Friday, December 02, 2005
Writing Flawed CharactersNo one on Earth is perfect - not perfectly evil, or good, or heroic - so why should characters in your fiction be so?
A flawed character, be they the heroine, hero or the villain, is much more compelling if their personality is 3D. Let's take a look at my personal favorite, the villain. Beware writing the mustache-twirler, the villain who is evil "just because". We don't know why he wants the heroine dead, or the hero imprisoned...he just does.
Isn't it far more compelling when we can understand why the villain does what he does, when the reader could almost sympathize with him if he wasn't such a crazy schmuck? Those are the villains I like best. They're far more compelling and engaging to me than your average cardboard cutout "evil doer".
All of the evil of Dane Navius Magnus, the villain from Raven's Quest, (a fantasy romance I wrote under the name Joanna King), stems from the terrible flaw of "love". Passed over in succession in favor of a younger brother, Magnus does horrible things in order to prove to his dead father that he is worthy of rule. He's not worthy by any sane imagining, of course, but from Magnus' twisted point-of-view he's doing a good job.
Heroines and heroes should never escape being flawed, either. Give them a bad habit, a phobia, a tormented past that negatively distorts their current actions, and you are one step closer to creating a compelling and realistic character.
So, dear readers & writers, do you have a favorite flawed character you've read about or written? Tell us about them.
