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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/20283
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

People are multi-faceted, some more than others. You would arguably assign more of this trait to your main characters, and allow very minor characters to by default adopt more of a single faceted approach given they don't take up many words.

For example, one day I might be really raring to go, but other days, for my own personal reasons be unwilling to act on something or hang out with people.

What you may want to do is assign a general template for their _temperament_ and use that to drive how you write their actions and dialogue choices.

For example, in my story, the protagonist is a female smuggler, but she didn't necessarily choose that herself. She was left alone when her father who was killed when she was young. So what this tells me about her is that she is likely not to trust anyone much at all but also yearns to belong, and to have some semblance of a family deep down. She's also tough from years of struggle and has some necessary defensive and mechanical skills. She depends only on herself, but would desperately like to change her life.

This is a non-trivial character in my view. She has many different motivations and trepidations that can drive her story and interactions with other characters in interesting ways, especially the male supporting character.

I hope this helps.

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