Oops

Does your hero or heroine ever blunder, make a silly or other type of mistake, become embarrassed? It happens in real life but fiction isn’t real, so some say if it doesn’t contribute to the story, it shouldn’t be there. To humanize your characters, allow them to make mistakes. This will enrich the story and this indirect contribution enhances the story.

In the world of writing, a flaw is different than a mistake. A flaw in characters is recommended as a writing technique. Whereas a mistake is caused by accidents by someone else or by a bad decision by your character and isn’t mentioned in any writing books I remember.* The character can sit on a bench that has just been painted. Oops. This can lighten the mood and depending on the color of the paint… Mistakes need verbs (action). Flaws do nicely with nouns (status).

*A special type of mistake is talked about in comedy or comic relief in any type of novel but not all mistakes are funny. A serious mistake is the hard to write, but also contributes to the richness of the story as the character works through it.

Often misunderstandings occur when an author is constructing a black moment. A black moment isn’t the mistake of which I write. The black moment typically occurs because of the belief system of a character(s), not their error making ability.

What is a mistake a hero is more likely to make than the heroine and visa versa?