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a-writers-littlethings:

I just wanted some bread: raikou: ruf1ohn1tram: 123 Ideas for Character Flaws rambeltilx:…

raikou:

ruf1ohn1tram:

123 Ideas for Character Flaws

rambeltilx:

amandaonwriting:

Character Flaws

  1. Absent-minded - Preoccupied to the extent of being unaware of one’s immediate surroundings. Abstracted, daydreaming, inattentive, oblivious, forgetful.
  2. Abusive - Characterized by improper infliction of physical or psychological maltreatment towards another.
  3. Addict - One who is addicted to a compulsive activity. Examples: gambling, drugs, sex.
  4. Aimless - Devoid of direction or purpose.
  5. Alcoholic - A person who drinks alcoholic substances habitually and to excess.
  6. Anxious - Full of mental distress or uneasiness because of fear of danger or misfortune; greatly worried; solicitous.
  7. Arrogant - Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance. Inclined to social exclusiveness and who rebuff the advances of people considered inferior. Snobbish.
  8. Audacious - Recklessly bold in defiance of convention, propriety, law, or the like; insolent; braze, disobedient.
  9. Bad Habit - A revolting personal habit. Examples: picks nose, spits tobacco, drools, bad body odour.
  10. Bigmouth - A loud-mouthed or gossipy person.
  11. Bigot - One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
  12. Blunt - Characterized by directness in manner or speech; without subtlety or evasion. Frank, callous, insensitive, brusque.
  13. Bold - In a bad sense, too forward; taking undue liberties; over assuming or confident; lacking proper modesty or restraint; rude; impudent. Abrupt, brazen, cheeky, brassy, audacious.
  14. Callous - They are hardened to emotions, rarely showing any form of it in expression. Unfeeling. Cold.
  15. Childish - Marked by or indicating a lack of maturity; puerile.
  16. Complex - An exaggerated or obsessive concern or fear. (List specific complex.)
  17. Cruel - Mean to anyone or anything, without care or regard to consequences and feelings.
  18. Cursed - A person who has befallen a prayer for evil or misfortune, placed under a spell, or borne into an evil circumstance, and suffers for it. Damned.
  19. Dependent - Unable to exist, sustain oneself, or act appropriately or normally without the assistance or direction of another.
  20. Deranged - Mentally decayed. Insane. Crazy. Mad. Psychotic.
  21. Dishonest – Given to or using fraud, cheating; deceitful, deceptive, crooked, underhanded.
  22. Disloyal - Lacking loyalty. Unfaithful, perfidious, traitorous, treasonable
  23. Disorder - An ailment that affects the function of mind or body. (List the disorders name if they have one.) See the Mental Disorder List.
  24. Disturbed - Showing some or a few signs or symptoms of mental or emotional illness. Confused, disordered, neurotic, troubled.
  25. Dubious - Fraught with uncertainty or doubt. Undecided, doubtful, unsure.
  26. Dyslexic - Affected by dyslexia, a learning disorder marked by impairment of the ability to recognize and comprehend written words.
  27. Egotistical - Characteristic of those having an inflated idea of their own importance. Boastful, pompous.
  28. Envious - Showing extreme cupidity; painfully desirous of another’s advantages; covetous, jealous.
  29. Erratic - Deviating from the customary course in conduct or opinion; eccentric: erratic behaviour. Eccentric, bizarre, outlandish, strange.
  30. Fanatical - Fanatic outlook or behaviour especially as exhibited by excessive enthusiasm, unreasoning zeal, or wild and extravagant notions on some subject. 

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Although I do think some of these are helpful, this list should be taken with a handful of salt, as I don’t agree with things such as mental illness being character flaws.

- Pen

2 months ago 56976 notes reblog
#character help #personality #flaws

Question Time!

  1. How do you define flaws?
  2. Based on your definition, what are your character’s flaws?

-Grammar

?

8 months ago 32 notes reblog
#flaws

avajae:

Character Development: Exploiting Weaknesses

Just as everyone has a weakness (and most of us, many weaknesses), our characters should struggle with faults as well—whether it’s a debilitating fear of butterflies, an injury that never fully healed, or an inability to trust others, the most realistic of characters struggle with various flaws. Once these weaknesses have been established, it’s our job as the writer to exploit them. (read more) 

Do you exploit your characters’ weaknesses? What other examples of this technique can you think of?

