Neil at 2010-02-08 02:26:37:
On the note of making a character seem more human through a flaw, I think it's a great idea to just throw something random in there. This obviously isn't the full flaw, but let's say your character has ashma - he's instantly more human and real.

Or maybe he broke his hand a few months ago and it still hurts when he's fighting his way through bad guy after bad guy.

A woman who HAS to read the last page of a book before starting.

These aren't flaws in the sense that they'll drive your plot, but they'll add a bit of depth and make them seem more human.
michele at 2010-02-08 09:22:55:
The most interesting one I read about recently was John Proctor in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. John is guilty of adultery - and this guilt both made him someone people could identify with and drove his actions. A truly good man fighting such evil would 1) be insufferably righteous and 2) probably wouldn't care so much about his reputation, which he knows is spotless. John must PROVE he is a good man, worthy of his good wife, and the result is heartbreaking.

I really don't like flaws thrown in for no reason - why not think harder and come up with something like the above?
cfan at 2010-02-09 05:39:45:
Interesting timing on this one. I'm going through a 2nd draft on a spec script I'm working on. It's got the feel of a modern-day Western, set during the cocaine wars in South Florida during the late 70s/early 80s. I knew enough about a lot of characters and the story to make it through a first draft. I know, I know. I probably should have done some more homework on my main character before hitting the page, but that's the way I approached it. I knew enough about his past and his current situation to give him life. And, I began to learn more about him as I went. But, there was something missing. He wasn't...pathetic enough. I mean, a latter-day cowboy fighting gangster wars with no ties to family. In the first draft, he was to flat and blandly heroic. Then, I realized, he's really hanging on to some part of his youth that makes him sad. So, I aged him and made him less glamorous. One example of how this changed him was when I had him in an action escape from his captors, hopping out a window, up on the roof, down a drainpipe, etc. I realized that this guy would turn an ankle, drop his only weapon, and fall on his ass. Kind of like William Holden's character in The Wild Bunch when he tries to get into the saddle and it breaks on him. You sort of feel sorry for him and laugh. But, he's still your hero. Heck, he's even more so now.