They say that, with some notable exceptions, at the heart of every great character is one central, debilitating flaw, that will either be fixed, improved, or tragically unchanged and maybe reinforced in the course of the story. This process should organically bring about an outer goal and an inner goal, both of which will interact in some way with the character’s primary flaw, and out will sprout a compelling narrative.  Or… something like that.

So, what if I started with preconceived ideas for character actions? Can I retroactively embed a flaw that grounds character to plot? Well, I’m sure the answer is “yes,” but it’s proving difficult.

As I trudge through my rewrite, I’m seeing disconcerting signs of a lack of focus. This thing that the character does (and I’m not sure how to effectively change or omit) seems to be based on his rashness when provoked. This other thing (that I also don’t know how  to effectively change or omit) could be explained by his unrealistic idealism. So I suppose my question is: is there room for both, or should I whittle him down to only one overarching flaw?

In life, we all have multiple flaws that complicate things. But in a screenplay, with one main character throughline, I wonder if having two or more governing flaws will result in neither being fully developed and dealt with in a way that will garner the audience’s interest in taking the journey with him.

At this point, I’m thinking I should try to meld his actions thematically and corral them under the umbrella of one cohesive flaw, that’s general enough to manifest itself in several different ways.

Let’s see how this’ll work… (This is just off the top of my head.)

If his flaw is chronic aloofness, taking nothing seriously, then that could make him rash, indecisive, irritable toward criticism, unable to maintain a job or relationship, and incapable of realizing the seriousness of a situation or its consequences until it’s too late.

This seems like a solid way to go about it, with a hierarchical structure of flaws; where a bigger, more general one splinters and becomes smaller ones that surface in the character’s actions. So maybe the real mistake is having multiple broad and general flaws that interfere, or outright conflict, with each other. So at this point I should brainstorm just what the granddaddy flaw is that drives the others.

Time to push on, with this newly-processed nugget in mind. So what do you think? Give us your thoughts on character flaws below!