Beautiful, smart, kind, humble, strong, courageous, and on top of all that, funny too… Sounds like the most amazing heroine, doesn’t it?

Actually, it reminds me of one of my first heroines from a story never finished and never looked at by a publisher. That’s a blessing. I would not want that work representing me today. It was fun to write, but I still had a lot to learn. For instance, my heroine needed a few flaws.

Characters can’t be perfect. They need to feel authentic. They’re human, right? Well, they typically are in my genre anyway.

The issue wtih perfection is readers can’t relate to it. And that is a problem. If readers can’t connect with your characters, they’ll stop reading. I know I will. The more I relate to the characters, the more invested I become in the story.

It makes sense, right?

So, if your character is crazy smart, consider also making her a klutz. I can relate to that more than I would like to.