A Flaw in my Character[s]

I walked in the door at 11:13 last night, my brain buzzing from the Starbucks caffeine rush that Kailey, Cassie, Fish [Kailey's boy], and I had just enjoyed. Definitely incapable of sleeping at all, I cleaned my room.

Hold the applause, please. I know it's shocking, but yes, OCD always wins in the end, and my room is now almost clean. But after my little obsessive-compulsive spree, I still couldn't sleep, so I sat down with the good old laptop and started to write.

Now, writing hasn't been easy lately. My head's too full of wild ideas and my life is too distracting. This was the first time in a long time that I cranked out more than just a bad page, and all I could manage in an hour was a whopping total of five measly pages.

Pathetic. It works, though.

Here's my biggest problem. After reading Book II in the trilogy, you kind of really like my main character. She's tough, she's smart, she endures a lot of "stuff" [no details, you cheaters]... She's a lot like the person I wish I was.

But by the time you reach page fifty of Book III, you hate her. A lot. From her daughter's point of view, she's a mildly psychotic mother, and every flaw in her character floats up to the surface.

It bothers me a little to have to recognize these flaws. I thought I'd created this invincible woman, one who can do everything and fears nothing. I was wrong, though; I'd created a normal human being, one who has flaws you wouldn't have expected after reading Book II.

She's controlling, defensive, and irrational. She keeps secrets from her children and refuses to listen to the logic that her friends and family present. Her life was turned upside down, it's true, but she takes the trauma and turns it into something bad.

Can I change her? No. No, I can't. She's done. I've said before how my characters control me, how they dictate where my stories go; this character is no exception. Flaws or no flaws, her personality is set in stone.

But she's not alone in the flawed category. Her daughter, too, is ridden with mistake-making tendencies that I can't correct. She's stubborn, impulsive, and begrudging. She forgets about her responsibilities and refuses to grow up. Her sister is her foil--quiet, patient, thoughtful--but even that character makes mistakes: she overthinks EVERYTHING and can't see the blatant evil in the villains she encounters.

And then there are the others! The cousin, with her naivety and wonder at the world; the uncle, strong but always terrified of upheaval; the visitors, too secretive and distrusting for their own good; the great-grandmother, her traditions interfering with the flow of the current world... Even the characters who are long dead have left their flaws etched into the world--their mistakes, however minor, haunt my living characters and change their paths accordingly.

Maybe this is what stories are supposed to be about, the flaws in human nature. It wasn't my intention--hell, I just wanted to write a book--but it has worked out in my favor, I suppose. These "people" can't change, because real people don't, but in the course of their lives I guess it's my job to show them how to cope with their own befuddling personalities.

Maybe these characters reflect my own flaws, too. Maybe this is me trying to explain myself. I'm just as crazy as the next person, but maybe I don't want to be...

Gah. So much to think about. Who would have thought that weaving my own little world would have such a great effect on me?