What is at the core of your main character that touches you emotionally?

What do you identify with, to help you write the character from the "inside out"?

What is it about him/her that intrigues you, provokes you, arouses your curiosity?

Where does he/she come from? What shaped him/her as a unique individual?

What physical characteristics distinguish him/her from others in your book?

What behavioral tics distinguish him/her from others in your book?

What personality traits are revealed by his/her actions throughout the 24-hour day?

What are his/her strengths, weaknesses, contradictions, and essential life conflict?

Will this character sustain your interest during the writing of the book?

Is he/she sympathetic enough to appeal to readers?

Layered and complex enough for believability?

Is it someone, despite his/her flaws, who characters will root for and worry about?

Have you created a character that’s too passive to drive the narrative action or at least play a vital or active role in the investigation and solution of a baffling crime?

What is your character’s occupation? Would it allow him/her to investigate murders?

If he/she is not in law enforcement, how do they gain access to evidence?

What in his/her personal or job background steers him/her to criminal investigation?

What unique personality and character traits make him/her a good sleuth, with special skills, instincts or insights others might not have?

Why would this character get involved in murder, intrigue and potential danger?

Does he/she carry or know how to handle a weapon? Engage in self-defense?

Is your character’s name distinct and memorable, yet short enough for a book cover?

Have you chosen a main setting that helps reveal and define your character?

Where does he or she live, work, play? Have you envisioned this world in sensory detail?

Is your villain complex enough to be fascinating, if not sympathetic?

Clever enough to carry out and cover up a murder or murders? Throw up obstacles in the path of the hero/heroine or sleuth? Elude detection? Pose a physical threat?

What motivates him/her to commit the extreme act of murder? What is his/her goal?

What is the essential character flaw that makes him or her a murderer or sociopath?

If they are ordinary, what is it within their personality that drives them to murder? If they are extraordinary, are they still credible and believable?

What do you identify in them that will help you write them from the inside, rather than creating a stereotyped, one-dimensional, "cardboard cutout" culprit?

Since the victim usually points the way to clues and suspects, and is crucial to the story, have you given your victim enough consideration as a key character?

Why did the murderer choose this particular victim? What was the "attraction"?

What is in this victim’s background/life that adds to the story, provides suspects, red herrings, clues, etc.? Is the victim complex enough to help provide misdirection?

Why would the sleuth bother to solve this murder? What the attraction to the victim?

Who else might care about the victim and become involved? Why? How?

If you’ve created a "sidekick" for your sleuth, is he/she a useful, well-developed character, rather than a contrivance merely to serve the plot?

Does every character in your novel, large or small, serve a purpose?

Is your "stage" cluttered with too many characters, weakening their roles? Is it possible some characters might be combined into a stronger composite character?

Is each character distinct enough (name, looks, role, etc.) to avoid reader confusion?

Have you used subplot to reveal material about your characters that helps make them more complex and interesting? Gives them a life beyond the murder investigation?

Have you provided enough concrete detail for your characters and their world to bring them alive and make them feel credible and real?

If you were a reader who paid $24.95 for this book, would you find these characters original, appealing and well enough developed for your satisfaction?