Mr. Ritchie is there anything you don't hate? You're always saying that YOUR way of writing is the best, and that everyone else is obviously wrong. I'm tired of your crusade on strawmen. None of your diatribes about the "evils" of planning have proved much of anything.
You have to know how to use those checklists if you want to use them. I agree that those checklists often contain irrelevant character traits, but they mainly exist to give people ideas for characters nothing more. It is up to the writer to decide what's important and what's not, and thenwhether the entire character is likeable--providing they need to be likeable. No one with any sense follows those things to the letter; that includes planners like myself.
As for your claim that I should base my stories on real people, I write FANTASY novels. The novel I am currently writing has a demon in it. Do you know any demons Mr Ritchie, because I've never met any. I suppose I could summon Satan, and interview him, but that sounds a like a very bad idea. And I'm not about to write people I don't like into a novel as demons. That's just plain wrong.
"Resident curmudgeon"