How to avoid annoyingly dumb characters

I'm currently working on a character who, well, fails a lot. She's a naive, socially inept character who suffers from near crippling anxiety because of years of failure. The problem is, a lot of people seem to hate fuck-up characters. So my question is, how to I make sympathetically naive instead of annoyingly dumb?

Most basically, I'd say simply make her a likable (or at least a relatable) character. Give her a well developed personality, interesting interactions with other characters, clear goals, interests, and other defining traits. The more I feel I know a character, the more slack I'm usually willing to give them, and the more likely I am to feel sympathetic as opposed to lose interest out of frustration.

More specifically, providing some reason for the naivete could help. Also, try to make the trait consistent. Know specifically what she isn't knowledgeable about, what situations her anxiety is at its worst, etc. and stay loyal to that list (unless, of course, proper character development occurs). That way her fail moments won't seem to come out of nowhere arbitrarily. If it fits her character, you could give her a specific area to be quite competent or knowledgeable in, even if she's kind of a screw up outside of this space.

Also, make sure she doesn't make the same (obvious) mistake twice. Have her learn and grow, or at the very least, acknowledge her past issues, and apply that learning to the current situation. If she does fall into a rut of repetition, make a plot point of it, or have it be a different situation every time.

edited 10th Aug '13 9:11:52 AM by MrAHR

Sfderbis has a Running Gag on Neelix from Star Trek Voyager.

Neelix was a "Scavenger" and a "Survival expert" and he put the ship in peril many, many times. His cheese caused the ship's computer to almost die, he found bugs gross even thou many cultures eat bugs for the protein (and real survival schools teach you what bugs are safe to eat). And those are just two examples.

Show don't tell: if the character is a ditz but good at baking, show the character failing at say math or asking "Who's buried in Grant's tomb?" but baking a cake so good even the villains like it.

Tone down teh stoopid. Everyone has that person at work who won't shut up. And there co-workers with what seems like a room temp IQ. The different between real life and fiction is that in RL we can avoid the office dullard.

In fiction you're stuck with them.

That's not a bad thing, see Forrest Gump. It's turning down the silly antics and the dumb and letting the story be told. Lucas made Jar-Jar Binks into some silly clown character because he thought it would "appeal to kids". He toned him down when he realized it didn't work. To quote Sfdebris:

I have a character who's a bit of a ditz (despite being a "robot") and who's a Genki Girl / Motor Mouth. I'm gonna try and keep her antics to where they advance the story or are Rule of Funny rather than pester the audience with "Look at this character! She's funny because she's a idiot and because I say so!"

edited 10th Aug '13 11:25:49 AM by TairaMai