8 months ago 177 notes reblog
#character development #writing tip #blog post #weakness #character help #flaws

Character Flaws: The Master Post

What’s a Character Flaw?

What would be considered bad character flaws? Like I know being clumsy is generally considered to not actually be a flaw, but are there other flaws like it that I should avoid?
 -Anonymous

Well, we were once asked if being autistic counted, and Pen wrote them a nice response telling them to GTFO. 
Clumsiness is a damn pain in the butt, (just ask some of my friends- they live their entire lives like a trust falls session), but it’s not a character flaw because it’s not a fault in their character. That would be like saying that being ugly is a character flaw (I can actually find you some stories like that, though- where someone complains that they’re plain-looking to the point where you want to call them and say that yes, they should wear a paper bag in public out of sheer annoyance). Clumsiness is one of those traits that have gotten a rap as ‘Sue-ish’ cause some famously annoying ladies (coughBella) bore it, and also because it’s one of those things that’s supposed to be endearing but often isn’t- we should feel that this childish and weak, non-threatening creature needs our protection, but most people are gonna get pissed when they need Lady or Lord Clumsy to do ONE JOB to save everyone and they fall on their face for the thousandth time and fail. 

Let me try to put this in a way that makes more sense- flaws should be a product of someone’s choices, not their birth. Therefore, while being dyslexic, clumsy, or etc., would present challenges in someone’s life, and possibly add to the story, it’s not something that can be changed over time with character development. They’re traits, they’re not really changeable, only manageable. 
A character flaw is a result of the character’s behavior, something that they, theoretically could stop if they wished. It also should cause problems in the story- if you say that my bossiness is a flaw, but then I’m always right with my bossiness, then you’re doing it wrong. I count one of my characters tendencies to take conflicts too far a flaw, because it gets him into trouble when he escalates fights. 
Then, there’s this big blobby gray area of flaw vs. trait. Let’s say you’ve got a character who’s a drunk- it’s derailing his life, he’s mean to his friends, etc. Flaw. However, if you reveal in the narrative that he’s got a family history of alcoholism (it’s shown that this is genetic), and was raised in an environment that predisposed him to be that way- well, you’ve got behavior that is clearly bad, but probably sympathetic to the audience because our drunk has less control over his actions. 

-Evvy

FYCD

FURTHER POSTS (Answered Asks on the topic):

How Do I Pick Flaws For My Character?

The Sliding Scale of Traits : From Good to Bad

What About Stubbornness/Other Iffy Flaws? 

Physical v. Character Flaws?

How Many Flaws Is Too Many Flaws?

How Do I Know If X Is A Flaw?

My Character’s Flawed, But Not A Villain- How Do I Do That?

Can Big Flaws Keep My Character From Being A Protagonist?

I Wanna Roll With My Character Being A Villain, But Want I Them To Be Sympathetic…?

Pen Tells Those Who Count Disabilities As Character Flaws To GTFO

Please note that all of this (other than the questions themselves and links that we put in for further reading) is original content from Fuck Yeah Character Development. You can use any of this, we’re just rather proud. Thanks for following.

9 months ago 601 notes reblog
#Character #Character development #Flaws #Character flaws #FYCD #Masta post of dooooom.... #character help

Sliding Scale of Good to Bad Traits (rebloggable by request)

To the flood of askers: As Evvy said, whether a flaw “counts” is based heavily on its impact on the story. Under the right circumstances, even a positive quality can be a flaw. One of my own characters is loving and forgiving to a fault. Being loving, understanding, and compassionate do not strike many people as being flaws, for certain. But depending on the tone of the story, such a trait can cause major issues, including our intrepid hero getting blindsided by an enemy already once defeated.
 rain-down-love

Yes, thank you, my dear, you got me. 
Um, how can I describe this.

[   0   ]   1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9      10

^This is a scale.
0= Does not have this trait
1= Trait is not advantageous 
10= Trait is very advantageous

Make one for all of your characters’ traits (or at least the plot relevant ones). Mark it up. 
Example, ‘forgiving’. Forgiving: 10 means a compassionate person, who will let other people’s trespasses go. The trait is totally beneficial to them. Positive trait. Forgiving: 1 means they are a doormat. Negative trait. Forgiving: 0 means they don’t have that quality. Gotcha? These can change throughout the story as well- perhaps your character grows, moving up the scale, or goes down the scale when they are exhausted, or when they’re in a good mood. You can use these charts to track changes related to morale, growth, and situation in the story. 

