There’s nothing more boring than reading about characters who have no flaws. Why? Because they don’t seem human, of course. Even if your character is a werewolf or from another planet, as readers we want to feel that we have something in common. And if there’s one thing we humans have in abundance, it’s insecurities.

So stop trying to cover up yours and use them in your writing instead. Heck, all that angst should be useful for something, shouldn’t it? Think about the situations in which you feel the most awkward, or even the worst moments of your life, and use them in your writing–it will make your characters much more real.

Sensitive about your size?

For example, although I can be a pretty tough customer, I am vertically challenged (aka “petite”), so I am sensitive to comments about height. So I’ve used that insecurity in many of my characters. My mystery series character, Summer Westin, is 5’1″ but has accidentally developed a sort of Wonder Woman reputation, and she worries about not being up to the various physical challenges she encounters in Endangered. She can also be socially awkward and has foot-in-mouth disease, which she contracted, of course, from me.  (I once stepped into an elevator full of people as I said to my companion, “…and then he threw me down and he won.” The awkward looks I got from strangers! Hey, I was talking about a judo match I’d lost, people–get your minds out of the gutter!)

In my romantic suspense, Shaken, my heroine, Elisa Langston, is short, dark, and half-Mayan. But her Guatemalan mother deserted her at a young age, so she was raised in her father’s family–all tall fair Anglos. When her father’s sudden death forces her to take over management of the family plant nursery business, she feels out of place even sitting at his desk, which is way too big for her. No, I’m not half-Guatemalan, but I do know what it’s like to squirm on uncomfortable furniture and be the shortest adult in the crowd.

People talking about you?

Characters in my mystery The Only Witness are less directly “me,” but I can empathize with them. Detective Finn is new to a gossipy small town and a somewhat hostile police department. Everybody was already talking about him, and then his wife left him for another man. Yikes–the humiliation! We’ve all been there. Well, not with the deserting spouse, I hope, but with a public embarrassment that there’s no choice but to live down.

Ever ignored the warning signs?

Ever made an impetuous and very wrong choice? Yep, that was the basis of my novella, Call of the Jaguar, where Rachel decides to look up an old lover whom she has romanticized over the years and ends up in trouble in every way.

Whether you think your nose is too big or you stutter or are deathly afraid of spiders, take that feeling and put it into your writing, and your story will be better for it. But remember to have your character triumph over those worries and conquer her or his world, at least for a while. Yes, we all want fictional characters to have human flaws, but we usually want them to be a little bit better than mere mortals, too.  That gives us hope for our own futures.