Hello!

Emma is here, and well, I have been role-playing(live) a lot now, and recently I've learned quite a lot from that. 

Also, this isn't exactly how you make great characters, but it can be a help to make great characters. I've used this for a story, where I'm not worrying too much about my characters, because I know what to do. So, hope this will help you too~!

How to create great characters:

You know that mostly you find a name, and then you picture the character and then you just go. You decide that the character will develope by itself, but usually this character won't be as great as it can be.

Some important things you can write down about this character, will help you make a more realistic character, and it'll make it easier for you to challenge it.

Name:Josephine Williams (A name, not much to explain)
Look:( Pale/Green/Dark tanned, whatever, blonde, tattoos, red sneakers) Whatever characterizes your characters look
3 qualities: (It could be; Outgoing, Aggressive, Silent)
Biggest fear: (Spiders or clowns)
Relationships: (Also means; family & friends)

Example:

Name: Athea Kay
Look: Green, Boots, Tattoos
3 qualities: Aggressive, Protective, Dark Past
Biggest fear: Loneliness
Relationships: Twin Brother: Arron Kay

Then her brother:

Name: Arron Kay
Look: Green, Boots, Tattoos
3 qualities: Reckless, Protective, Silent
Biggest fear: Loneliness
Relationships: Twin Sister: Athea Kay

This will make it easier for you to keep going, then you can eventually add more to your character like: "These two siblings have always had each other, and that's why they fear loneliness. They can't imagine living without their other twin. Since Athea is aggressive, she gets in fights often, which then leads to her protective brother helping out. Also since he's reckless he always runs off if he hears about something dangerous, and she is brought along because she won't let him get hurt. They often fight about who to protect and who to stand back whenever danger is near."

I played Athea in a live roleplay, and in these games, the best you can do is to make a character that will (sorry for my language) up the game. You need something happening or else you'll get bored. That is important in a story too. You need to have some characters who will go against the safety that surrounds your characters. 
 - As the saying goes: "You have to break your characters, to see what they're really made of." 

In this game, there was a monster which were psycological. Which means that it played with your deepest fears and went inside your head. Our characters didn't know anything other than name and look of the others, or if they were siblings with anyone. So suddenly one character started to say he hated all the female characters in the room. Which of course made my character angry, and she beat him up. Turns out that he was afraid of women. 
 - Remember you may know all the characters in your story, but they do not know all about each other. 

You have to hate at least one character in the book, if you hate it, the reader probably does too. It creates emotions in the reader, and that's exactly what you look after. Though, you may know why the villain is evil,(because of something in his/her past) and the reader may feel guilty when they finally realize it.

If you're really lost, try to make someone create a character by filling this form, and suddenly you got a pretty good plot coming up.

For a thing, you can now fill out this form. Often we figure things out on the way. So it isn't always smooth and epic, but somtimes we (the characters) speak to the game master with ideas. But if our characters say something it is the word, and the others will have to follow. That is the most epic of it all, even the game master can be surprised.

Let's try it out. Fill out the form, and if you ever do that with some of your characters and it helped, tell me!^^