You may be wondering why you need to know how to write flawed characters. Why should your hero, for example, be flawed? You want your readers to love them! But here’s the thing.
Flawed characters are engaging.
They’re interesting.
Characters, just like real people, should have flaws that hold them back. In fact, to write an engaging character, you want both their good points and their bad points to be exaggerated. Not too much because that comes across as theatrical, but enough for your character traits to really stand out.
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But how do you write flawed characters your readers will love?
Option 1: Have Their Best Trait and Worst Trait Reflect Each Other
One option is to have your characters best trait also be their worst trait. What do I mean by this? Well, let’s take a few well-known examples.
Harry Potter
Harry Potter from J.K. Rowling’s best selling, beloved series of the same name is an example of a character whose best trait is also his worst trait. When you think of Harry, what stands out in your mind? For me, it’s his characteristic Gryffindor bravery. He plays a dangerous sport where it’s common for players to get badly injured. He sneaks around the castle at night despite the consequences if he gets caught. When he encounters Voldemort in the forbidden forest in the first book, he stands his ground when Malfoy and Fang run away screaming (and barking) in terror. And those examples of bravery are just from the first book. There are countless other examples in the other books.
And Harry’s worst trait is the flip side of bravery: recklessness.
In other words, Harry is brave to the point of foolishness.
While playing Quidditch, Harry takes risky chances that even the Seekers on the other teams don’t dare to. When he and Malfoy are neck-and-neck for the snitch and its taking them on a collision course, Malfoy is the one who chickens out first. Harry doesn’t, and puts himself at great risk of injury in the process.
In the second book, Harry ventures into the Forbidden Forest with Ron in tow. He knows how dangerous the forest is, but he still goes into it at night, following a trail of spiders, without telling anyone where he’s going. It’s reckless. It also moves the plot forward, bringing him and Ron into the acromantula den and Aragog, who confirms that Hagrid is not and was never the heir of Slytherin. By being both brave and reckless, Harry has learned obtained crucial knowledge that drives him to clear Hagrid’s name.
He’s also almost eaten by giant spiders in the process.
Harry is a beloved character. His bravery makes him admirable, and his recklessness makes him relatable. And both traits are crucial to furthering the plot of every single Harry Potter book, from the first to the seventh. He is an excellent example of how to write flawed characters that your readers will root for.
Katniss Everdeen
Even if you haven’t read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Colins, you’ve probably heard of the most famous scene. Katniss is standing with the other girls waiting to hear which of them will be sent into the arena to fight to the death. The name called is Primrose Everdeen, Katniss’ little sister.
So what does Katniss do?
She volunteers as tribute.
Katniss’ greatest positive trait is her unswerving loyalty, love, and dedication to those she holds dear. To her, there is no question that she’ll take Prim’s place as the female tribute for District 12. She accepts that she has no chance of winning and will probably die, but it’s worth it in order to save Prim.
But then she tries to win anyway.
Because of Prim.
Prim needs Katniss. After their father’s death, their mother is too depressed to take care of the girls properly. It’s Katniss who steps in to make sure her little sister is fed and healthy. She breaks the law and puts herself at risk to keep Prim from starving to death. Not their mother, because Katniss resents her for putting Katniss in that position. It was all for Prim.
She has to get back to Prim because she doesn’t trust their mother to take care of her. She even says so to her mother’s face when she’s given the chance to say goodbye. If she dies, she’s afraid that her mother will fall back into her depression and not take care of Prim. So she fights to stay alive.
There are three people that Katniss loves and fights for during the course of the series: Prim, Rue, and Peeta. They’re the reason for everything she does, and any action she takes to further the plot is due to her intention to save them.
But what is her flaw?
She only cares about Prim, Rue, and Peeta.
While she’s afraid during the Hunger Games, she doesn’t have much of a problem fighting the other tributes. She even kills a few without dwelling too much on it. Compared to Peeta’s compassion, Katniss is very cold.
Even Katniss realizes it after the games, when she and Peeta are forced to watch the playback, thinking to herself that she looks almost heartless up until she goes searching for Rue. There’s also another point where she comments that Prim is the only person that she’s certain she loves.
