Writing A Story: Getting Started

Further Character Development

Personality
How will your character act? What are their downfalls in their personality? Greed? Lust for power? Envy of another character? Pride? Arrogance? Fear? What are their positive traits?

Looks
What do they look like? Simple as that. Hair, eyes, build, height, weight, markings, piercing, and clothes all fall under this category, but you already knew that.

Powers/Abilities
This is entirely dependent on your story's setting. We want to see magic in mystical lands and super powers in modern times. What are their powers and what are their draw backs? What else are they able to do? Are there any abilities they gain and lose throughout the story? Make sure to limit the character to powers though, we don't want a Mary Sue or Gary Stu running around now. If you don't know what a Mary Sue/Gary Stu is, here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue.

Emotional Problems
What's something of themselves that get in the way with their goal? Are they too quick to judge? Are they too temperamental? Are they to scared? Don't trust? Depressed about something that they did? (And make sure they did it. We don't want an Angst Sue on the loose) Come up with one and determine, if anymore, how more can be pulled in. Keep it to one to three per character. We don't want the character to be to hard to write.

Weakness
Everyone has their Kryptonite. Fears/phobias, personal belongings, self destruction button, and mental weaknesses would be perfect for this. It could create many scene when these are pushed on, making \hilarious to tragic scenes because of these.

Background/Backstory
What makes them the way they are? Family and friends? Where are they from? How do these things affect how they gained their weaknesses?

Development:
How will the character change because of his or her actions? Will they change for better or worse? How do they solve their emotional problems?

And just to make sure they aren't sues in anyway, take three Mary Sue test and if they pass two of the three minimum, you're character is all right. If not, go back and find things that you could change or cut entirely. If you can't think of anything, pitch the character and start all over with him/her.