Character Flaws:

I am writing a list of tragic character flaws on my dollar bills with a felt pen. I am thinking of the people in my universe and distilling for each of these people the one flaw in their character that will be their downfall—the flaw that will be their undoing. What I write are not sins; I write tragedies.

— Douglas Coupland, Shampoo Planet

For a fictional story, I've been researching character flaws. There are two main characters, male and female in my story. I think I have a pretty good idea of what the male character's flaw should be. He'll be a sad, lonely guy, waiting to die. He does the absolute minimum to get by and doesn't take risks. He knows that whatever he attempts isn't going to succeed, so he doesn't bother to waste energy trying. He hates his life, but doesn't have the courage to start over. His fatal flaw is fear of failure because there has been so much already.

The female character is much more difficult for me. She was married to a man who the day after the wedding ran off with her best friend. Her tragic flaw is that she lives in the past and refuses to ever trust anyone again. She believes in karmic debts and thinks that her former husband and best friend will pay for their behavior in the next life.