[quote=@Aisling]
I could be the 19 year old woman who wants to save up and study journalism and photography. 
What kind of a CS are you thinking about?
[/quote]

Mostly I just want a physical description, background, and a strong personal motivation that someone could potentially exploit to make your character do something questionable.
I also like to use these questions for guiding character creation:

1. What is the worst thing that happened to you?
2. What is the worst thing you've done to someone else?
3. What is the worst thing you can imagine happening to anyone?
4. What is the worst thing you know you could do, in the right circumstances?
5. What strange experience have you forgotten?

Here's the basic write-up for the character concept as it was executed for a convention a few years back minus some details that aren't useable in this context.

[hider=Sample]
[b]Lottie Grover[/b]

One more year, and you can pay for college, and get the fuck out of here. Hell, six months if you can keep up this nightshift thing – it pays extra for the weird hours. You were born, raised, and graduated highschool here in Midway. You're currently studying journalism and blogging through a free internet course until you can save up enough to travel to an actual city, and enroll in college.
Everyone here makes you feel sick; they're not bad people, just small and apathetic. Maybe Jerry could've made something of himself, once, but now he's on a slippery slope to turning into Pete or worse, his dad. Pete… ugh, nearly thirty and still working here, getting high. 
You don't live at home right now, because your dad's the local pastor and he doesn't approve of your Liberal attitudes - you stopped going to church last year and think gay people deserve equal rights; your dad strenuously disagrees. You smoke pot with Pete sometimes just to spite dad, but never too much.
Still, it's harder to save with rent to pay, so you're gonna have to think of some way to make money short of taking out one of those bullshit student loans. At least dad taught you to shoot before kicking you out.

Virtue: Prudence
Vice: Spite

[/hider]