Character Sketches

One of the things I learned early on in writing novels was character sketching. That is creating a description and history of your characters in your story with words. I used to write it all down, but these days I keep most of it in my head---sometimes to the point where they keep me awake at night.

When I was a kid, I used to read piles of comic books every month, swapping with my friends so none of us had to buy them all.  I read mostly Marvel and some DC.  My favorites were X-Men,...