Girls are NOT sugar and spice

I wrote a blog a while ago about character flaws.  Something I don’t think about much.  I think of strengths and weaknesses–what are you good at, prone to, and what do you have to work at, try to avoid?  But maybe your weaknesses would be your flaws?  Or maybe your flaws are the things you want, but shouldn’t have?  The things you give in to?  Your temptations?  The bad choices you WANT to make and try to avoid?  Any opinions?  When you think of a character, how do you see him?  What do you consider his/her flaw?  I’d love to hear about a character you wrote and what his/her flaw was, how it affected your book.

I was thinking about a character that Julia Donner wrote in her Friendship Regency series. In the book Lord Carnall and Miss Innocent–an exaggeration of their personalities, but a fun one–Donner introduced two characters who sometimes care TOO much.  Can that be a flaw?  Is too much of a good thing a flaw?  Lord Carnall will move mountains to help his two, younger sisters.  That’s why he enrolls them in the private school run by Ana Worth.  And Ana?  She’s trying to keep her selfish, absorbed brother free from scandal, at the risk of going bankrupt herself.  On the surface, both characters have noble goals, and self-sacrifice CAN be a good thing, but when is enough–enough?  And when Donner wrote these two, awesomely wonderful people, did she consider the things that made me love them to also be their flaws?  When you start writing a book, do you list each character’s flaw?  Does that help you?

In Donner’s book, Ana is a deeply caring and giving person, but she is NOT sugar and spice.  I can’t think of any woman in literature who is.  Not even children, if the author portrays them realistically.  I have two daughters, and neither of them were the dolls and tea party type girls.  I bought them Barbies for their birthdays, and they painted them with red paint (for blood dripping down them) and hung them from the basement rafters to make a Halloween haunted house.  I was pretty impressed, but then, I wasn’t very girly myself as a kid.

Most characters, if readers are supposed to empathize with them, have strengths and convictions and care about something enough to struggle hard to achieve it.  And since books thrive on conflict, something always stands in their way–sometimes that something is their own flaws.  Usually, characters have to grow to solve their problems.  Sucky, right?  But pretty true to life.  No one gets off easy in fiction…male or female.  So, who is one of your favorite characters in fiction?  And what do you see as his/her flaw?  And if you’re a writer, do you think the flaw you chose for your character is the flaw readers see when they read your book?

I’d love comments and feedback.  And since it’s getting cold and ugly outside, hope you can hibernate a little more, and happy writing or reading!

Link for Lord Carnall and Miss Innocent:  https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Carnall-Miss-Innocent-Friendhip-ebook/dp/B01A8T71J0/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1481401696&sr=1-6&keywords=julia+donner

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My webpage (with a snippet):  http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

On twitter:  @judypost