Does Your Character Have a Weakness?
Written by Harry
November 21, 2008
Every character has a weakness. Even the most powerful antagonist and the seemingly invincible protagonist have their Achilles’ Heel.
Weaknesses help define your character and make him interesting as much as his strengths. Who wants to read about the perfect person? It’s no fun when the character can do everything and do it perfectly every time. Life isn’t like that. Your character shouldn’t be either.
Protagonists
As you’re fleshing out your character you’ll have to decide if the flaw you give him is one that he or she has always been aware of or if it’s one yet to be discovered. Maybe someone else discovers it on behalf of the character, revealing it to light.
The idea behind a good flaw is to go beyond the usual basic fears and turn them into something unique. Start with a flaw that your readers can relate to. For example, maybe your character is afraid of the dark and he or she can’t sleep without a nightlight.
Ask yourself why the flaw exists. What event triggered the flaw’s existence? Did the character get scared as a child by an imaginary monster in the closet or under the bed? Was his or her father a fireman or militiaman? Did he get called away one night and your character woke up the next day to find his father was killed in the line of duty?
Now think of which flaw is more interesting. I’d say the death of the father. Not only is there a fear of the dark, but there are abandonment issues to toy with as well.
Antagonists
Many times, whether in a role-playing game or in a fiction novel, protagonists meet an antagonist who seems invincible. By giving that antagonist a real and often simple weakness turns the tide of the whole plot.
A novel or game plot can revolve around finding the weakness of the characters your character faces and exploiting it. This task might take some time and might entail your character overcoming his weaknesses in the process, but it can lead down some very interesting roads.
What is your character’s weakness? What would bring him to his or her knees if anyone found out?
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
I agree Harry, but I also like to carry it a bit further in my own characters.
Rather than just one ~big~ weakness, I find it interesting to have a web of weaknesses, that can also become strengths in certain situations.
In my own life I know this is true - what can be a weakness somewhere can also be a strength in another situation, or have led to the development of a strength as an adaptation to it.
It can also be seen in some fiction. A known example would be Captain Kirk; whilst he did have weaknesses of being impulsive and insubordiante, it also gave him a tendency for decisiveness.
Such a character tends to win some and lose some based on their entire character, rather than just straight win or lose in defined situations.
I love this article. I think it really hits home for me because it echoes a defining moment in my own writing. (hee, my writing)
At first Cooper seemed like one of those annoying chinkless characters. His armor was intact, thick and lead-solid. Silly me, I forgot who was writing him! Of course James wouldn’t have a character who wasn’t deeper than the Dead Sea. Once I realized that as a writer, and Lizzy had there merest glimpse of it as a character… game on! Most of the excitement of writing Lizzy vs. Johnny is finding ways for her to crack that armor without beating herself senseless on its surface. (Granted, there’s a lot of that happening as well, but trial and error is part of the fun.)
Once I figured that out, writing came alive with excitement and possibilities for me.
@Patrick: I think we both do the same thing. I usually start with the big issue and break it down to figure out how that big weakness came about, which leads to a lot of smaller weaknesses.
@Nicole: In gaming many times the characters the Storytellers create have a lot more experience than the player characters and on the surface, they look invincible. It’s easy for a player to get discouraged when they seem thwarted at every turn by the STPC (Storyteller Player Character). The truth is, if you as a player dig deep enough you’ll find that these characters have some very human weaknesses - they’ve just learned to hide them better!
Think of when you were a kid. As we’re growing up many of us think that our parents are superheroes. They can do anything and are afraid of nothing. As we get older we see that our parents are just people too and they’re not perfect.
The reason for weaknesses is that they offer other characters a way to affect your character. Drama is all about characters affecting each other.
A weakness that does not do that is far less useful; a mere quirk.
Tommis last blog post..Dungeon seed generator
@Tommi: Yes, conflict is what it’s all about, whether it’s an internal conflict or a conflict with another character.