the best person she can be to her boyfriend (future husband), Peter. A drive to please the FBI office she works for. But there's determination inside of her. A determination that leads to breaking FBI protocol. A determination that often gets her trouble. But it's there. She isn't a perfect character like she'd like them to believe.
This drive that is characters creates flaws. This drive that should be inside each character causes them to never give up and to push through anything that comes their way. But this drive will cause them to meet their worst fears. It will cause them to face things they might not otherwise face. And you have to show these little flaws.
Are your character coincidentally perfect at everything? They can fight. They can shoot a gun. They can escape out of any trap. They are witty. They are smart. They are pretty. Are they the perfect world we wished we lived in? Should they be? Or should they have as many flaws as possible?
There's many things to consider when creating strong characters (villains, allies, and main characters alike.) However, the one thing I think most modern authors get wrong is the perfection they put into the characters.
Here's some examples of characters, which you can decide on your own if they are developed right or not. And ignore my biased opinions.
Okay. Tris (Divergent) is able to block her emotions and push on. She is able to fight with a vengeance. She is able to suppress her fears. She has unlimited courage. Nothing seems to surprise her. She could have used a little more breakdowns. She did have huge trust issues. She was easily influenced. She did have a couple emotional breakdowns. But there wasn't enough flaws that appeared without digging in between the lines to find them. Which is part of the hidden desires and motives. But there was an outward front she put on, and she never seemed to take it off.
Hazel Grace Lancaster on the other hand... I can't describe how well-written Hazel and Gus were in The Fault in Our Stars. I don't enjoy the plot and no-hope-filled ending of the book, but the character development was amazing. Maybe I am biased, but John Green wrote their pain so beautifully. He wrote their fears. Their dreams that would never be able to be fulfilled. He wrote their nightmares. He described their love that wouldn't be able to bloom. John Green wrote something that would never leave my mind. He gave a whole new meaning to "falling in love with fictional characters".
Gabi and Lia Betarrini from the River of Time series were beautifully crafted. This Christian Fiction was amazingly written. I usually get worried when reading Christian Fiction because the characters are often weak. Not with this novel. Lisa T. Bergren gave them feelings, dreams, hopes and loves. All of which were crushed when they accidentally time traveled. And in that, time traveling gave them new hopes, dreams, and loves. It was a beautiful tragedy. The characters weren't perfect at everything. They weren't emotional dumps either. They were a perfect balance. I find this to be the secret. Find the in between.
I gave you some examples of good characters. Something to maybe model your characters after. Except maybe Tris. She needed to be a little... less perfect. But I'm not here to talk about that.
Five Flaws Your Character Should Have:
1. Fears. Paralyzing fears. Strange, unique fears. Fears in which if they were placed in front of that very thing, they wouldn't be able to think. They wouldn't be able to feel. They wouldn't be able to move. Don't forget to let them overcome the fear eventually, if that is in your plot for them to do. But not within the first couple of chapters. Maybe the very end. Or maybe not all. There is fears in people that they will never get over. Don't let unrealistic expectations of fears get in your way. If it was true fear, the character should be hyperventilating. Or left motionless.
2. Crush dreams. Give them dreams, then have the plot crush the dreams. Not every dream of your hero/villain/ally should be fulfilled. Maybe none of their dreams should be fulfilled. The plot gets in the way. The bad guys get in the way. Sickness and death get in the way. In reality, not every one of a persons dreams will happen. Life gets in the way. Even just growing up gets in the way of dreams. They have to crush their own dreams.
Have them crush someone else's dreams. No one's perfect. The hero could say something and crush the dreams of his ally forever. It's a character flaw everyone has. One that I don't see very often in modern fiction.
3. Bad days. Why is it that modern writers feel the need to make sure their character doesn't have bad days? Hello, that curly haired Irish girl you just made your Main Character doesn't ever have bad hair days? What even? Do you know how much work it is to keep curly hair from turning to a tangled mess? That character won't brush her hair unless it is wet, and she will have bad hair days. Frizzy haired days.
This doesn't just apply to hair days, though. Seriously, how come every knight ever in those medieval books never have bad sword fighting days? o.O
4. Sickness. Not every book you write do you need to have a sick character. But when one travels around all of Europe in the dead of winter for three weeks and never catches a cold, something is wrong. Maybe the character has a super strong immune system from experiments done on them from when they were a child. Then at least make them cold. Make them get frost bite. Or at least let them shiver.
5. Exhaustion. One of the things I try to make sure each of my characters faces at some point in the novel is exhaustion. Both physical and metal exhaustion. I try to give them headaches, or body aches from being so exhausted. They've been on the run from the villain for four weeks, have gotten less than thirty hours of sleep, none of which has been deep sleep. They're losing their strength. Adrenaline isn't even working anymore. How come they never got really exhausted? Maybe there isn't time for them to sleep ten hours at a time. You can still show their exhaustion through different forms of physical and emotional weaknesses.
Your goal isn't to create the perfect character with the perfect life. (Unless, of course, you're purposefully creating Utopia.) But there is a line between trying to make your hero, well, the hero, and making him the actual person that he is. Human or not human, every creature has flaws. Every creature has tragedies that, in the end, are beautiful. Those tragedies create drives inside of a person. They create motivation. And in that motivation, they push themselves past their limits, cause themselves to lose the battle, cause themselves to face their fear. Their flaws show more than ever. Not just a flaw that causes this character to be clumsy. It is deeper. The flaws that everyone has had since the beginning of time.
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