When I first started out roleplaying, I found it very difficult to create my own character. It involved a lot of background information that I was too young to fully appreciate, and so I decided to only create it halfway. Lo and behold, I had a hard time roleplaying.

This was because, as I soon understood better, your character's background defines who they are. It's easy to have them come out of nowhere and start doing thing, but then you run into a lot of problems. You have obstacles that you aren't sure of how your character would react to them. Other characters ask your character questions about their history, and you have no idea how to answer because you haven't set anything in stone. Or, if you do come up with an answer, you soon come up with background information that contradicts what your previously said. This is why, when you first create your character, you should come up with a general idea of who they are. Like I said, half of your character development will come from other characters. It is very important, though, to have a base template so that your character knows how to act and what to say to questions about their history. Harry Potter was able to find out who he was from other people because JK had already established, as a fact, that he was famous. Did she ever write a book on Voldemort hearing about the prophecy, attacking Harry, and dying? No. Did she ever write a story about the Daily Prophet confirming that Harry Potter killed Voldemort, thus making him a famous wizard? No. Did she ever write a story about all the wizards at the Leaky Cauldron in Harry's first trip to Diagon Alley reading said newspaper? You guessed it.

The wonderful thing about having solid background information, though, is that the story stayed consistent. She decided beforehand that Harry killed Voldemort. She decided beforehand that other wizards and witches would find out about it. She decided beforehand that she wanted certain things to happen in Harry's past, so that Book One Harry can have the experience of finding out that he's the most famous wizard in the world. And because of this, JK was able to avoid any inconvenient plot holes that would have come about by developing all of Harry's background as the story progressed. Since she already established enough things as a fact when she had to, she could accurately depict Book One Harry. Since she could accurately depict Book One Harry, she knew exactly how he would react to certain things.

So now, the right thing to ask would be 'How do I develop a good background?' Meaning, of course, how do you create a background with enough information to start roleplaying and not run into any inconveniences. This starts, simply, with asking the right questions.

You can find a ton of those character questions lists on Google, and those are very useful. I recommend, as a base starting point, looking up a list with character questions and answering them all for your character. You could do this by yourself, of course, but often those lists have a few questions that you wouldn't think of. I myself, when creating any kind of character, start by asking questions about my character and checking those lists to see if there are any more that I can answer. For those of you who don't know, these are questions like: What's your character's hair color? What's their height? Where were they born? Who are their parents? Etc, etc, etc.

Keep in mind that you don't have to answer each and every question. You only need to answer the ones that you predict will come up while roleplaying. Don't let that discourage you from answering all of them, though, as a sound background will prevent problems later. Don't worry too much about if it's a good enough amount of information, though, because things can always be changed later. Just develop enough history to be sure you wont run into major problems.

You also need to make sure that your character's story wont contradict the story of the person your roleplaying with. This can be done by discussing things beforehand. For example, both your character and another person's character has the Elder Wand. It's common knowledge, though, that only one Elder Wand exists. An unrealistic thing to do would say that there are two Elder Wands in existence. A rude thing to do would be for your characters to argue about which wand is the true Elder Wand. A smart and nice thing to do would be to discuss it beforehand and come to the decision that only one of you can have the Elder Wand, that somebody has to give up the Elder Wand, and possibly offer the person you're roleplaying with the option for their character to have the Invisibility Cloak, so that things stay fair. My favorite thing about roleplaying is that it's a cooperative exercise, so please remember courtesy.

Remember that the person you're roleplaying with has worked hard on their character and consider them special the same way an architect considers a house special. Remember that your character being changed, while it is an inconvenience, is not the end of the world. Finally, understand that my hopes in writing this book isn't to make you the best roleplayer and writer the world has ever seen. Rather, I hope to give you a few tools so that you may further optimize that which you already possess.