So there are a lot of ideas out there on "how to make your character more interesting, including a lot of lists on questions for your character. Here's one, tell me what you think.
1. What is your character’s name?
2. What race does your character belong to?
3. What is your character’s role/class/archetype?
4. What does your character look like?
5. What does your character do for a living?
6. Where did your character grow up?
7. What was your character’s childhood like?
8. What social ticks does your character have?
9. Why do people like your character?
10. Why do people dislike your character?
11. What type of music does your character listen to?
12. What does your character do for fun (at least three things)?
13. How does your character react in social situations?
14. How does your character react under pressure?
15. How does your character react to authority?
16. What are your character’s political and religious leanings?
17. Does your character want or have a family?
18. What happened to make the character start their current path?
19. What happened on the first adventure the character took?
20. What happened on the most recent adventure the character had?
Wow, that's a big list. I use a list, but mine's only 3 questions that are very general:
1. Where is your character from? I tell my players this may include things like origin community, family, etc and may be as detailed as they'd like.
2. What is your reason for adventuring? I've had a player answer in a single word ("profit") and other players write whole stories. I'm not looking for anything specific here.
3. What is your most significant memory? I clarify this by telling players this doesn't have to be your most horrible or dark moment, like your parents being gunned down in an alley or something. It may be whatever you'd like, so long as it's significant.
The answers to these give me not only specific, actionable data to build side quests from, but they also serve to paint the general pallete of colors the character will be drawn from. For example the guy who gave me the one word answer to question 2 gave me this as his character:
Sneaky McFrench, CG male halfling rogue 1:
1. He was born in a small halfling caravan and then moved into the city of Dunspar where he grew up.
2. Profit
3. Getting knocked out and thrown in jail.
From this I gathered that the player was not very interested in story. What he did care about was action, and his background started him off w/a criminal record. From there I had 2 separate adventures plotted of guards looking for him and his old gang looking to get him back. These 2 spawned a third involving a noble who wanted his son's identity kept from public record, so as he lay dying he revealed it to this guy for safekeeping, reasoning that with so many enemies he was already a target and would know how to keep quiet.
I guess it depends on what info you're hoping to glean from the list and how into it your players are. Personally I subscribe to the "less is more" philosophy, but to each their own. The only thing with such a big list of questions is that you're defining the character before you've even sat down and played it, so there's really not a lot of room for growth or development.