How do you get a character or characters to work with you? What do you do if you have characters who would be neat to write about, but no story to go with them? You don’t even have enough to start with “and then a gun went off” and see how they react.

Sit them down and interview them. I’d never thought of this until two things happened. One, I got stuck because I had a character, some stuff I wanted to use in a plot, but no real long-term motivation for the character. This is a problem for a series. Two, the professional writers’ group I belong to had a guest speaker who talked about interviewing characters as a way to start moving plots and dialogue when the book isn’t working well, or even as part of a major revision and rewrite to clean things up and fix problems that have developed.

How do you interview your characters, especially if they are right sods that sull up and don’t want to talk to you?

Start with the basics. Name, family if known, physical description, sex/gender/whatever they seem to have [especially if not human or just not obvious]. Where is she from? What does she do, what skills does she have? Where does she live, if known? Kind of place where she lives?

Once you have that, then ask your character what she is doing, and why? Not just “I’m making a bowl of instant noodles because I’m hungry and tired of waiting for you to write me a meal,” but what is her greatest driver and her greatest goal? This might lead you in some interesting directions, and give you a start of a story. Listen carefully and dry not to steer things too tightly. “Why do you want to get away from everything? What does your new place look like? How is it different from your old?” Don’t judge yet, even if you discover that you’re actually talking to the Big Bad or arch villain.

Some questions might seem silly, like “Do you have any allergies?” or “What do people do when they eat that annoys you?” Others are more serious, like questions about beliefs (religious and otherwise), passions, her perfect world.

Ideally, after you finish pestering your character, you have started to get a sense of her world, and of where she wants to go. Your job, oh, author, is to take those pieces and toss her into a story. You should have a bit of setting, and of plot, now on hand.

You can also do this with established characters and worlds if things suddenly crash to a halt. What was the driving motivation for my protagonist? I had the little things lined out for the book, but something wasn’t working. Something had to be running in the background that I was missing, the real reason for many of his actions and why he did what he did. So, as part of the exercise in the class, I asked him.

Boy was I surprised. “Go home.” But he has a home, and a family. “Yes, but they are not home, my true home. You have no idea what it is like, to taste things almost as my family made them, to worship in ways almost like we do at home, but that are still different and foreign.” He wanted to go home with such intensity that it startled me.

And the antagonist, the big bad, wants the same thing. How they two go about achieving their goals, however, is what sets them on the path to a major confrontation.

There are a lot of resources out there for interviewing your characters. Some are better, some less helpful, at least for me. I’m not certain that starting with a Briggs-Meyers-style personality test is the best way, or pegging down your character’s archetype is the first step. However, they may work for you, so try it. Ideally, when you finish, you will know more about the character and her world, and with that you can start her story.

Writing Deeper Character Interviews with Effective Techniques and Examples

https://www.themultidisciplinarycreative.com/blog/get-to-know-your-characters-with-character-interviews-115-questions