There are, in the most basic of terms, only two kinds of fictional characters
1) memorable characters that the reader will think about long after they have put the book down and want to read more stories about
and
2) Easily forgotten characters that the reader simply can not bring themselves to care about.
None of us want the type two character, the ones that cause the reader to yawn and set the book aside, or worse, to roll their eyes and throw the book aside.
We want the memorable character. We want the character that has such a sense of reality about them that our reader is able to fully empathize with the character and wants to spend time with them.
How do you achieve that? You make the character as real as possible. You don’t simply decide that you are going to write about a computer nerd that is into conspiracy theories. You create a computer genius who lives in the back room of a bar, is precariously balanced between the sanity of knowing conspiracy theories are for nutcases and believing in them himself. You give him a phobia, a fear of going outside. Then you find out why he has it.
The character I am talking about here is one that my dear friend created years ago, one that came to life for all of us in the writing group. She laid the basic groundwork and handed me the character who then took on a life of his own.
We discovered that he is afraid to go out because when he was a small child his father went out for a walk to the corner store and was shot in a robbery. After that his mother began claiming that there was some kind of conspiracy behind her husband’s death, that he was assassinated.
The life and history of the character unfolded and with it came details about the histories of several other characters in our story world.
Try an exercise. Sit back with a notebook and write your character’s name at the top of the page, then start writing what you find most fascinating about the character and what you think might have caused that to be a part of them.