1. Definition

Any personage in a literary work who acts, appears, or is referred to as playing a part.

Things to check when reading a fiction about characters:

name, physical appearance, objects and places associated with it, actions, thoughts and speech, comments, narrator's comments about the character

2. Kinds of Characters

Old, Classic Fictions: Hero or Heroine("good guy") vs villain("bad guy")

Modern Fictions prefers more neutal terms: Protagonist vs Antagonist

*Antihero: a hero possessing traits that make him or her  the opposite of a traditional hero difficult to like or admire.

It would be a mistake to see the quality of a work of fiction as dependent on whether we find its characters likable or admirable, just as it would be wrong to assume that an author's outlook or values are the same as those of the protagonist.

3. Major vs Minor

Minor characters are just as important as Major characters

a Foil, a character that helps by way of contrast to reveal the unique qualities of another (especially main) character

4. Flat vs Round, Static vs Dynamic 

Flat Characters: Simple, one-dimensional characters that behave and speak in predictable or repetitive.

Round Characters: having psychological complexity.

Dynamic characters are changing

Static characters are not changing

Stock Characters seem to be out of a stockroom of familiar, prefabricated figures.

Archetypes recurring in the myths and literature of many different ages and cultures.

Characterization: the art and technique of representing fictional personages. We need to consider how the text shapes our interpretation of, and degree of sympathy or admiration for, the character; what function the character serves in the story; and what the character might represent.

5. Fate is Character

Heraklitos, a Greek philosopher thought that character, the essence of the individual, determines his or her experience; Character, the tone of the individual, resonates with the music of his destiny. It is the flaws of character that are tragic. Viewing destiny in this way, the fates are not outside us, in the heavens, weaving and cutting the threads of our lives. Instead, they are consonant with our character. This consideration is at the root of the world view that good things happen to good people.