Fiction Tip: Let Your Characters Make Mistakes
Let Your Characters Make Mistakes
This expands a bit on last week’s tip about creating goals and meaningful flaws for your characters. It sucks to read a story with perfect characters. Boring, boring, and oh, yuck, boring!
Plus readers will struggle to connect with them because none of us is perfect. By contrast, flawed characters who fail, stumble, or make poor decisions feel authentic. Mistakes show their humanity and create opportunities for growth. And without growth, your story goes nowhere. Yawn.
Imagine a protagonist who never takes a wrong turn or misjudges a situation. There’s no tension or conflict. Mistakes — and conflict — are essential tools in fiction. They drive the plot forward and keep the stakes high. They also reflect real life, where we often learn more from our “oops” moments and experiences than from our successes. (I could write a book or two on that subject) 🤦🏻♀️
When crafting a story, consider various ways in which your protagonist’s choices could go wrong. Maybe your protagonist is impulsive, overconfident, or even fearful, which leads to some really dumb moves (I would know nothing about those… 🙄). What matters is how the character responds. Does he dive even further into his mistake, making an even bigger mess and creating more conflict? Or does he learn something, change and grow? Both paths add depth to a character arc. No mistakes = I don’t wanna read it. 😖
So make your characters messy. For example, a detective might overlook a crucial clue because he’s arrogant, only to face the music when an innocent person is hurt. Or a hero might recklessly trust someone who wasn’t an ally after all, and oh, no — huge betrayal. Moments like these keep readers engaged because they want to see how the character will rise above their flaws — or fall deeper into them. They’re emotionally invested in how it’s gonna play out!
Mistakes make characters relatable. Show your protagonist tripping up and having to suck up and deal with the consequences. If you do that, you’ll craft a story readers can’t forget.
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