I just spouted all this off the top of my head to help Vace out. Then I thought, well why not post it here so others can see?
This is for those of you who feel your characters lack depth. Going through and doing these things should help you "get to know" your characters.
Okay. Prepare a separate sheet of paper for each character. Write their name across the top. then think about them.
A. Do they have a "defining moment"? For example: rescuing a damsel in distress, or betraying their kind to the enemy, etc. Write a short "in-a-nutshell" summary of this and decide whether you want this to be their character, or an exception, or just something that happened. Decide if you want your traitor to be a ruthless liar or if he felt like he HAD to betray whoever to the whoever or some reason, and is really not a bad person on the inside... I hope that made some sense.
B. Do you know what they look like? Describe them in great detail.
C. How would they react under stress? Invent a situation and put each of them through it. Say, they are in battle, and a friend was just killed. Would they rush to their friend's side to be with him in his last moments? Would they go all battle-crazy and kill a bunch of people? Would they go all battle-crazy and end up getting killed? Would they fall on their knees and scream, "NOOOOOOO!!!"? Devise a couple of different situations. Write the situation down on a separate sheet of paper, and write their reaction in their own stack of papers. (You may want to obtain a folder to keep all this in.)
D. They're your characters. Decide what personalities you want them to have. Is Bob selfless and loyal, willing to readily give himself up for the cause? Is Jim villainous and hard, but on the inside it is only because that is all he knows? Is Howard a ladies' man? Is Ann hard and cynical on the outside, but soft-centered? By no means change the personalities if you've already got something going toward a personality for one of them. If Sean is sarcastic, leave him sarcastic-don't suddenly make him kind and caring.
E. By now you should have a pretty good, 3-D character. But essence mapping and character fractals never hurt, either (except maybe your brain ).
Hope this helps someone.
Thank you for sharing it with us! I'll be sure to use it.