by Sarah Sally Hamer @SarahSallyHamer
We writers use fatal flaws to describe how our characters deal with their arcs. Most characters, at least major ones, have arcs where a character is presented with a problem and, after a lot of lumps and bumps, finally makes a change that allows them to meet their goal. The hero/ine's journey is the basic structure that allows and explains those arcs, making characters interesting and relatable. But have you ever thought about where the concept of fatal flaws comes from?
Characters are built on humans. Writers often create characters based on their own knowledge and experiences and find familiar traits in their own lives to write about. But do humans actually have fatal flaws? Or is it just our characters who learn those lessons?
Even if we aren’t physically threatened, sometimes it’s hard to acknowledge there could be something “wrong” with us. After all, most of us manage our lives pretty well. We support ourselves on some level and create families and friends of all different sorts. But, often, we work with levels of emotion that may only occur when we’re really stressed. Road rage is a good example. When another driver does something we think is dangerous and downright stupid, we can explode with anger that seems to come from nowhere. People have even been killed over things that really didn’t matter in the long run.
Why does that happen? Where do those emotions come from? And how do they get so far out of control? And how can we use our own flaws to write amazing stories?
Writers create characters who explode or fight or run away or any other emotion all the time. We also build stories around personalities of every sort, giving them distinct character traits and allow them to react to situations. We sometimes take those characters from people we know. Jane Austin, for instance, used her observations and understandings of the relationships around her to populate her stories with characters who were prejudiced or full of pride. She herself never married but we can possibly see how her interaction with Tom Lefroy, who was forced to marry someone else for money instead of love, could have influenced some of the characters she created. Charlotte Bronte’s two older sisters died from complications of tuberculosis contracted at a boarding school they attended, in a very similar way to the way Helen Burns did in Jane Eyre.
But it’s not just about the stories we write. We all have fatal flaws of some sort, good and bad. (Even what we consider good traits can cause problems when they are applied incorrectly.) These flaws often come from experiences we had as children where things that happened in our “little lives” wounded us to some degree or another, and we create traits associated with those events. Then, when we’re triggered by an event, like another driver “stealing” our parking place, we can react in a manner that is outside of our normal. Characters react that way too.
An example is Paul Atreides from the books/movies of Dune. His father, the Duke, taught him to be honorable. But his father is murdered and he and his mother must flee for their lives. They have adversaries on both sides—the Harkonnens, who killed his father to control the Spice, and the Fremen, who want freedom to make their desert world into a green paradise. Paul’s idea of honor is valuable to the Fremen but both he and his mother have deep secrets, some that were planted centuries before. So Paul is forced to go against his honorable character trait, carefully walking a path of deceit and trust to both survive and to reach his goal of avenging his father’s death and saving the love of his life.
His fatal flaw is that he breaks his own moral rules and allows millions to die, to forward his own agenda. And that’s just in the first book! (Well, in the first and second most recent set of movies.) More to come in the next movie when we get to see the results of his broken vows.
The reason I love to analyze books and movies and the characters who inhabit them is that we often get to see those characters, who have very human failings, struggle with their beliefs and their morality. Which gives us the ability to look deep within ourselves. The opportunity to determine what is preventing us from finding the joy in our life may be something that happened so long ago we don’t remember but, as adults, we no longer have to be afraid of looking at and embracing our flaws. And using them in our stories. By giving our characters fatal flaws, we can create magical, well-rounded stories.
Which one of your fatal flaws can you use to create characters?
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A teacher of memoir, beginning and advanced creative fiction writing, and screenwriting at Louisiana State University in Shreveport for over twenty years, she also teaches online for Margie Lawson at www.margielawson.com and for the No Stress Writing Academy at https://www.worldanvil.com/w/classes-deleyna/a/no-stress-writing-academy. Sally is a free-lance editor and book coach, with many of her students and clients becoming successful, award-winning authors.
You can find her at info@mindpotential.org
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