Cringeworthy

The best characters make the worst mistakes and fail egregiously to do the things they ought. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein's sins of commission and omission — starting with making the monster and then failing to care for and raise it — continually cause the reader to squirm. This squirming is a fabulous form of reader engagement.

PROMPT: Sometimes we love our characters too much. It could be because they are our creations, or because they are some iteration of ourselves. Especially when you're close to a character, for whatever reason, make sure you let them do everything that it's in their nature to do, especially the horrific, the embarrassing, the idiotic, the cringeworthy.