I am terrible at writing character backgrounds. I just don't find it interesting at all so I usually have to find other ways around it. Questionnaires rarely work for me either; unless I know the inside of my characters head it's really hard to do for some reason.
I do find that writing short stories can be useful - just throw the character into a situation and see what happens. Or write a journal from their point of view. Unlike the Questionnaire option it gives me a bit more room to dig around and explore their reactions to certain situations.
And the latest thing I tried was writing up the character's profile from the point of view of an observer - like someone was spying on him and writing up a report on his activities and behaviour. That was a lot of fun to do and quite a good way to figure out the details.
I do find that writing short stories can be useful - just throw the character into a situation and see what happens. Or write a journal from their point of view. Unlike the Questionnaire option it gives me a bit more room to dig around and explore their reactions to certain situations.
And the latest thing I tried was writing up the character's profile from the point of view of an observer - like someone was spying on him and writing up a report on his activities and behaviour. That was a lot of fun to do and quite a good way to figure out the details.
