The other day, Jon saw an okay article about character building, which listed such things as:

1 Where does your character live?
2 Where is your character from?
3 How old is your character?
4 What is your character called?
etc.

These are fine to start. But what can add that extra spark?

Jon's list is:

1. What are the intensifiers your character uses? And please know why. (Example: The guy at the hardware store says Super Duper. Not ironically.)

2. What is your character's secret? (Example: Has a brother in a mental institution. Who the character took a lot of money from.)

3. What is your character's three main t emotions? (Example: Fear. Panic. Exhaustion.)

4. What are two of their quirks? (Example: They have a whole deal for eating French Fries.)

5. What is your character's sense of humor? Do they do puns? What about making fun of others? Something more than the usual scarcasm in so many novels.