Characters design

[Sakshi]

Lets collect the opinions and ideas from all readers and writers on designing and developing characters. So go ahead and writer down what you think makes a character memorable or disgusting, or what you as a reader want more in a character? You can give examples , etc...
Hope these ideas would help all of us writers...

[Linda]

More quirks and habits help to round out flat characters and help readers keep all the characters straight.

[Tina]

I feel it’s the little things that connect with a reader but be careful how much you use them. My detective in Silent River clicked his pen when he concentrated. Only once did his partner mention it but he stands with his hand in his pockets.

In my latest book I didn’t give my detective habitual traits except she doesn’t admit to herself she has possible esp little things she does or feels she says it’s just good deduction.
It doesn’t have to be a tick or action. Chewing a lip or sucking on the end of a pen works too

[Ville]

Some characters have a clear "flavour" or feel, like, say, a lot of the characters in Harry Potter. Others don't, in spite of being developed a lot - like, say, Harry Potter. I like them to have that feel... but I don't actually know very well what creates it, so I'm throwing this out as another question: how do you give a character a strong, distinct feel? Those quirks probably have something to do with it, but that can't be all.

[Judith]

This is a suggestion based on the writing books from Sol Stein. Take one of the Harry Potter books where characters have strong "flavours" (Severius Snape? Hermoine?) and highlight the phrases that jump out at you here that feel is apparent. Compare them. What is it? Adjective choice or just the verbs used in either dialogue or description. That should start you on your way.

[Zenny]

For me, I like when characters feel real so that's what I try to write. I like when the characters feel lived in. I don't really need or want characters to be fun or likeable or quirky, with photographic memory or special gifts and all that, I just want to be able to get into their shoes and in their brain.

I like psychoanalysis so sometimes I use Jung's archetypes when I'm just beginning to flesh out a story and there's 45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters which uses the greek myths to categorize the archetypes a little differently, but mostly, I just go with real people I know as templates and maybe exaggerate a few things or tone down a few things...

My best experience is when I'm reading a novel or watching a movie and I can do that 'DiCaprio pointing at the TV' meme, like "Yes, this is really how they are!"

[J.]

I think that one of the best "shapers" of character, and one that I have found to be sadly overlooked in a lot of contemporary fiction is dialogue. How a character speaks is influenced by several things: gender, age, educational level, profession, regional slang, whether the language the character speaks is their first language. I've found, especially in current popular fiction, that there is no distinction between the speaking styles of characters - the middle aged male cop, the young female witness, the workaholic lawyer, the criminal's next door neighbor all use the same syntax, same grammar. Ideally, you should not need attribution to know which character is speaking.