Usually when I start a new Sim from scratch, I take my inspiration from what they look like to me. A sim that gets my attention might look like the quintessential playboy living off a trust fund, or like an old retired jazz musician looking to finally catch that legendary fish he's been angling for, in a cozy little cabin with just enough for him and his dog.
Sometimes I see a teen runaway, about to find out what she can and can't do, to survive.
One time I had fun making a Japanese family, and I still play the teen son, now in High School Years, as suffering from depression but holding on to his dream to be an artistic visionary, which horrified his salary-man father and his shufu mother who considers him becoming a doctor or something similar to be her ultimate cause in life.
Sometimes I have enjoyed making sims you would love to hate. An attractive man with perfect hair and a smile that's more like a sneer, with max charisma, a hot temper, and no morals, who uses his charms to lure unwary targets into his vampires Embrace.
Sometimes I have made a family with kids and then got so involved with one or more of the kids, that I wanted to continue playing them as they grew up, graduated, and entered careers and adult relationships.usually that happens when one of them is just more interesting than the others and seems to suggest a storyline and a direction in life..
A lot of it is just getting inspired and following things to see where they lead instead of just controlling everything.
