Take a look at who's outside your window. What do your best friends like on pizza? What do they do for a living (work or study)? How good is their fashion sense? What's the most surprising thing you ever learned about each of them? How often do they swear? What are all the little things you know about them that make your best friends distinct people and not just faces in the crowd? (Add questions as you see fit.)
(Don't answer those questions here.)
Go through the same list for some people you barely know from work or school. You won't have as much information, but you'll be able to come up with at least a few answers.
Now go through the list for your fictional characters. You'll have to make up the answers - but whatever answers you do make up go toward making them individuals.
Once you've got that, you can think "what would somebody who likes this and dislikes that do in the situation here?" and apply the answer to the character that you're writing. After a decade or two, the process comes naturally... but you'll need to think about it for the first few months.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
(Don't answer those questions here.)
Go through the same list for some people you barely know from work or school. You won't have as much information, but you'll be able to come up with at least a few answers.
Now go through the list for your fictional characters. You'll have to make up the answers - but whatever answers you do make up go toward making them individuals.
Once you've got that, you can think "what would somebody who likes this and dislikes that do in the situation here?" and apply the answer to the character that you're writing. After a decade or two, the process comes naturally... but you'll need to think about it for the first few months.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012