Sometimes we need to dig deeper into what the author might do to develop the characters inside a story. How were they created in the first place? How did their attributes develop? Were they they before the novel started or created as the story developed?
Close reading practices should analyze characters for deep understanding just as the writer does for developing the character in the first place.
A character develops on its own as the writer sets the pen to the paper, or with technology fingertips to the keyboard. Often, when a writer starts out with millions of ideas rolling through their head, a character already has the basics. After a few paragraphs, a personality. After a chapter, a philosophy. After a while, one looks back to see if that character is where the writer wants that character to be at. At that point one can stop and make a bullet list or outline of where that character might go from there. But one defines a character in the first place based on what “characters” a writer has met in real life or in other books that will be combined to make the “perfect” character for that new piece of work. It’s all made up in the end, so….that character can be anything you want it to be and it will fit because you make it so.
ELA On The Move 