Fatal Flaws vs. Wounds: How to Deepen Your Characters' Arcs

Many writers struggle with creating characters who feel both complex and authentic. One common issue is misidentifying a character's fatal flaw, confusing it with a simple moral deficiency or surface-level trait. This misunderstanding can lead to flat, unrelatable characters who fail to resonate with audiences.

In this episode, we break down the crucial difference between a fatal flaw and a wound—and why understanding this distinction is key to crafting compelling character arcs. By learning how these two elements connect, you'll discover how to make your characters' flaws a driving force in their personal growth and the overall plot. Whether you're writing a hero, anti-hero, or flawed protagonist, this insight will elevate your character development and strengthen your story's emotional core.


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Transcript

[00:00:00] I'm pulling out material that I think is particularly relevant for this community. excerpts from a live session I gave for my new online course. Hollywood Story Structure Made Easy. Today, we will be talking about fatal flaws. That wound that your character has that needs to be healed over the course of the telling. So this is something that you don't want to miss.

[00:00:24] 

[00:00:35] here is an excerpt from our first live session from that course. I hope you find it helpful.

[00:00:41] Now I am going to say some things about fatal flaws because I think we have a misunderstanding and I'm going to unpack this more in a later session, but for now, let me just say this. A lot of people think of a fatal flaw as some sort of moral deficiency, but that's not It's not necessarily true. It might just be the thing that trips them up over and over and over again.

[00:01:08] So for example, in Bosch, his fatal flaw is that he cannot compromise. And that's why he's a hero to us. Because he's like a dog with a bone. He will not give up on the pursuit of justice. And it ticks off all of his bosses. And it hurts his marriage. And it hurts his relationship with his daughter. Because he cannot compromise.

[00:01:33] If the powers that be say, Bosch, let it go. You know, this guy, he's on the board of directors at this thing and we can't shake this thing up. And Bosch feels like this guy could be guilty. He ain't gonna let it go. Because he needs justice to be done. He has such a compulsion for justice that he will not let it go.

[00:01:55] And guess what? That isn't bad. In fact, that's what makes him a hero. We don't want him to give that up because if he does, it means he's mediocre. It makes him a hero to us that that is his contention. The key though, is that it does trip him up, meaning it hurts him. It costs something. So whatever their fatal flaw is, it's the thing that keeps costing them something.

[00:02:22] Bosch gets passed over for promotions. Bosch is in conflict with his wife or his ex wife. Bosch is in conflict with his daughter. Bosch is worried that his actions are going to have devastating consequences to his family. He sometimes feels like because of what he's doing, is his family a target? How does he protect them when he cannot let it go?

[00:02:48] And then he questions himself, Am I a bad man because I'm not willing to let this go when they could target and hurt my family? What am I supposed to do? But it's wrong. It's wrong. And he's driven by this moral need to, to see justice come to pass. So he can't let it go. So he suffers. He's in anguish, even over his own decisions, because he doesn't always know if it's the right thing to do.

[00:03:16] He just knows that he can't let it go. He can't, he can't. So it keeps getting him into trouble. And it keeps causing him pain. And it keeps causing conflict in the story. Because, of course. Eventually, they do have to come for the wife and come for the daughter, and it is going to potentially, maybe he has to get a divorce, or he has to go away from his kids, or he has to send them away, and he has to cease being a dad for a season, it has a cost.

[00:03:43] So, when you think about your character, think about not the moral deficiency, so what I mean by moral deficiency as well, they're really just a selfish SOB. Well, that's not a very good quality and certainly a really difficult one to overcome over the course of the telling And so you have to be thinking about it in maybe slightly different terms I have found that people today think in terms of moral deficiency I think my theory is because of the rise of the anti hero in culture And so the anti hero often does have a moral deficiency So we're used to thinking in terms of that for example I'm watching Reacher right now, the TV series.

[00:04:29] And in the last episode, he got the information he wanted out of a guy who was granted, this guy was about to kill a child, so he's not exactly a pinnacle of virtue, so this guy was a real piece of crap, but nevertheless. When Reacher and his partner went into the hospital room to question this guy and the guy finally does give up the information that he has Then Reacher takes this little vial and puts it in there and says, you know They would question it if I beat you to death right now but nobody's gonna question you dying from an aneurysm and he puts some Oxygen into the thing and the guy, you know dies of a brain aneurysm The thing about that is that that's an anti hero move.

