Weaknesses are More Interesting Than Strengths

In his marvellous book On Writing, Stephen King says, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” Well, as of the start of 2022, I can confidently say I’m managing one of those requirements. The other… well, that’s one of my many weaknesses.

Since rediscovering my Kindle a couple of years back, I’ve been devouring books in my favourite genre—fantasy—at a fair clip. I love the feel of paper books: the heft of them in my hand; the feel of the thin pages between my fingers; even the musty smell of an older book. But you just can’t argue with the accessibility of a Kindle. I don’t lose my page as much, although my one year-old son has taken to prodding the screen repeatedly whenever he finds the thing, so some backtracking is usually required. I can read in bed without a lamp on. And, to top it off, I don’t have to juggle a book on the toilet.

In fact, I’m reading so much it has become a new and valued facet of my procrastination regime. Of course, the intention of Stephen King’s advice is to encourage improvement of the writing craft. But I’m not one to let reality cast its cold light on the comforting dusk of daydreaming. Part of the reason I’m trying to get back into blog writing is because it requires me to actually get words down, rather than admire/envy others’ efforts. I’ve been trying various approaches for years, but this time it will be different! (He says.)

Nevertheless, I’ve come to the realisation that I find reading or watching lessons about writing inspiring. It may be a form of procrastination as well, but it’s a damn good one. For example, I recently came across some essays that Brandon Sanderson, one of the fantasy authors who I enjoy reading, wrote entitled Sanderson’s Laws of Magic. Each of the three “laws” outline good principles for creating memorable, interesting magic systems, which Sanderson has employed in his own writing.

Sanderson’s second law is simply that limitations are more important than abilities. It isn’t what a character can do that is most important to who they are, but what they cannot or will not do. He extends this beyond magic systems to storytelling principles: the weaknesses of good characters are more interesting than their strengths; and the costs of living in a fictional world are often more intriguing than the benefits.

I completely agree with this philosophy, and it’s something I try to keep in mind with my own writing.

We love to revel in a character’s powers or abilities. They do things that we cannot or would not do. They battle through the crucible of story as a proxy for us. We relate to the fires of change and conflict that scald them—sometimes licked by phantom flames, as fiction mirrors life—but we can keep a certain distance from the inferno.

But if the protagonist is without weaknesses, without flaws, of course we struggle to relate and empathise. We want to know characters who have to overcome a weakness of character, who have to look deep within themselves to identify an inner flaw. And we don’t want the process to be easy.

This doesn’t mean the character has to have something crippling, like alcoholism or a selfish streak as wide as the Grand Canyon. The best flaws may be those that the protagonist has buried deep, ones that have nibbled away at them ever since some traumatic event occurred in their past. Perhaps there’s an element of schadenfreude, but we want to see the character suffer in pursuit of their goal. We want to feel that we’re not alone in struggling to overcome ours and be reminded that, with enough commitment, the imposing peaks of our weaknesses can be diminished. 

Because nobody is without flaws.

I have procrastination tendencies and a chronic inability to network as two of my headliners, amongst myriad other smaller flaws. We know, if not consciously then instinctively, that we are the protagonists in our own stories. We all try to maximise our strengths and overcome our weaknesses, striving to do what we consider right by our ethical code, and being true to ourselves.

Indeed, a large part of being a writer is drawing experiences and emotions from our own lives and forcing them out on to the page. It’s painful, but that’s the point. The agony produces emotion, which in turn produces meaning. And that’s what stays with the reader, viewer or player far longer than any bombastic powers ever do.

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