Lan, OZ, thank you both for great advice.  Lan, not exactly sure what you mean by bottom up and top down.  If I understand you, in a nutshell bottom up is taking the main character and building the world/story around them and top down is taking the world and building the details in it until you get down to the main character?

Thank you all so much.  As far as the fan fiction goes, I usually take a different turn than most.  My current project is a Supernatural fan fic which goes on the assumption that Agent Henricksen survives Lilith's attack on the police station.  My appologies to those who dont watch Supernatural and have no idea what I'm talking about here.  Henricksen is actually the only original character that remains.  The rest are of my creation.

The Snowflake program Im using actually has a really good tool for building your characters.  It requests all different types of info from the basics of height and weight  to what their sense of humor is like and even asks what they carry in their pockets.  My appologies for not being specific enough.  I have a VERY BAD habit of trying to over explain a characters motivation so end up explaining way too much.  So when I said character development, I misspoke although there were some very good ideas for that.  Especially since its so much harder to write characters that you may not care much about. 

Ok, sorry all.  Been doing yardwork all day and very ready for bed so having trouble focusing, especially since my wife is playing acoustic guitar music on Pandora!!
In a nutshell, how do you develop a character that you dont necessarily like without making them a soulless douchebag and without oversharing?

I really like your idea Lan of world building.  My problem on that is the world will build with the story.  The initial story takes place pretty much locally for the protagonist, within say 200 miles or so of his village.  The next book will take him almost global and the final book will go interstellar.

Again, sorry if Im rambling but yardwork and lack of sleep are taking their toll!.  Good thing you dont have to see how many times I have had to backspace to fix typos!!!!!

So if Im understanding you correctly, the ONLY purpose of the wand/rod/whatever you decide upon is for the focusing of the casters magic.  There is no special construction/preparation/glyphing etc... necessary to make the wand function.  IF that is the case then I personally would consider the particular item type irrelivant.  Case in point, in JB's world of magic Harry uses multiple items.  His wand, his blasting rod, his shield bracelet, multiple rings and a slew of other things I wont bother to go into.  Maybe they could use any item available, but the more personal the connection to the item the more effective it is.  For example, a character purchases a ring at Wally World and uses X amount of effort/focus/energy through that ring to blow up a house.  That same person could use their wedding ring with the same amount of effort to destroy an office building.  Then they use the wedding ring of their grandmother who raised them and was the only family they ever knew yada yada to nuke a town.

Point is that if the only purpose of the item is to focus the magic and no special preparation is needed then ANY item is fair game.  Making it personal to the caster gives you the opportunity to kind of get crazy with it! Imagine if Harry could only ever focus his magic when he was in the Blue Beetle! Not very practical for a main character but potentially very amusing and situationally appropriate for a minor or one time character.

As far as it needing to be threatening, that isnt necessary.  If you were to go back in time with a 357 magnum and threaten a group of Knights Templar with it they will probably laugh at you....until you pull the trigger.  It would be the same today if somebody pointed a stick at you and said they were going to cast a spell and burn you.  You would probably laugh unless they actually did it. 

Anyway, my whole point is that based on what you have said, you can use whatever items you choose to since no special preparation is needed.  Good luch and I hope I wasnt too long winded!