[00:05:18] That's murder, right? Now, it's murder of a guy that's a piece of crap, and who needs to be brought to justice, and who shouldn't be allowed to get away with potentially almost killing a child, and he did kill a cop, a good cop. So the guy deserves justice. But this is not the right way to bring about justice.

[00:05:41] And so that's an anti hero thing. Now, we still, because this guy is heinous enough, we don't turn against Reacher for that. But it would be a mistake to say that Reacher is a bastion of purity and honor and valor. So, so we still see Reacher as kind of this heroic character, even though he's just done something really horrible and he's just murdered a guy in cold blood.

[00:06:06] It's only because the guy he murdered in cold blood is such a P. O. S. that we will, will allow it and we'll still be on Reacher's side. But keep in mind, that's why my theory Xena's special theory to why this is a problem is that most people then try to find those sorts of traits that maybe aren't the best ones, because we usually want our characters to be heroes in the making.

[00:06:33] We want them to be heroes in the making. They have something holding them back from stepping into that heroic role. But they should have the potential to be heroes. And selfishness is probably the number one quality that disqualifies them from ever becoming heroic. Because by virtue of being a hero, they must care about others.

[00:06:54] That's just part of being a hero. Heroes care. Can I ask a question and a comment? Yes, sir. Just to give you kind of a counter argument. Okay. Because you had talked about a character arc and about growth. So if you have a character start where they're morally deficient, like for example, I'm thinking of Ebeneezer Scrooge, who at the beginning of the story, he's very greedy, doesn't care about people.

[00:07:18] That's definitely a character deficiency. But by the end, he transforms it to someone who's generous, so that would be, that would be maybe like a counter. Maybe that's why to have a moral deficiency, to give a character someplace to go. Absolutely. A character like that has to go on a journey that forces them to change.

[00:07:37] That's a different type of character that I'm talking about. We didn't, we never thought of Ebenezer Scrooge as potentially heroic. At the beginning of the story, right? He wasn't presented to us as a hero in the making. He was presented to us as a completely depraved individual, who had to go through a really dark journey in order to see the light of day.

[00:08:00] Right? And, and he was going to be responsible for Tiny Tim's death. You know, he was going to be responsible for this beautiful Cratchit family coming to complete ruin. So, we weren't trying to portray him as a hero. That's the difference. Most of the time, people think that they have a heroic character at their center.

[00:08:23] Most of the people that I'm talking about that violate this, they think they're presenting a heroic character, but they've given them a moral deficiency that precludes them from being a hero in the making. Now, if the story is such that they are meant to be a depraved character from the beginning who has to go on that journey, that's a completely different thing, and I'm all for that.

[00:08:43] It's absolutely fine. Does that make sense? Does that help? Yeah. Yeah. That, that makes sense. 

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[00:09:44] And, and, and another, another example you had mentioned, uh, Mel, Mel Gibson and, uh, Danny Glover. Mm-Hmm. . I, I, I might argue that Danny Glover might be the true hero of the story, just because he kind of started off almost feeling like confined.

[00:09:58] And by the end of the story, he learned from Mel Gibson and, and became more of a. Spontaneous person or something like that. Okay, but what was, what was, uh, Mel Gibson's, uh, change? Where did he start at the beginning of the story? I think, I think he was, this might be controversial, but you know how sometimes you have love stories where you have kind of the person who is, I don't know, the angel, and then the, the, the loved one kind of learns.

[00:10:23] From, from the angel. Like, so, so in a way, I don't, I'm not calling Mel Gibson an angel, but in the story, he's the one who's kind of like wild and crazy and spontaneous. And from that friendship, maybe Danny Glover kind of learned to get out of the box, so to speak. So I know, I know it's probably a controversial take.

[00:10:39] Oh, it's not controversial at all. It's just, here's what I would argue. I would say that, first of all, you're right, that both characters undergo a change, and absolutely, if they're not impacting each other's change, then why are they together? The whole point that they were partnered together is that they both have to impact and change each other, so you're right on that.

[00:10:57] But where does Mel Gibson start? He starts, we meet Mel Gibson, where he's in his trailer, by the sea, putting a special bullet into his gun, where he's about to kill himself. That's where he starts. He is on the verge of suicide. He is a wrecked man. It's good point. By the end, he has been welcomed into the family of Danny Glover.

[00:11:25] He's one of the family. He is never going to sit there and contemplate suicide again. He has been healed from whatever wound started him in that place. So while they both do change, and I do believe Mel Gibson has a profound impact on Danny Glover, but nevertheless. Mel Gibson, by far, changes the most. He goes from wanting death, wanting to join his wife in death, and not being able to kill himself, but wanting desperately to die.

