Okay, not you personally (not that there isn't something horribly wrong with you or anything) but your characters.

I've been thinking about that lately, as I've been doodling out the outlines for a new novel with new characters, and poking at existing characters in new stories. What's wrong with them?

It may seem like a strange thing to wonder about, but I was reminded by ABG (Author of the most excellent, though not done, Torch Song) that a character's flaws are at least as interesting and certainly as important as their finer qualities. What are their problems, their issues, their demons, what things wake them up in the middle of the night screaming? What, basically, are the bad things driving them forward?

Just about everyone's got something wrong with them, something less than good that affects them, gives them that mental limp or that little twitch in some circumstances. It's part of being human, I think, and if you want your characters to be human they have to have troubles too. I don't mean troubling circumstances -- those are external, and they can certainly make a story interesting, but actual troubles, which make the characters interesting and more real.

For a short story this probably isn't a big deal. If you've got two or three thousand words you're likely concentrating on a few scenes and a small part of the characters behaviour, but in longer works (novellas, novels, and series) you've got time for the characters to express themselves. If they don't you end up with them feeling... plastic, and sort of a cariacature of real people, when you really do want them to be real people. And real people have problems.

So, what're yours?