First impressions, experts tell us, are usually formed in the first ten seconds. The law of "primacy" is at work here--what a person observes first is usually remembered most strongly. This applies to characters in your fiction, just as it does to people you meet in everyday life.
Your task is to create a "visual" for the reader (external), a sense of what is inside the character (internal), and something about that character that sets him or her apart (singularity). That last is crucial because great characters are unique. Even if you are using an "ordinary person" as your main character, you can--and should--give that character a strong individuallife.
So GRAB the reader's attention. If your character is bizarre in some way, that's always good. For more "normal" characters, you'll have to look closely to your imagination for the details that are, to use a general term, "unusual." Why? Because the usual is dull, cliched.
Character description ought to do at least double duty: give us a picture of the character and also indicate something about the character's inner life. Inner life comes from a combination of things: background, habits, living conditions, dreams. There is an infinite universe of connections from which to draw. These are the some basics of creating vivid characters.
from the Creating Dynamic Characters Workshop
http://www.WritersOnlineWorkshops.com
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