Here's how to start developing a character profile

Creating a character who feels real to your readers isn't something you can do on the fly (most likely).

It takes a great amount of thought, much of which might not even make the pages of your novel.

In essence, you have to know your character's life story, even though your novel only focuses on a particular segment of time.

Author Carly Schabowski suggests developing a character profile so that you can get to that level of familiarity where you know exactly how they'll react to any given situation.

Her list of character profile prompt questions and places to reveal a character's personality are up at Writer's Digest.  

Related posts 

• A psychologist's approach to developing believable characters 

• Why writers should know what their character wants and needs