Today ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present you a series of books (writing books) that could be useful for your needs in character creation.

The What(s)?

• The Emotion Thesaurus (I will speak more in dephts of this one as it is the one I actually have)
  
• The Negative Traits Thesaurus (I have read different extracts)
  
• The Positive Traits Thesaurus (I have read different extracts)
  
• Emotion Amplifiers (free) (I have this one too)
  

Available on kindle and as a good old book. All can be found on Amazon and (I think) Barnes & Noble.
1- 164 pages
2- 264 pages
3- 252 pages
4- 72 pages (kindle only)

Also now available on the website One Stop for Writers (subscription needed to see everything though).

The Whos?
Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi

On to why I do recommend this (these) book (s). I'll go with description and uses before ending with what I think about it personally.

The Emotions Thesaurus

The Emotions Thesaurus have 75 emotions into which it dives (One Stop for Writers have 5-6 more?). Each emotion is separated into seven parts: definition, physical signals, internal sensations, mental responses, cues of acute or long-term [insert emotion], may escalate to (names a few other emotion this emotion can transform into), cues of suppressed [insert emotion] and finally, writer's tip (again, the site seems to have some added things).

The authors also give their own opinions about emotions and how they should be dealt with, tips on how to avoid clichés, how to show instead of telling and many more.

• Introduction
  
• Writing non-verbal emotions: avoiding common problems
  
• Using the emotions thesaurus
  

Emotions treated in this book are:

This is a long list.:

How can I use this thesaurus and why should I?
To be honest, if this is not something that can help you in your writing, you shouldn't. The why you should is a question only you can answer. Do you like to plan? Do you like to have an idea how your character react? Do you want to go inside of their head a little bit deeper? I'm not saying you should, I'm saying you could.

How then? And what can it do to help me?

• Creating a character:
  

Take a character and force yourself to decide which are the main emotions that drive your character. Is your character driven by anger? love? fear? resent? How do they express those emotions? Physically? Mentally? Do they repress them? Are they intense? What's their attitude in face of despair? curiosity? Are they expressive or not?

The nice thing about this book is that if you choose to work with it, you have to choose which emotions take the most place in their heart, it forces you to flesh them out (or you can totally go crazy and work on how the character would react to every single existing emotion, have fun with that).

Here's an example:

Oberon (summarized) wrote:

Main Emotions (see spoiler): Guilt, Indifference, Curiosity
Secondary Emotions: Love

In this, the exercise is to find which suggestions of each category fit with your character. One character won't do everything that's written in their bank and so from Guilt, Indifference, Curiosity and Love, I only took what corresponded with the example character below. Also, not every category have suggestions that fit and thus aren't necessary to add.

Oberon's "show don't tell" profile:

• Roleplaying a character
  

This book can also help for roleplay purpose as strange as it sounds perhaps. Also as on-the-spot questions about how your character would react.

Example: You are roleplaying with someone and suddenly your character has to express his rage. How do they do that? Do they yell? Shake? Cry?

Here's the entire entry for rage just so you know what it looks like:

If we take Prince Diamond as an example now:
He would give out Biting criticism and belittlement, Staring someone down to frighten them, Getting into someone's personal space, Manipulation (Physical Signals) over Spittle building up in the corners of the mouth, Fighting with no thought for one's own safety, A guttural roar (Physical Signals).
He would have a Need to dominate or control (Mental Reponses) instead of a Difficulty focusing or concentrating (Mental Responses).

So the point is to choose what correspond to the moment the character is just living. While roleplaying the Thesaurus is something that can be consulted at any time. It doesn't have to serve only for the early planning.

• This book can be a cool exercise to get to know your characters, whether you use what's in it in a story or not. At least you know if your character is more: crossing arms or clenching teeth or even both!
  
• The authors also provide with some gracious tips that you are free to follow or not.
  

The Emotion Thesaurus wrote:

Page 15: Writer's Tip - Body cues should create  a strong mental picture. If the movement is too drawn out or complicated, the emotional meaning behind the gesture may be lost.

Page 97: Writer's Tip - To create a fluid, emotional arc in your story, make sure your character's feelings build in intensity and complexity as the novel progresses.

Emotions Amplifiers

This books functions as an extension of the Emotion Thesaurus. Listed in it are Addiction, Attraction, Boredom, Cold, Dehydration, Distraction, Exhaustion, Heat, Hunger, Illness, Inebriation, Lethargy, Pain, Relaxation and Stress.

Negative Traits Thesaurus

I do not own this book, but there is a sample of it in the Emotions Amplifiers. As this ebook is free, I can only suggest you take a look at it. But this Thesaurus will take a flaw and relate which flaws would be similar, its possible causes, the associated behaviors and attitudes, the associated thoughts and emotions, the positive aspects and more.

Positive Traits Thesaurus

See above but with positive traits instead.

Conclusion

I actually really love this series and I recommend them. I also recommend reading those while having your own views on the matter. You don't have to agree with everything they say to make of it a very useful tool for your writing. They target clichés a lot, but it's your choice in the end whether you want to work with them or not.