Yes, she bonds with other characters during the course of the trilogy, such as Haymitch Abernathy, Johanna Mason, and Finnick Odair. But none of them matter to her as much as the three she has chosen as her everything. There’s a reason why Katniss is criticized for being cold. It’s her major character flaw.
It also makes her dedication to those she does love stand out so much stronger. For Katniss’ character, it’s all about that contrast.
Jacob Portman
Jacob Portman is the protagonist of Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series. If you’re interested, you can read my reviews of the first three books, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Hollow City, and Library of Souls.
What I love about Jacob as a protagonist is that he is pretty much the opposite of Harry Potter and other typical male YA fantasy protagonists. Rather than being the brave/reckless combination, Jacob is careful. He doesn’t like to take any action he hasn’t thought through. The fact that he often has to think on his feet and act without weighing the possibilities in order to keep himself and the other peculiar children safe bothers him because it goes against his nature. It’s something he does because he has no choice.
It’s not a bad thing to be careful. But the flip side of that is that Jacob is fearful.
Jacob is plagued by anxiety and self-doubt. He has nightmares. Often in the books he’s shaking from terror because he feels a hollow approaching and he knows he’s the only one with the power to fight them.
How does this make Jacob a compelling character?
We, the readers, get to see Jacob power through it. He has a flaw, he is aware of it, and he does his best to work through it. Despite being scared out of his mind, he does his best. He shoulders his responsibility and doesn’t run away.
How many times have you been absolutely terrified of doing something and done it anyway?
Maybe it was a job interview, or standing up to a friend who was being mean to you. Maybe it was walking to the bus stop after dark. But I think we’ve all been put in the position where we’re very frightened but keep going because there’s no choice or the other option is reprehensible.
Everyone can relate to Jacob’s fear. And because we relate to his fear, we respect his courage.
Hitting your readers with a flaw they can relate to is an excellent way to write flawed characters that they’ll adore and root for.
Tris Prior
Beatrice “Tris” Prior is the protagonist of the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth. Divergent is a YA dystopian fiction series notable for separating the characters into four factions based on whether they value selflessness, honesty, intelligence, or courage the most. Tris is born into the Abnegation faction, which values selflessness. Despite this, she feels that she is not selfless enough. When it is her time to choose she transfers into Dauntless, which values courage.
While she is indeed courageous, she was wrong in thinking that she isn’t selfless. Her love interest, Four, remarks that she is at her most courageous when she is being selfless. Whether that’s doing a scary thing first so that her peers don’t have to or standing up for a friend against bullies, she cares deeply about the people around her. When she hurts a friend, even though she had no choice, it devastates her. All she wants is to make it right, but she can’t.
Tris always wants to protect everyone.
But that’s also her biggest flaw.
She is selfless, but she is also self-Sacrificing.
Caring about others isn’t a bad thing. Setting yourself on fire to keep others warm is.
When you sacrifice yourself, you are putting other people above yourself. Even if they don’t deserve it, and even if it hurts you.
That’s no way to live.
Major spoilers for the last book, but Tris literally sacrificed her life to spare her spineless brother, who sold her out and allowed her to be tortured, who made choices that lead to the deaths of both their parents, and who never showed any real remorse for it. He would not have put his life at risk to protect her, but she gave hers up to keep him safe.
The worst part is, she didn’t even want to. Nobody else wanted her to, either. He was chosen for the dangerous, likely-to-be-fatal mission because he was viewed as traitorous and expendable. But Tris thought the fact that she had an ability that might give her a slim chance at surviving meant that she was obligated to take that chance over someone who did not have that ability.
That makes her a compelling character. But it’s also really sad.
Option 2: Make Their Flaws Impede Their Goals
Listen, if your character doesn’t have a goal, they’re not an interesting character to begin with. You want your character to influence the plot, not be a passive character that the plot just happens to. But that’s another post for another day.
At the same time, if their goal is easily obtained, it’s boring.
How do you use character goals to write flawed characters that your readers will love?
By making it harder for your characters to obtain their goals.
I mentioned it above when we were talking about Jacob Portman, but characters who struggle are relatable and more interesting to read about. A story where your character gets everything they want and need with minimal effort is a story that won’t hold your readers attention.
