Character Psychology: 9 Common Errors — Guest: Kassandra Lamb

If we don’t want to write characters who are too perfect, we have to layer in a few flaws. The Negative Trait Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi is full of ideas for how to make our characters seem more real with a mix of traits, including weaknesses.

That goal of avoiding the too-perfect character means that we might be writing characters who are “broken” in some way. They might be trauma survivors or suffering from depression, etc.

While psychological issues can be great for ro...