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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44686
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

 **Voice**

Making the character tell something in their own voice is generally called a "Voice Journal" or "Voice Journaling"

From your question, I understand you don't necessarily mean to use what you create in your actual text.

If that is the case, you can get as creative as you like in order to find the character's voice.

Here are some ways to do that:

- Answer a Character Creation Questionnaire in the character's voice
- An interrogation... throw the character into an interrogation room, accuse them of causing the catastrophe of the story. Awake your inner sadist (you have one, right?) and push the character till they scream, cry, curse in their own voice...
- The character is dead and faces their god. Now the character has to retell their life so the god can determine if they should go to the "Good Place" or the "Bad Place"... What will the character do and say when the god leans towards the bad place?
- Or any other "scene" where the character will face high stakes and have to defend themselves, hopefully falling into a voice after a while

And here are some you're already mentioning:

- Write a character diary, either from before the story or of the story's events
- A confession ... how about an antagonistic parent explaining their behavior (in the story) to an adult child?
- A retelling ... the character tells what happened (in the story) in their own words - what do they think about the other character's actions? why do they think they did what they did? did they like someone more? less? why? etc

I find the retelling to be most effective... but I think it might depend on what kind of character you want... the interrogation will likely create one with a splendid set of curses... or can you come up with other strategies for handling a false accusation?

Also, I understand the retelling is basically your main script... however, who are the character retelling the story to? What happens if they're doing it to someone else? A parent? A child? A police officer? How would it change their story? And why? Is your script version 100% honest? Should it be? Why? Why not? What would the difference tell you about the character?

**Explore character's personalities and motivation, further**

Except for the voice journaling you have other tools and means to get to the character.

Here are my favorites that I always include for many of my larger characters:

- Goals and Ambitions — where is the character going and what is their plan?
- Values and Motivations — why are the character doing what they do?
- Emotional wounds — these really work like can openers for characters for me. I can add a wound to one character and a bunch of other characters reveals themselves like dominoes... Think of emotional wounds as seasoning. You can have too much or too little. You need to find a balance and it's usually a question of "taste". (For a great reference, see the "[Emotional Wound Thesaurus](https://onestopforwriters.com/wounds)", also exists as a book).
- Truths and Lies — helps you with both character arc and theme... what lies do the character believe in, or what truths are they protecting? How do this change throughout the story? Do they replace their lie for a truth, their truth for a lie, or their lie for a worse lie? Do several (all) character's work with the same set of truths and lies? in their own ways from their different backgrounds, wounds, values, goals?

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