Creating Characters

Character Creation. Google that and you'll get 13,200,000 results (in .32 seconds on my computer). That's amazing. All of those results don't pertain to writing, they have video game character creation, role playing games and so on.

I have probably done every character work-up sheet findable on the internet. Thing is, they don't help. Does it really matter what my character's favorite color is? How tall he is in feet and inches?

I get the ones that ask about deep, dark secrets. Greatest fears, those make sense. I have yet to ever use any of those answers to write. Most of the time, I forget my answers until I find the paper at the bottom of some pile.

I thought I prepared quite a bit before I started writing. In reality, I don't. I do write up all this information beforehand. It is supposed to help me get a feel for the characters, to know their story before I start writing. Once I start that first page, everything I've 'prepared' goes right out the window.

The only preparation tool that sticks around is my outlines. But even those are hardly glanced at unless I get stuck.

Am I alone in this? Does anyone else do lots of prep work to never even glance at it? Or a better question, can anyone see a benefit to doing all that prep work that I can't?


:)