Character Crunch

Over 4,000 words and I still keep deliberating on the plot! I dunno. Some days, I read what I wrote and it sounds good, other days, I want to hit delete on the last 10 pages. The main challenge I face here is building my characters so that they are believable. I have two characters sorted, because they are derived from people I know so it was easy. This third character is important but I don't know anyone like her. She is strong but she becomes very weak when strength needed her the most. I dunno. I've bought books by a couple of authors I admire (Khaled Hosseini, Ngozi Chiamanda, Kazuo Ishiguro) and want to emulate. Maybe I'll have a better idea after I read those books. There are also great books on writing novels and building real characters. So, I'll read those too. I may even try to picture method where I cut out photos from mags and newspapers; then try to describe the situation or person in them. There, in some mag somewhere may be this third character of mine. I hadn't banked on having to read so much in order to write......But, I know it'll be worth every word;)