Let’s look at some literary examples again. And since we focused on how to write flawed main characters in the previous sections, that’s look at how to write flawed side characters this time. After all, if your protagonist is your only intriguing character, your book has a problem.
Alec Lightwood
He’s technically a main now since he has his own series, but I’m focusing on Alec Lightwood from Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series. I have to admit, I’m not the biggest fan of Clary and Jace, the two main characters of the series. But Alec is one of my favourite characters from the series. As a quiet, introverted person, I found him to be the most relatable character in the extensive cast.
Quiet, sensible Alec has always felt overshadowed by his bold, extroverted siblings Isabelle and Jace. This, combined with the fact that he feels he has to hide the fact that he’s gay, caused him to develop low self-esteem. Believing that they are worth more, and reasoning that must mean that he is worth less, Alec tries to be satisfied in the background.
Spoiler Alert: He’s Not Satisfied In The Background
This first becomes obvious in his relationship with Magnus Bane, where Alec is unable to believe that Magnus genuinely cares about him for several books. But his low self-esteem doesn’t just impede his love life. It’s subtle in the six books of The Mortal Instruments, but Alec is actually quite ambitious and well-suited for leadership.
He’s calm, he’s collected, and he takes his allies conflicting viewpoints into consideration to find solutions to problems. These are great leadership traits. And when the group travels to the demon dimension Edom in order to rescue their kidnapped loved ones, each of them is shown a vision meant to tempt and trap them upon entering. The others see visions about their interpersonal relationships. Isabelle, for example, wants to date Simon and have all three of her brothers be safe, happy, and alive. Alec is the only one who sees a vision of himself as a hero. Not just happy and accepted, but praised. He sees everything he wants, and how his low-self esteem is preventing him from obtaining it.
Alec grows more confident later. And he does get what he wants in the end.
Since Alec is a fan favourite, I think Cassandra Clare did a great job. If you want more examples of how to write flawed but lovable side characters, you should definitely check out her books. She’s really good at writing complex side characters who aren’t just there to bolster the protagonists.
(I have reviewed both Chain of Gold and Ghosts of The Shadow Market, two of Clare’s other books, if you’d like to check them out.)
Fang
In contrast to Alec, Fang’s biggest flaw is pride. Fang is from James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series, where he is the best friend and love interest of the main character, Max. Fang’s ultimate goal is for the flock to be safe and together. He doesn’t care much about saving the world– that’s Max’s thing. And the fact that Max buys into the adults expecting her to save the world (after they deliberately destroy it) causes him no end of frustration.
He also hates any other guy who shows an interest in Max if she remains friendly and doesn’t shun them.
Instead of being mature about it, his pride makes him unable to have an honest conversation with Max that considers her point of view. It’s not surprising that his communication and conflict resolution skills aren’t stellar, given that he’s 14-15 years old. But he up and abandons her whenever things don’t go his way. Just because he comes back doesn’t negate the fact that he left her in the first place (and more than once!)
While I have mixed feelings about Fang due to the aforementioned ditching of Max to protect the younger kids all by herself, he is a popular character. So while flawed, James Patterson wrote him well enough that readers consider him one of the more lovable characters from the series.
Delia Peabody
Delia Peabody from J.D. Robb’s In Death series first appears in the book Glory in Death. Peabody functions as a foil for the main character, Eve Dallas. Where Dallas is masculine in mannerisms, Peabody is girly. Dallas is cynical, and Peabody is optimistic. While both are great examples of how to write flawed characters, I did say we would focus on Peabody.
Let’s start with her goals.
Peabody’s goal is to be like Dallas. She holds great admiration for Dallas and wants to be like her in all ways because she views Dallas as the best cop ever.
But she can’t.
She’s too different. Peabody can’t be a hardass because she’s too kind. When she tries to be gruff and cynical, she gets too excited and the act falls apart.
These aren’t bad things. In fact, they’re great! But they do mean that she can’t turn herself into a Dallas mini-me the way she wants.
It takes a long time for Peabody to realize that she can shift her goal, and it’s possible to be a good cop without being exactly like Dallas. Sometimes when you write your characters’ flaws, it makes it obvious that their original goal is not the best outcome for them.
