Character profiles – sparse or detailed?

Writing my first published novel, Destiny of Angels, I took no chances. Every character in the book was planned and thoroughly researched, neatly filed with a photograph of how I envisaged the character…and then I started writing.

Why was I so surprised that my characters had minds of their own? Why did I not anticipate that the character traits I’d landed them with weren’t necessarily the ones that fitted them best? Some of the planning was useful, but other parts I ended up changing to create the well rounded, believable characters I needed for my novel. So, how much character planning do you need? How much detail is necessary when writing fiction?

These are the details I begin with. You can always add to your characters as the book progresses and you get to know them even better:

1 Visual appearance

I’m a visual reader and writer, so height, shape…