You are going to grow old and be unable to do the activities you enjoy and then you will die the world will forget you.
How's that for depressing? So what are you going to do abotu it? Make an effort to be named Time's man/woman of the year for five years in a row? Break a record people acually care about? What about raise some children to be kind and respectful, passing on valuble insight into their lives?
These are called motivations for raison d'etre, also known as your reason for being.
What reason do you exist? If you don't know, don't worry, most people don't know until they breathe their last. What about your characters, why do they exist, what gives them a reson for existing? Giving your characters some motivations and reasons for being is a great step in the writing process. Even if they themselves don't know why they do what they do, it is important for you, the author, to put into place some ideals and elude to reasons for actions your characters take.
This can be as simple as showing your character to defend a certain show or movie in all arguments, simply because they grew up with it.
It can also be as complicated as a girl/boy hiding the fact that they are in severe pain just so no one will worry about them.
Both of these scenarios elude to how these characters might've grown up, the people they were around, and the emphasis they have on physical posessions or human relations.
Likewise, you should also have characters who are in the story for a reason. No one wants five pages about Sarahphina if she never shows up in the story, in any way, again.
Romance fan-fictions are very guilty of this. There is often a sister or extra boy in the story just so another couple can be created. Ensure that your characters are important to the plot, and that that you never use pointless jabber or actions for any character.
