When you play the game you become the character, so he should be someone you want to be for a while. Think about your character in the abstract before you start to put anything on paper. The mechanics of character creation exist so that you can describe your character in game terms to make it more practical to determine the outcome of the things he does. They are there to help you define the character, not to tell you who he should be. Consider such things as where he was born, his early experiences, appearance, his family life, education, hopes, dreams, fears and vices.
Every person has both strengths and weaknesses.
Only the most obvious of these will be expressed mechanically in the game so you should flesh the rest out in your mind and in a short written character history and description. Once you have that done your next job is to define a few of those characteristics in terms specific to the game. For game purposes each character is described by five basic characteristics and a selection of skills. You choose how good he is in each of these areas by spending points. You have 20 points for basic characteristics and 20 points for skills.