One of my favorite things to do with my characters is to tie them up, shine a bright light on them, and ask them difficult questions until they squirm.
Okay…not literally. Although I often picture them that way in my head.
You can’t always accept the first thing a character tells you as gospel truth. I hate to stereotype, but characters like to hold out on you. If you let them get away with it, they’ll revert to cliche and archetype. To get to the real truth, you sometimes have to ask them the same question over and over again, maybe in subtly different ways, until they start spilling their guts for real.
Why? Why? Why!
The first answer won’t surprise you. The third answer might.