As a writing exercise, have one of your characters do a monologue about an important subject in their life. Why do they get up every day?
This exercise works because it forces you past plot mechanics into motive, and motive is what makes a character feel inhabited rather than operated. When you know why someone drags themselves out of bed, every scene they walk into carries that weight, even scenes that never mention it directly. Try writing your quiet, reliable side character explaining why they still open the bakery at five a.m. after forty years — you'll likely discover grief, stubbornness, or love you hadn't planned for, and it will color how they talk to everyone else. The caution: don't let every character deliver this monologue on the page. It's a diagnostic tool for you, the writer, not a mandatory speech. Characters who explain their deepest motivations aloud to other people often start to sound like they're narrating themselves instead of living.
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