Developing characters in a novel takes a bit more than just describing them. It's important to know things about the character before you start writing the story. The author needs to know more about the main characters than is written in the novel. After all, it's impossible to know how someone will respond to a given situation when you don't know much about that person. It's also impossible to figure out when a person will act out of character is you don't know what is in character for them.

That's why knowing how to develop characters when writing a novel is so important for authors. This guide will look at some ways to help develop your novel's characters.

The characters in your novel all have a certain physical appearance that might or might not be important to the story. You, as the author, have no way of knowing if the characteristic is important to your character unless you know what that characteristic is. For example, if your character is short, but later in your story, you have him or her reaching up for something on a tall shelf, that won't work, and some readers are very in tune with the minutia of a character and a story. When believability and suspension of disbelief fail, the story itself fails too.

So before you start writing your story, or very soon afterward, sit down and write a character sketch. Describe your character's physical attributes such as:

1. Male or female?
2. How tall is he or she?
3. Slender and lanky or barrel chested or plump?
4. Attractive or plain?
5. Blue eyes? Green?
6. Long hair or short? What color is it? Balding, maybe?

You can probably come up with other traits as well, but give a good character sketch of their appearance.

After basic development information, it's time to move on to the background and life information about your character like:

1. Name (first and last)?
2. What's your character's ethnicity? Is it part of their character traits?
3. Race--ethnicity and race are separate things, and for some might make a difference in attitude or understanding or cultural difference.
4. Favorite foods?
5. Favorite color?
6. Birthdate?
7. Siblings, parents, family? Sometimes things that have happened in a character's family can help shape the character.

You can come up with other things to use to help build up an understanding of your character. Your goal here is to know your character as well as you would, say, your best friend. The better your know and understand your character, the better you can decide how they would act when you confront them with situations of conflict in your plot. The more information you as the author know about your characters, the more believable their responses and reactions to your plot twists will be for the reader.

The last step, after you'd performed a character sketch of your novel's characters, is to sit down and interview your character. Think about the plot for your story and act as though you're a radio or television personality interviewing that person in real life.

What questions would you ask of the character about his or her life? Ask the hard-hitting, interesting questions, the things that most people don't know.

Then sit back and let your character answer, in his or her own words, and you write what they would say. This information won't be used in your novel, but you'll be amazed how much of what you learn during a character interview can be used to develop and build the character and their personality.

When you take the time to build a character properly, you learn as much about them as possible, so that, when you start to write the book's manuscript, you know how they will react and respond to the things you throw their way. This type of intimate understand of your novel's characters makes for better character development, as well as stronger novels and a better reader experience.