Accidentally found a good way to flesh out characters

[Zoom]

Write down a bunch of scenarios and then put them in it and see what they do!

Here are some examples:

1. Meet a personal hero
2. at a bar, someone annoying is hitting on you and they won't go away or give up
3. your friend is about to make what you think is a bad life decision
4. an assignment is due today and you didn't do it. what's your excuse, and what actually happened?
5. long boring day at work. how do they keep themselves occupied?
6. are they any good at small talk? if so, why?
7. have to go to a fancy social occasion.
8. slow internet or computer when something must be looked up or done
9. it's 3:16 am and they're really getting into a creative project, they're in the zone, but they work the next day at noon
10. why are they crying
11. why are they layghing?
12. they've woken up two hours late becuase their power went out and their alarm didn't go off. late for work/class/something. initial reaction + what happens in their life. do they get fired?
13. they catch themselves in the mirror. what do they think of what they see?
14. went to wipe and there was no more tp. public gas station bathroom, 3 pm on a thursday. nobody else currently in but there probably will be soon. what do you do?
15. Falsely accused of a crime

[sapphire]

This is great!

One of my friends from high school used to base her characters loosely on people she knew. So when she wasn't sure what a character would do or say, she would just think of the real person in that situation. It worked really well for her, and I've actually used it a couple of times. Made writing realistic characters so much easier, but it didn't last for me. The people I know don't tend to fit what I need from my characters.

[Zoom]

Haha no all you have to do is become friends with an ancient revolutionary who waited four hundred years for the perfect opportunity to overthrow the regime! I met mine at the mall.

I tried for a while to Frankenstein characters out of people I knew, but, uh, it didn't work.

[sapphire]

Heh, well, I don't have magic powers, but she still managed to make a pretty decent character out of me.

I've learned that I'm better at making up personalities for people, rather than trying to come up with a backstory for a character that matches a real person's personality.