Likably Flawed
Okay, so in my last blog entry, I admitted I was a "bundle of contradictions." I'm complicated. I like my characters in my books to be that way, too.
And now, I'm onto flaws.
Booklist said Skye McNalley, the heroine of DOUBLE DOWN, which I wrote as Tess Hudson, was "likably flawed" when it was released last year. And it seems when writing women's fiction or chick lit, that's the tightrope you have to walk. Make your heroine too bitchy, difficult, self-centered, and readers grow weary. Frankly, thinking of a movie I watched on DVD recently, "Hitch," I get it. By the end of that movie, I couldn't give a crap whether Will Smith ended up with the heroine at all. She was so ridiculously "closed" as a person, had so many walls, I didn't care one iota whether he won her over in the end. In fact, I was rooting for her to just get hit by a car mid-movie. So I get it. Flaws . . . but likable.
In Double Down, my heroine was a compulsive gambler. In a couple of years, she had never managed to get a thirty-day coin in Gamblers Anonymous. She just didn't get how deeply in denial she was. BUT, she was fiercely loyal and wise-cracking, and when she fell in love, she fell hard. I liked her. She seemed like someone I could hang out with.
Which brings me back again to real life and real characters. Likably flawed makes sense. I don't want to spend three hours with someone who ISN'T likable despite his or her flaws, so why would I ask readers to go on a journey with my characters and care about them for 300 pages if their flaws weren't somehow a little endearing? I know I'm flawed. I am ALWAYS crabby around 6:30 p.m. when the sum total of four kids and real-life coupled with trying to write novels catches up with me. I can't cook. I mean cannot. Not even to make Kraft Macaroni & Cheese out of a blue cardboard box (my kids deem my efforts too "crunchy"). I use the F-word way too much. I am impatient when it's against all tenets of my faith. BUT, for all that, I thrive on chaos and will always set an extra dinner plate on the table, throw a mean party, laugh a LOT, love to play poker . . . and somehow despite being flawed, I am loved, and damn if I don't love really passionately in return.
So I think that's where real life and fiction meet. The challenge is creating flaws that are real, but that you can live with. I mean, if a guy kicks his dog, it's a deal-breaker. If he leaves his dirty socks on the floor but brings roses just because . . . well, you can live with it.
And now, I'm onto flaws.
Booklist said Skye McNalley, the heroine of DOUBLE DOWN, which I wrote as Tess Hudson, was "likably flawed" when it was released last year. And it seems when writing women's fiction or chick lit, that's the tightrope you have to walk. Make your heroine too bitchy, difficult, self-centered, and readers grow weary. Frankly, thinking of a movie I watched on DVD recently, "Hitch," I get it. By the end of that movie, I couldn't give a crap whether Will Smith ended up with the heroine at all. She was so ridiculously "closed" as a person, had so many walls, I didn't care one iota whether he won her over in the end. In fact, I was rooting for her to just get hit by a car mid-movie. So I get it. Flaws . . . but likable.
In Double Down, my heroine was a compulsive gambler. In a couple of years, she had never managed to get a thirty-day coin in Gamblers Anonymous. She just didn't get how deeply in denial she was. BUT, she was fiercely loyal and wise-cracking, and when she fell in love, she fell hard. I liked her. She seemed like someone I could hang out with.
Which brings me back again to real life and real characters. Likably flawed makes sense. I don't want to spend three hours with someone who ISN'T likable despite his or her flaws, so why would I ask readers to go on a journey with my characters and care about them for 300 pages if their flaws weren't somehow a little endearing? I know I'm flawed. I am ALWAYS crabby around 6:30 p.m. when the sum total of four kids and real-life coupled with trying to write novels catches up with me. I can't cook. I mean cannot. Not even to make Kraft Macaroni & Cheese out of a blue cardboard box (my kids deem my efforts too "crunchy"). I use the F-word way too much. I am impatient when it's against all tenets of my faith. BUT, for all that, I thrive on chaos and will always set an extra dinner plate on the table, throw a mean party, laugh a LOT, love to play poker . . . and somehow despite being flawed, I am loved, and damn if I don't love really passionately in return.
So I think that's where real life and fiction meet. The challenge is creating flaws that are real, but that you can live with. I mean, if a guy kicks his dog, it's a deal-breaker. If he leaves his dirty socks on the floor but brings roses just because . . . well, you can live with it.
posted by Erica Orloff at 4:10 PM
4 Comments:
Extremely cool and relevant post today, esp. considering that you've read my first effort with my heroine. I toned down her bitchiness considerably but it's still there and she still cusses.
And then for a while, I was extremely unlikable too -- really, REALLY bitchy, chip-on-shoulder with an attitude, and all my boyfriends eventually dumped me. I couldn't keep a long-term girlfriend to save my life (I was too critical, too demanding, too impatient. When they asked me if they looked fat, I would snap, "Yeah, you do" even if they didn't -- I just hated the whiny fishing for compliments).
But miracle of miracles, someone actually decided to stay with me for the long haul! I can't believe it and thank god everyday for DH. You would think he was blind and deaf, but he seems perfectly healthy! ;-) My family kisses his feet everyday and wants to give him a gold medal Martyr Award for putting up with moi.
I think, in my old age, I've become "likably flawed." I think. I still have all those attitudinal qualities, but I've toned it down a bit and learned to have loads more fun.
But I still can't stop using the F-word way too much either. ANd neither can my heroines. :-)
Great post today, Erica!
Hi Karm:
I think the process of writing a heroine who isn't perfect (hate that kind of heroine) but is someone you care about is a tricky one. We all have different thresholds of what we tolerate, different standards of where the line in the sand is from spunky to bitchy to intolerable.
In Spanish Disco, I thought my heroine, though a borderline alcoholic and bitchy woman, was very funny. In Diary of a Blues Goddess, sometimes I got frustrated by Georgia Ray because she didn't stand up for herself enough. My first heroine was by far my fave. However, interestingly, my dad read both books and he termed Cassie a "ballbuster" and liked Georgia Ray because she was someone he could imagine hanging around with. However, he DID see that both were intensely loyal, which is a trait he admires. I was shocked he didn't like Cassie the same way I did. But that was so stupid of me. We all don't like the same people in real life either. I can't stand vapid women. Bland women. Yet, that sort of Stepford Woman I despise is certainly so bland as to be considered harmless by others, whereas I am someone you either love or HATE. No one ever seems to have a middle ground with how they feel about me.
So it's terribly subjective, like so much of writing. But I think flaws are essential to giving your heroine a journey . . .
E
Perfect people don't exist in real life, and readers don't relate to them.
A flawed character is more interesting to read about, and has the potential to be 'fixed' by book's end.
JA:
Absolutely, it's just finding that balance between flaw and so irritating you want to strangle them.
Also . . . in women's fiction, you tend to run into more of your editor's fear that the heroine who crosses over into unforgivable territory will not be embraced at all. It's just women readers have wildly varying degrees of what they'll accept.
E
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