Margot Livesey taught me a trick for developing fictional characters: let them rant. Let them rave about what they hate, what they can’t stand, what they monologue about in their heads and wouldn’t hesitate to start into if you asked, however innocently.
I came across a great example of a rant from Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead today:
What’s doubly impressive is that this rant gives us insight not only into the grandfather but also his wife—we get a sense of her sharp humor and frustration and a dollop of poetry from her choice of comparisons (worse than a house fire!).
This is also a great example of using snippets of dialogue to give a sense of a character’s voice without having to go into full scene, which Margot taught as a way to keep pacing up. It allows for a balance of a scene vs. summary, which I find is a common question when I draft.
For more of Margot’s brilliance, read her chapter on characters in her book of essays The Hidden Machinery.