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3 tips to writing character flaws

1) make their flaw congruent with the rest of who they are.

There’s a lot of different ways to do this, most commonly I’ve seen the “their strength is their flaw” which you can do but I’d recommend exploring it more deeply.

For example, maybe they’re good at attacking things head on, being honest and straightforward, but because they’ve always relied on that they don’t have the practice or an inclination to rely on other methods such as being more crafty, diplomatic, and subtle which are traits a situation sometimes calls for. I call this the “wrong tool for the job” flaw where an over-reliance on their strength handicaps them in situations where a different approach seems better suited. I think people and characters also just have a habit of using their tool for the job rather than the ‘best’ tool.

2) Don’t just tell us their flaw, show it.

Show this character trait coming out in their actions, have it influence the plot in key moments. If they’re reckless, don’t just have another character call them reckless, have them act reckless in a way that impacts their relationships with other characters or the plot.

3) Screw the whole “strengths vs flaws” thing altogether

try viewing character traits outside of a rigid binary of good and bad that you pull from a deck, and instead derive/connect them to deeper truths about who the character is, (how do they deal with problems/what is their ‘go-to’ method? what do they value? what are they skilled or unskilled at? what do they believe about the world and themselves?) and then why the characters is that way (note that it doesn’t all have to come from trauma. Please don’t attribute everything to a trauma. General life experience informs a lot of beliefs/traits, and then some is also just an inborn inclination) I have a longer post about how I tend to try to build a cohesive layout of who a character is.

Note as always, that these just things that I currently find helpful. Use or discard as works for you and your work. Happy writing!

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Not to be making my third post about the bar scene from S1E10 Psych, but I refuse to believe that Shawn didn’t get Lassiter someplace safe for the night in some way or another, so here’s a doodle

Plus a bonus from my thumbnail sketches since I think it looks funny

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(Psych S2E3)

just appreciating that the first person they cut to drawing their gun is Lassiter

But also kudos to Juliet calling the gun the fastest, it really takes teamwork to keep Shawn alive apparently

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The first part of Macgyver S2E2 is so entertaining. Riley is having her angsty moment but the three boys are just refusing to let her get in trouble with Matty. Like...

Riley: I messed up and lost the EMP :(

Jack: It was my fault

Mac: It was my fault too :)

Bozer: we lost the EMP

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I forgot these little obnoxious dumbasses weren’t ubiquitous

They deliver people’s food to them at a snails pace. They shriek like a fire alarm if someone tampers with them. They sometimes just stop and ponder life in the middle of a sidewalk. I love them.

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S1E10 psych. Such a simple parallel but damnit it got me good

A few episodes further down the line I think this episode was huge in terms of their relationship. Sure they’re still them, but after this episode there’s a level of tolerance and mutual respect that wasn’t there before

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A few of my first time watcher thoughts on the Psych S1E10 bar scene

1) wholesome af

First off, I think it might be the most serious I’ve seen Shawn thus far and he’s been to way too many murders for me to be saying that. The guy looks so earnestly concerned and out of his depth

Then, him trying to hype Lassiter up is endearing as hell. Couldn’t even include all of the compliments because of the dang image limit

2) no comment

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Anyone who says lying is innately evil has never lied to take the fall in place of a sibling or friend cuz then it’s downright holy

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New mood just dropped: Gus standing uncomfortably in the background while Shawn and Lassiter… manhandle each other?

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Watched the pilot for Psych and my first impression is how hysterical it is that this guy is like “yo, I know what’ll make the police department take me seriously: pretending I’m a psychic.” As if those two things aren’t completely incompatible

Then, of course, he ends up in this situation. He’s committing so hard to the bit it’s commendable.

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I've been rewatching Pride & Prejudice (2005) and now it's a personal head canon of mine that Darcy is the type of introvert that is haunted in the middle of the night by that awkward thing they did that one time. Like, just imagine

Darcy, musingly: “did I really have to bring up the ‘circumstance of your birth’ when I was proposing to you? Could I not have been more… tactful?”

Elizabeth, sleepily: “technically you said ‘inferiority’.”

Darcy: “…”

Darcy, voice cracking: “whAT, really?”

And then like a week later Darcy and Elizabeth are lying in bed at 3am when Darcy rolls over and in a horrified whisper goes: “did I truly say ‘the inferiority of your birth?'”

“we’ve been married for a decade, dear, you can let it go now."

“why’d you ever marry me? inferiority, couldn’t I have simply said circumstances? Why the hell did I say inferiority?”

“Please go to sleep.”

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I’ve been watching Supernatural for the first time recently, I’m most of the way through season two atm and I’ve noticed a bit of a trend

Dean (or Sam): “Hey, so I know [Big Traumatic Thing] happened and you’ve been a bit torn up about it…”

Sam (or Dean): “I’m literally fine I don’t know why you keep asking me.”

Spoiler alert: he was not fine

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Why does bro sleep like the family guy death pose?

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Another Macgyver hug compilation! I have to say these are some of my favorite hugs in the whole show. Mac, Jack and Cage hugging and jumping around in a circle is adorable, Jack giving Bozer not one but two hugs after getting his stuff back is so cute, and of course Jack pulling Riley from the trunk just doesn’t need elaboration

(First four are S2E02, next three are S2E06, last three are S2E07)

Links to my first and second hug compilation

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Not to sound like an alien, but I love the way people do people things.

The way someone wearing long sleeves stretches out their arm before checking the time to pull the end of the sleeve back enough to see the watch face. The way some people kick their feet up onto a raised surface to tie their shoe instead of just crouching down. The way people will give a door an extra shove to give the person behind them enough time to get through too. Everything mundane, everything absentminded.

I don’t know if I had a point, I think I just like the reminders that everyone around me is just as vividly, incessantly, alive as I am. How can life possibly be a simulation, how can I be the only brain in the universe, when I just saw someone exasperatedly gesture for a little delivery robot to go ahead of them at a crosswalk?

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Just a small compilation of Elizabeth being lovely. I love how nonchalantly she took to feeding and looking after all the strays Peter brings home.

(White Collar. First two S3E14, next three S1E10, last two S5E04)

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Even putting all the intellectual theft aside, and just how frankly lifeless and ugly it is, I feel like there’s something so innately hollow about using AI to generate stories or art in the place of actual creation. It’s like inventing teleportation and using it to materializing to your final destination. You can call it convenient, but you just missed the entire point of a road trip. You missed learning how to drive, you missed watching the land shift around you, the rumble of an old engine flowing through you. You missed pitstops at gas stations, you missed hotels or the pitched ceiling of a tent. You missed everything that actually mattered just to say you went some place.