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Everyone has a different method of developing characters. 

My method is that I create them and then I crawl inside their skin.

That probably sounds a little crazy. Let me explain. I start with whatever I know about them. Say I know he’s a guy who was raised by a super nice family, but before that grew up with faeries. 

 I try and figure out what he looks like.

And I try to figure out his name. The perfect name, for me, makes a character come to at least partial life.

Then I ask myself questions and try to feel through the answers: What’s he good at? Who does he hang out with? Does he have a lot of friends? Are they good friends? What stuff does he do for fun? 

Plus the big ones: What are his secrets? What does he daydream about? What does he want more than anything?

But the biggest step in writing a character is, once you know a bunch of stuff about him, actually writing him in a scene and experimenting until you find his true voice. 

Don’t feel like you’re stuck with any of the answers you first come up with, either. Characters grow over time, as you make more and more interesting choices for them, until they’re fully formed and ready to hatch and be a part of a story.