I think we've all pretty much got a good idea of what our characters do. But a more important question is: WHY do they do it?
What are the reasons for their actions? You don't necessarily have to explicitly state what the reasons are, but you, as the writer, should know. Sometimes, though, you need to say in the story why someone is doing something.
Why does one character constantly glare at another?
The answer is usually obvious, "Oh, he doesn't like him." Human beings are very good at inferring that "glaring" is a sign of dislike.
Why does a character constantly avoid the cafeteria?
The answer is less obvious, but it might be because she dislikes crowds.
Even that second example has a fairly simple explanation. But it might need a little bit more explanation. It's not possible to infer that she dislikes crowds. An audience could take a guess, but not be sure.
However, there are times when you don't want to explicitly give the explanation in the text. Take, for example, when you've got a villain you're writing. You probably don't want to give him or her a monologue describing exactly why (s)he is doing what (s)he is doing. (Unless your villain has that particular character trait).
But why did your villain steal the purse? Is it because they're not actually a villain at all, but they really just need money to pay rent and (s)he's stealing a purse in the hopes that there will be some cash in it. Or, maybe that purse has valuable information in it that the good guys need and the villain is finally foiling their plans at last.
As the writer, you need to know motivations for your characters. It makes your characters more believable and can prevent you from writing yourself into a corner because you don't really know what a certain character is up to.
I'm not above this issue. I spent the first half of my reread of my draft back in January wondering why the heck two characters were behaving the way they were. It was unclear all around.
For one of the characters, that lack of clarity seriously prevented my audience from understanding the character I knew him to be. He seemed to flip-flop and be inconsistent. It wasn't what I wanted to be portrayed. I knew his motivations for the most part, but I was unclear on the finer details. And I needed to know those finer details so I could write him properly.
For that second character, the lack of clarity was okay as far as my audience was concerned. He's the villain, so they don't need to know why he's doing what he's doing. They expect to find out by the end of his story arc. And while that story arc will span more than one book, it's still fine that his intentions are mucked at the end of the book. What is a problem, however, is that I have a general idea of why he's doing what he's doing--but I'm missing a crucial detail, which is going to be a problem later. And I need to come up with that crucial detail NOW, so that I can have his plans come to the correct fruition later.
So, moral of the story is, sometimes, sitting down and plotting out not just WHAT a particular character is doing, but WHY they are doing it. It helps with character building, it helps with plot, it simply just helps.
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