I recently wrote about the advantages of giving your characters secrets and of considering the effects of birth order. But how else do you really know your characters and make them richer?

Finding books with titles like Building Better Characters is easy. Some such books include pages of questions to answer about your protagonist, everything from physical appearance to favorite foods to religion.

My advice is to go beyond the usual. Here are six off-beat approaches to knowing your characters better.

1) Write a letter from your character to an advice columnist of your choice. Make the advice requested relevant to your story.

2) Write a love letter from your character to a real or ideal romantic interest.

3) Imagine your character’s most shameful act or experience. If it’s out of character, create a believable context or circumstance.

4) Create a personals ad for your character. Strive for originality. Include a picture.

5) Find a News-of-the-Weird story and write your character into it.

6) Write one or more six-word memoirs capturing the essentials of your character’s life.

Last but not least: Write one or more of these bits into your actual story.