Option 3: Their Flaws Make Them Insufferable (And Yet)
I’m sure we’ve all read at least one book with a character so flawed and unpleasant that you can’t blame any of the other characters for hating their guts. They’re selfish. They’re insufferable.
And yet they have their fans. Maybe you’re even one of them.
But why?
How do you write characters so flawed that you expect everyone to hate them, and yet some people love them?
Maybe they have enough redeeming qualities to make people like the character despite themselves, or maybe the character is in such a bad situation that people sympathize. It’s all about balance. If a character that only has good traits feels flat, then a character who only has bad traits is just as boring.
Below are some examples of how to write flawed characters that start off extremely unlikable.
Justin
Justin is one of the six main characters of Sharon Shinn’s The Twelve Houses series, and is one of the point of view characters of the third book, Dark Moon Defender. If you like fantasy books and haven’t read the series yet, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It’s fabulous!
But back to Justin.
He’s introduced at the same time as the other five characters in the first book Mystic and Rider. The group is thrown together on a quest by the king, and they didn’t get to choose their companions. Four of the six are mystics, people with magical talents. The other two, Tayse and Justin, are elite soldiers in service to the king. They do not have magic, nor do they trust it.
While Tayse makes no secret of the fact that he distrusts the others, he tolerates them for the sake of their mission.
Justin, though, has strong opinions and goes out of his way to antagonize the others. He especially hates Kirra, who is the heiress of one of the most powerful noble houses, because she is noble as well as a mystic. Justin views magic as cheating and untrustworthy, and he hates people who are born into money and power because they don’t have to work as hard as he did for their positions.
What are some of Justin’s flaws?
A narrow-minded refusal to consider different viewpoints. Arrogance, thinking of himself as better than others based on his own biased view of how others got to where they are. Prejudice against anyone that he doesn’t understand, which he is very vocal about. Added to this, he has the deep unswerving believe that his opinion is objectively correct.
We’ve all encountered people with this mix of flaws. Some of you are probably gritting your teeth with distaste as you read this.
And yet, Justin is my favourite character in the series.
What makes Justin compelling?
He starts out narrow-minded and hateful, but he doesn’t stay that way.
Justin always had his good points. His intense loyalty to Tayse, who he loves like a father, for one. And despite his dislike and distrust for mystics, he is kind to Cammon, an orphaned mystic boy who joins the party, from the beginning. But then, it’s hard to dislike Cammon.
I love Justin’s character arc because it’s like a redemption arc. Except Justin never turned evil or did anything really horrible, so it’s not a redemption arc in the traditional sense. He starts out absolutely insufferable, but as he spends time with the others and gets to know them, he can’t help but see things in them that he respects. Senneth in particular stuns him. The fact that she will fight for anyone who has no other defenders, no matter who they are, blows his mind. Justin tells Tayse at one point that he’s never done something like that, and he’s never seen anyone else do it either. Here is someone he despises displaying a trait that he respects so much that he wants to emulate it. Is it really any wonder that his attitude toward her starts to shift after that?
It may start with Senneth, but it doesn’t end with her. The group grows so close that he even begins to view Kirra as a sister: annoying, but someone he can turn to for help if he needs it. He’ll even fly to quiet Donnal’s defense if he thinks Donnal is being mistreated.
Justin could have remained an arrogant meathead of a character, but instead he grows and matures into a protector who can let the others take the lead in situations where their skills are best used. He’s a great example of not just a flawed character, but a dynamic one.
Jasper deWinter
Jasper deWinter is a minor character from The Magisterium, a mid-grade series of fantasy novels by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black. He is present throughout the series, appearing in the very first book The Iron Trial. Jasper has all the snobby arrogance that you would expect from generational wealth, though his family lost their status just before he was born.
From early on, it feels like Jasper is set up to be an antagonist or at least a bully. He dislikes the main character, Call Hunt, who he thinks is a weirdo who can’t control his magic properly. He tells Call’s friend Tamara, who he views as an equal, that she can do better than to be friends with Call. In fact, he temporarily alienates her over the fact that their apprentice group is stuck doing simple control exercises, which he thinks is due to Call’s ineptitude. In reality, it’s because Tamara is in the apprentice group, so she blows up at him.
