Thinking about how I develop characters is tricky, because I’ve never given it tons of thought. My only truly conscious choice is that I don’t particularly care for giving characters physical descriptions. As a reader I tend to apply my own biases to envisioning the character. For instance, I read Pride & Prejudice while envisioning the actors from Bridget Jones’ Diary. So I try not to bother beyond broad strokes.
But that’s not the important part, is it? Everything else is And honestly, I don’t need to know most of the meat of a character I start: just a name and a general idea of who they are. I find that the more time I spend penning back story, the less likely I am to write the actual story.