A few more ideas of things you can do to get to know your characters better.
Character Interviews
One of my favorite tips for this comes from JR Ward. Years ago on her website, I saw her interview her characters.
It was brilliant.
There on the page, with a few questions, her characters came to life. So pretend you're interviewing your character for a newspaper. Ask them about themselves and their story and try to make their voices different and distinguishable from eachother. The results will ensure you have a strong voice from the beginning which will make all the difference in the world when you start writing.
Search her up and have a look at her website for examples. Last time I checked it was still there and to this day remains one of my favorite things to do before I begin a book.
Personality Tests
You can also take personality tests you can find online. Careful though, some of them will make you take the whole test and then try to make you pay for results so make sure when you're searching to use the word "free."
There's all kinds of them from the Meyers Briggs test (probably the most common) to types of test such as "What kind of employee are you?"
Fill them out but answer the questions as you would see your character answering. Loads of fun!
Astrological Traits
For anyone that knows me personally, I'm obsessed with horoscopes. Whether you believe in them or not, they're a great resource to find personality characteristics you can apply in writing.
Google "traits of zodiac signs" and you can spend hours reading about different generalizations about people based on the dates of their birth.
There's also different kinds of zodiacs to look up. The Chinese one, which is based on the year you were born, etc. There are many predominant personality traits for each sign, they can almost always spark interesting ideas.
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Big Book of Writing Tips
RandomTips for writing and crafting your story into being the best it can be. Everything from the very basic structure of a story through to understanding deep point of view, perhaps you can find something here that is useful for your journey as a writer!