Now make one to show when certain traits would be positive or negative based on how they serve the characters in different situations.
Ex., Bossy. Bossy 1: When faced with a large, independent dragon, their bossiness pisses the dragon off, and they are eaten. Bossy 10: When given a squadron to handle, <character> handles everyone and dispenses orders beautifully, keeping everything in working, efficient order. Bossy 0: This trait has no effect on this situation.

Ta da! It’s a sliding scale! Give it a shot and tell me how it works, I made it for you all just now. 
-Evvy
FYCD 

9 months ago 82 notes reblog
#character #character flaws #flaws

What’s a Character Flaw?

What would be considered bad character flaws? Like I know being clumsy is generally considered to not actually be a flaw, but are there other flaws like it that I should avoid?
 Anonymous

Well, we were once asked if being autistic counted, and Pen wrote them a nice response telling them to GTFO. 
Clumsiness is a damn pain in the butt, (just ask some of my friends- they live their entire lives like a trust falls session), but it’s not a character flaw because it’s not a fault in their character. That would be like saying that being ugly is a character flaw (I can actually find you some stories like that, though- where someone complains that they’re plain-looking to the point where you want to call them and say that yes, they should wear a paper bag in public out of sheer annoyance). Clumsiness is one of those traits that have gotten a rap as ‘Sue-ish’ cause some famously annoying ladies (coughBella) bore it, and also because it’s one of those things that’s supposed to be endearing but often isn’t- we should feel that this childish and weak, non-threatening creature needs our protection, but most people are gonna get pissed when they need Lady or Lord Clumsy to do ONE JOB to save everyone and they fall on their face for the thousandth time and fail. 

Let me try to put this in a way that makes more sense- flaws should be a product of someone’s choices, not their birth. Therefore, while being dyslexic, clumsy, or etc., would present challenges in someone’s life, and possibly add to the story, it’s not something that can be changed over time with character development. They’re traits, they’re not really changeable, only manageable. 
A character flaw is a result of the character’s behavior, something that they, theoretically could stop if they wished. It also should cause problems in the story- if you say that my bossiness is a flaw, but then I’m always right with my bossiness, then you’re doing it wrong. I count one of my characters tendencies to take conflicts too far a flaw, because it gets him into trouble when he escalates fights. 
Then, there’s this big blobby gray area of flaw vs. trait. Let’s say you’ve got a character who’s a drunk- it’s derailing his life, he’s mean to his friends, etc. Flaw. However, if you reveal in the narrative that he’s got a family history of alcoholism (it’s shown that this is genetic), and was raised in an environment that predisposed him to be that way- well, you’ve got behavior that is clearly bad, but probably sympathetic to the audience because our drunk has less control over his actions. 

Anyway, I hope that answered your question! And we’ll be taking responses from our followers as well- what do you all see listed as ‘flaws’ that you normally disagree with or think aren’t up to par?

-Evvy

FYCD

9 months ago 263 notes reblog
#character #character flaws #writing #flaws

Adding Flaws

I have a problem with one of my characters in an adventure story. He is clever and understanding of the different characteristics of culture and always abide by their ways. He is cool headed and defeats many of his foes with ease and is often a voice of reason. However, I do not know how to give him an effective flaw…

_____________

I hereby shamelessly copy/paste one of Shannah’s answers to a similar question, and make the whole thing rebloggable. :

Here is a big list of traits, many of them bad habits.  If you want more general flaws, this TV Tropes index has a large number of articles to help you.  -Shannah

10 months ago 71 notes reblog
#FYCD ask #Flaws

Character Development Tools #5

hayden-p-rpc:

Bad habits are something I always have a problem coming up with, but they’re something that everyone has. Below is a list of common bad habits, none of which we really like to admit to even though we’ve all done them. Pick out two or three to give to your character to add a little more humanity/depth to them.

Read More

1 year ago 26 notes reblog
#character help #character development #characters #writing #flaws