When Jasper gets a girlfriend in later books, he becomes even more insufferable.
And yet…
Jasper is one of Call’s staunchest allies
Without getting too spoilery, when the rest of the school turns on Call, even people who used to be friendly with him, Jasper is one of the handful of people who doesn’t. They may not have anything in common and be mutually irritated by each other, but Jasper trusts Call. He knows that Call isn’t evil the way people seem to think. And it’s not just a quiet, under the table kind of support, either. He makes a point to sit with Call at lunch to let the other students know they’re being idiots.
Call and Jasper can’t be considered friends, really, but when Jasper asks Call for help, Call does his best to deliver. While Jasper remains a largely unlikable character, his willingness to stand up for what he believes in even at risk of repercussions for the sake of someone that he doesn’t even like earned my respect.
Even if you write your characters to have more flaws than virtues, as long as you give them enough redeeming qualities (and put them to the test), they will resonate with your readers.
Draco Malfoy
Ah, Malfoy. One of the most contentious characters of the Harry Potter fandom.
Malfoy is notable for his rivalry and animosity with the protagonist, Harry Potter. He is arrogant, bigoted, and spoiled, threatening to tell his father whenever something doesn’t go his way. Many people dislike him as a character, but many people like him too.
Why?
I heard that J.K. Rowling wrote him with the intention to make him completely unlikable, so what is it about Malfoy that captures readers imaginations?
Sympathy and a Desire for Deeper Characterization
For some, it’s how he struck up a conversation with Harry while they were getting their school robes fitted, before he knew that Harry was anyone important. Yes, he came across as spoiled and entitled, but he was an eleven-year-old rich kid with a doting mother and a father who made sure he got whatever he wanted. But he first sees Harry as a boy the same age who was also about to start his first year at Hogwarts, and therefore a potential friend.
Once he realizes who Harry is, he goes to introduce himself to Harry more formally and asks to be friends in the way he has been taught, which was the wrong way. Of course Harry didn’t want to be friends with someone who looks down on his new friend (Ron) the way that Harry has been looked down on for his whole life to that point. So Harry turns him down, which some fans see as the shunning of a bully.
Other fans see a young boy who was never properly taught to socialize with people who weren’t taught the same pretentious social rules that he was get his feelings hurt.
This just covers the first book because I didn’t want to get too spoilery, but I can’t say that either side is right.
People sympathize with Malfoy because he’s in a bad situation.
Malfoy’s parents are followers of Voldemort, which means that he is also a follower by default. There is no mention of him ever being given a choice. Just that he has to go along with Voldemort’s plans or his parents will pay for it.
Not only that, but being sorted into Slytherin house seems to make you a social pariah to everyone else in the school. It doesn’t matter who you are as a person. You were put into Slytherin, therefore you must be evil. A lot of readers see the unfairness of this and rebel against it. After all, it’s not just pureblooded children who get sorted into Slytherin. Severus Snape was a half-blood, and he was put into Slytherin. It seems unlikely that he was the only one.
What about the muggle-born kids, some readers wonder? Ambition and cunning isn’t just found in the privileged. Plus, kids who know nothing about Hogwarts won’t have the aversion to being sorted into Slytherin that Harry displayed. They don’t know any better.
So, readers reason, if no one outside of Slytherin would talk to Malfoy or even consider being friends with him, was he ever given a chance to improve? The only people he could interact with were those who shared the same views as his parents, turning Slytherin into an echo chamber of pride and bigotry.
People have a habit of sympathizing with even the worst characters if there’s something they can relate to. You can use that in their own writing.
How to Write Flawed Characters Well
Don’t limit yourself to the examples on this list. These are far from the only types of flawed characters that you can write.
Take your characters goals and motivations into account. Think about which of their traits will propel them forward, and add traits that will hold them back. Put some thought into it and how your character will fit into your story.
When it comes right down to it, it isn’t hard to write flawed characters. Just let go of your inner need to have everyone love your character because it’s an impossible task. Not everyone will love your character. Some will love to hate them. But as long as your characters are interesting and worth talking about, your readers will be satisfied.
What are some of your favourite flawed characters in fiction? Let me know in the comments!