Characters - Who Are They?

I'm working on creating an awesome new hero  (I'll get to his heroine later)  and  as I think about character development, I'm reminded of several things I've learned along the way.

Here are a few general ideas I refer to as I work on revealing my characters:

Dialogue:

Inner thought/retrospection
Physical appearance
Clothing, jewelry
Grammar, vocabulary
Physical gestures/quirks/idiosyncrasies
Reactions to other characters/problems/situations

Things to ask your character:

What tangible things surround you?
What treasures and trinkets have you saved from the past?
How would you react to the editorial in today’s paper? Breaking news?
What is your goal? In life? At this very moment?
Who is the most interesting person in the world to you?

Things to remember:

Make your characters interesting, complex, and memorable.
To stay in point-of-view, write as if the viewpoint character is the only one in the scene with eyes and ears.
Avoid clichéd, stereotyped characters.
Don’t let minor characters become so interesting and quirky that they take over your writing. What’s important is how the principals in your story react to them.

Remember the rule:

Reveal character bit by bit, saving the most interesting parts for last.

Okay, so I'm off to work on my new hero with these ideas in mind. But first, I'll direct you to  Emma's blog for a fantastic perspective on character development by Rebecca Grace.

Now go and create some great characters!

Kaye