This was fun to read, Wraith! :)

For the community discussion - 

I find that my best characters come when I get a brief little concept that pops into mind - i.e. 'Geeky Scientist Who Wears Roller Skates No Matter What' or 'Entitled Trust Fund Baby Who Doesn't Speak Any English, During the Zombie Apocalypse in Georgia.' If I have that little blurb for myself, I can usually find a name that I think matches the concept, then I look for a photograph. I usually come up with first names and then struggle with the surname. The personality usually springs from that initial concept and then I work backwards, thinking about what happened in their life to make them that way. In one of Lady A's RPs, I play probably one of my best character creations - Cecily Ashworth. I knew that I wanted to play a nerdy forensic scientist who loved comic books and as I went through the motions, I realized comic books appealed to her because she felt like an outsider growing up. She felt like an outsider because her parents had them moving a lot, so she never had permanence (which is why the logic and unchanging aspect of science appealed to her). She picked forensics in particular because her parents were lawyers - but they moved frequently since they were defense attorneys that catered to the worst of the worst around the country. I made this character in my senior year of high school and now that I'm about to graduate from college, I still adore her.

On the flip side, my [i]worst[/i] characters I have to say came from either picking a faceclaim first - or in superhero RPs, a power. I have trouble writing and connecting with them if I don't get that initial pitch in my head. I think that having a personality you find interesting and/or a concept such as mentioned above can make for a long lasting and enjoyable character. In the cases where I didn't do that, I ultimately ended up shelving the character (those in X-Men may now realize why I stopped using Dean Kesseli now lol)

But in short - personality and that little blurb? Those are the most important factors for making a character in my opinion - at least, that's been the case for me. Since ultimately the goal of making a character is to create someone you enjoy writing about and that you're excited to tell stories about - and if I don't get those two things nailed down first, then I'm ultimately not going to be that invested in the character and their development. 

Oh - and as an extra thought, thinking about what sort of character arcs you might want to play out also is great to do while creating the character! Playing a static character isn't fun, but what I do love about character arcs is that you can come up with them at any time - and if you didn't like the character you made during character creation, you can start slowly pushing them in a direction to become that amazing concept you once had.