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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37927
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There's a truism, origin unknown, to the effect that **"bad decisions make good stories."** If everyone makes great choices all the time, it doesn't lead to much in the way of drama or suspense.

On the other hand, people want to be able to identify with your characters, and no one voluntarily identifies with egregious stupidity. Preferably, your reader would say "I know that's a terrible decision, but I could completely see myself doing the same thing in that situation." As @Amadeus pointed out, this typically involves establishing plausible, relateable motivations. You also want to ground those motivations in the character you've established. If a character typically makes bad decisions, one more isn't going to strain credibility, although it may well make the reader lose patience with the character for other reasons. Or, if this is the character's one and only bad decision, it should be rooted in an established character flaw, not forced on the character to advance the plot. Making a bad decision in honest pursuit of a noble aim is almost always plausible.

Finally, although it might not be the best possible writing choice, you can be a little more lazy with it if the bad decisions are being made by peripheral characters --thus making them part of the external conditions your main characters need to deal with. Dealing with _other people's_ inexplicable stupidity is pretty relateable to most people.

Original score: 6