How Well Do You Really Know Your Characters?

In a previous blog post, I wrote about creating characters. One bullet point I made was that you, as author, should get to know your major characters. Let me expand on that today.

To review, your goal is to create believable, interesting, and memorable characters. Also, to some degree, your characters should be representative, or recognizable; readers should be able to identify with at least some aspect of the characters, having that aspect themselves or having witnessed it in other real peopl...