Most people prefer to read stories that feature strong characters. But what constitutes a “strong character?” Is it the ability to physically win fights? Or perhaps a supernatural power that makes her strong? Maybe it’s endless endurance or lightning-like speed? Maybe he’s just so smart that he can think his way out of any situation? Or perhaps she has great skill with a weapon?

While I don’t mind reading stories about strong, fast, smart, skilled characters, that’s not my idea of a strong character. When I say a “strong” character, I’m not necessarily talking about physical strength. What I mean by a “strong” character is a well-rounded, complex, or multi-faceted character.

This is challenging for me, as a writer. I want to write characters who triumph in their stories, but I also want them to have a personality outside of their strengths. I want them to have flaws that are deep and integral to that character. I don’t want to write a perfect, beautiful character, decide she needs a flaw, and slap a mole on the side of her face as a token imperfection. I want to write real flaws.

To be a good writer, I believe I must be a good reader. So I have made it something of a personal mission to read stories with flawed characters, as a completely selfish way to help myself write better characters. Today I’m going to talk about a few characters that I consider strong.

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling was a highly influential series in my life. Two of my favorite characters are the leading ladies of Harry’s world – Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley. Fans of the series will remember Hermione as the “brightest witch of her age,” and it’s true. Hermione is incredibly intelligent, and is willing to spend hours researching anything she doesn’t immediately understand. Her intelligence is Harry’s saving grace over and over again. However, she still has flaws. As well as being very clever, she’s also ruthless. She set Professor Snape on fire when she was only eleven years old, based on a hunch with no solid evidence of any wrongdoing. She cast a paralyzing spell on a classmate, a friend, who was trying to keep the Trio from sneaking out and getting their house into trouble. She captured reporter Rita Skeeter in her beetle form and inhumanely forced the woman to live in a jar. She erased her parents’ memories of her without their consent. While it was for their own good and possibly the only thing that kept them alive, it was still done without their knowledge and without giving them any choice in the matter. She’s clever, yes – clever and brutal.

Ginny is on the opposite end of the spectrum from Hermione. Ginny is sassy and funny, arguably a better Quidditch player than Harry, fearless, and fantastically skilled at hexes. She sounds pretty flawless! But her sassy humor is often cruel, and at other peoples’ expense. Her brother’s fiancé, Fleur Delacour, found herself the brunt of Ginny’s mean-spirited snarkiness, for no crime other than being too pretty and feminine for Ginny’s liking. She’s fearless, sure – she’ll fearlessly crash her broom into the announcer’s stand during Quidditch games because he said something she didn’t like. And hexes? Not even infamous pranksters Fred and George wished anyone to be on the receiving end of one of them. Ginny is an incredibly likable character, made more so by the fact that her strengths and her weaknesses are one and the same. The things that make her good are the same things that make her bad.

Another favorite character of mine is Lisbeth Salander, brought to us by author Stieg Larsson. Lisbeth is very intelligent, a brilliant hacker, and has a photographic memory. However, her morals can be in the gray area, such as when she stole billions of kroner from a businessman, or nailed her brother’s feet to the floor before calling a pair of goons to come kill him, then calling the police to come nail the goons. Lisbeth’s other flaws are very human. At one point, she falls in love with a man, sees him with a woman who she knows to be his friend and occasional lover, and throws him out of her life in a fit of jealousy. Lisbeth is also physically tiny. Looking small and harmless in addition to being assumed to be incompetent make her an unfortunately alluring target for assault. Besides her size, love, and jealousy, her biggest flaw and the one that is very nearly her downfall is her inability to trust others. Given her backstory, it’s understandable. In fact, her distrust makes perfect sense, and most any other person with the same background would have the same lack of faith in others, if they survived with their sanity intact at all. Lisbeth is allowed to be grievously assaulted but still survive, deeply mistrustful but still fall in love, incredibly intelligent but still fall prey to jealousy, alarmingly resourceful but still a greedy thief. She’s a wonderfully complex and multi-faceted character.

Of course, Hermione, Ginny, and Lisbeth are only three of hundreds of strong characters. Do you have any tips for writing strong characters? Let me know in the comments, and tell me about some of your favorite strong characters!