The idea is to take a sentence/concept, and "translate it" into how your character would express it. The examples she gave me when like this:
Jules: “Wow… really?”
Nica: “Understandable, I do that on occasion.”
Nicky: “Yeah, sucks, doesn’t it?”
Lena: “Aww… I know what you mean…”
Nat: “It happens to all of us… Doesn’t make it any better.”
Marie: “Oh, I know! I do it all the time.”
Obviously enough, the general idea was commiserating with someone, and yet each of these ladies said something completely different from each other - and they should! What each of them says and how they say it tells us about who they are as a person.For example, Nica is significantly older than anyone else on the list, and is a little more formal, partially because of her age/upbringing, and partially because she's a leader/care taker to many of our other characters.Nat is the next oldest, but not as old as Nica, and is a very sympathetic character, perhaps even relating to the younger ones better than Nica. Lena is everyone's sweetheart, and wants everyone to feel loved and accepted and safe - because these are things she's had to work to hard to feel herself. Jules is a character who is in a transitional place, and it shows in her interactions with everyone. She grew up in a fairly cliquish culture, and now that she's breaking out of it, she's seeing how the other half lives. Not to say she's exactly surprised to find other people relatable, but its a part of her background processes. Nicky's had a rough go of it, and she's still pretty much alone in the world, and happy giving everyone a gruff, unpolished exterior. And Marie goes a million miles a minute -exclamation points are the spice of her life. She tends to dive right in without much thought, leaping into actions or conversations like a little rocket.
I would like to add- none of these characters are mine. They're all my girlfriend's, and everything I know about them I know through what she's shown me. This isn't magical author insight here, this is just her knowing her characters well and expressing them well- well enough that a stranger to them can describe them this well.
Granted, I'm a co-author, so I'm kind of cheating, but the point remains - when you know your characters, you can introduce them to the world. If you don't know Jill from Jack, how can anyone else?
A word of caution, though. Don't overthink your character development. Don't sit down and reverse engineer what I just did, making Nicky be gruff because she's had a hard life. So has Lena, but the way she internalized it is very different from Nicky. Let your characters speak to you first, put them in boxes after they've said their piece. And never be afraid to let them wander around, check out other boxes, try on other voices and figure out who they are and who they want to be. Let them be real people to you, and they'll be real people to your readers.
Throw a mixer, go wild! Ask your characters, "What would you do at a skating rink? In a knife fight? If you saw an ex at the grocery store? If a dragon was sitting on your car hood? If you woke up with purple hair? If you were having a bad day? If your dog died? If a hole opened up in the earth and dinosaurs pour out? If you got the wrong coffee at Starbucks? If you found out you're a wizard? If you woke up in 16th century France?" The list is endless, and don't limit yourself to your genre. What your medieval knight things of a thug stealing grannie's purse, or getting caught in traffic might tell you something about his personality you wouldn't get to see in the story you have laid out for him. Challenge brings out the best, the worst, the interesting at least, in all of us. Let it do the same for your characters.
But most importantly, listen to them. They know who they are. Let them tell you.
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