[00:12:00] To being a part of a family and being okay and being ready to live again. That's so true. And I actually know lethal lethal weapon two better than lethal weapon one But you're always the beginning but the the real question I want to ask is you had mentioned When when you started talking about the fatal flaw and the the moral deficiency and then you initially started saying that our assignment is to ask what is the Uh, wound of our character, what is, what is the connection between wound and flaw?

[00:12:28] Like, so for example, the Bosch example that you gave where you said, you said, it's not really, it's not really like a moral deficiency. It's just kind of maybe like a flaw. Is there a connection between wound and flaw? Yes, absolutely. What would Bosch's wound be in that situation? Has anybody seen Bosch? I have not.

[00:12:49] Okay, well I loved the TV series Bosh, but in the TV series Bosh, the whole premise of it is that Bosh's mother was a prostitute who was murdered and her case was never solved. Oh, okay. And so that becomes the motivation. He is the guy. Who cares about those that are forgettable, those that are discardable.

[00:13:12] The rest of society doesn't care about these people. They are, you know, the outliers of the world, but he remembers them and any unsolved cases in his off time. He is constantly trying to solve it. He wants to bring their murderers to justice. Even though the world has moved on, he's the only one who carries the torch for these people and wants to honor them by bringing their killers to justice.

[00:13:37] So that comes. From this wound of his mother who was arguably a discardable character who was killed and her murder was never solved. So, they're joined at the hip. You know, the wound is this need for justice for those that are unloved, that are forgotten in society. And as a result of that, he cannot compromise.

[00:14:00] He cannot do it. He just cannot. He has to pursue justice at all costs. It doesn't matter how much it hurts him. Justice matters. Period. So could you say that when you say wound, you're kind of talking about maybe like a backstory that has impacted them in such a case that they have a flaw? Absolutely.

[00:14:20] Absolutely. So let's look at back to the future. What is Marty's Achilles heel, if you will? What is it that keeps tripping him up over and over again? When does he lose his way? About being called a chicken. Chicken. That's right. As soon as anybody says you chicken, he can't take it, right? But that's directly related to his wound.

[00:14:41] What is his wound? What is Marty afraid of more than anything? To become like his father. And what is his father? A loser. He was in a pushover. A loser. That's right. Marty doesn't want to be a loser like his father. So when somebody calls him a chicken, He can't back down and it's a fatal flaw. It gets in his way time and time again It just keeps tripping him up.

[00:15:10] And what Marty has to learn over the course of the telling Ultimately is how not to be baited because that's not what defines him That's not what makes him a loser or not. And in fact, it makes him a Fall into the trap of being a loser when he keeps allowing Biff to lure him in to bait him and trap him Into these games and so what makes him finally get over that trajectory is when he finally steps into the real man He is and now nobody else can define him as a loser Because he knows who he is and he's in control of his own fate.

[00:15:46] Does that make sense? So they're related They're related and I've never actually probably This might be the first time I'm defining them as two different things. So this is, uh, interesting. We discover things all the time. But, but there is, there's a, their fatal flaw, their wound, the thing that motivates them, the thing that's broken in them that has to be healed, that's what I'm talking about.

[00:16:11] What is the thing that's broken in them that has to heal over the course of the story? Your character has something, even if it's a comedy. Every character has something. So be thinking about that. You might not know. That's okay. I want you to start thinking about it now. Because it does inform plot.

[00:16:35] Everything that we will talk about in this course informs plot. This is about story structure. But, story structure is ever connected to character. So I'm going to constantly be asking you to flesh things out about your character. When you do, it will help you to figure out what has to happen next in your story.

[00:17:00] Yes. Questions. Mary. Continue to write for a bit until. It becomes clearer on what that broken thing is if you don't really know. Sometimes you discover it as you go, absolutely. You can. Oh yeah, sure, sure. So, I mean, if you don't know, I'm not saying that you have to withhold writing. It's just that you need to let that be percolating.

[00:17:24] Gosh, I'm sorry. I, I, I can be very literal, and I thought Oh, no, no, no. You're fine. You're fine. You may not land on it. You may not Yeah, you may not land on it. You might have to discover it, but that's okay. The key is you need to discover it, and you will at some point. So just be noodling on it. Just always be noodling on it. 

[00:17:43]