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What are the best ways you find to get out of your own habitual thought patterns, personality, dispositions, and culture when writing characters?

For example, we are all familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality tests and many of us with the Enneagram. We are also familiar with different learning styles. People view the world significantly different, have different priorities, intelligence levels, and even different ways of processing reality. Eastern and Western cultures are very different.

Many of us are Westerners and so also place our individualistic view onto characters. We have a hard time understanding the medieval worldview which revolved around such concepts as chivalry and duty that were compelling though there were variations in personalities as well as adaptations to that.

What thinking tools or methods do you use to get out of your own mind when writing a different personality into your characters?

Many authors start with just the simple motivations and culture of characters though tend to seldom explore personal psychology. This seems to create one-dimensional characters and is one of the flaws of the Hero's Journey. Many characters appear may fall into an archetype.

One example of bias may be trope of the "reluctant squire" because we have a hard time in our modern culture imagining someone surrendering completely to a master and feeling like it is their duty to do so.

GRRM in Game of Thrones does a great job at more complex character psychology though this is largely based on or in reaction to external events or obsessions.

How do you overcome some of these obstacles to create unique characters?

Personally, if I want to make a super-realistic human-like character, then I would just write a story based on reality. That is, I would look at my own personal life, study the people in my life, and add the people into my story. The story is based on a series of true events. The characters are all real, including the narrator. The narrator is me, so the narrator will have my own psychology. The other characters are based on how I perceive them. I don't know what goes on in the minds of the other characters, and I don't care. I just care about me, my thoughts, and what I do. It is my story, and I tell it from my perspective.

If you want to use a real-life non-Western culture and speak from that perspective, then you should first study the language to a near-native level. Seriously. If that non-Western language is Chinese, then you should achieve a near-native proficiency in spoken and written Chinese. By doing so, you will be able to think like a Chinese person. Then, you write your story in Chinese, because there are some things in Chinese that don't really translate well into English. Heck, I would argue that "China" in the Western sense doesn't really exist, and "Chinese" also doesn't really exist. In the Western world, Westerners may think Taiwanese people are not Chinese. But what they don't understand is that "Chinese" may refer to 中国人 or 华人. 中国人 is a citizen or national of 中国. 华人 is a descendant of the 华夏. There is a massive difference between 中国人 or 华人, and it matters politically because Taiwanese people may identify themselves as 华人, but not 中国人. Likewise, 中华 is not the same as 中国, even though both words may translate into "China". 中华民国 and 中华人民共和国 are both part of 中华. End of story. Stop translating 中华 as "China" and interpret China in Western terms. It is 中华. There is no English equivalent. Period.

So, I propose 2 ways.

1. Use a real-world person.


2. Learn a language to a very high, near-native level.

At the end of the day, everyone should realize that a story is fiction. It is not supposed to be real. And the characters don't have to be super-realistic. As long as the characters are believable for the reader, and the reader can empathize with the character, that is the main point of story. Super-realism is not the main point of story.

I think there are two steps:

1. Decide the character's philosophy of life

I'm using the example of two medieval characters because that's my settings of choice. Imagine we need two female characters: Eleonor is the lady of the manor and Mary is her twice-removed cousin (from a poorer branch of the family) who lives with her as a lady-in-waiting.

As the lady of the manor, Eleonor exerts strict authority over all who live in her property while her husband is away. Her authority comes from her husband, naturally (God did create the woman to be under her husband's authority). She has a good relation with her husband, but she's aware she's lucky and there are many women who are not as lucky. That means that the men in question are at fault and such wives should be helped if possible - but that would enver be an excuse for a wife to try and escape her lord and master!

Mary is aware she is a poor relative and is indebted to her older cousin and lady: all she has comes from her, after all. On the other hand, Eleonor is a kind soul and they both enjoy spending time together, with Mary helping her in what she can. She does have ambitions: to marry a worthy nobleman, for example, even if she wouldn't be so bold as to ask for someone above her position. In fact, that might be a bad option, as her husband's family would dismiss and even despise her for being below their standing.

2. Get inside their shoes

It is all very well to determine the character's philosophy in keeping with their times. But now it's time to write... and the author's feelings cannot shine through.

Let us start with Eleonor.

First step: Take a deep breath and close your eyes. You are no longer J. Doe: you are Lady Eleonor. Sit straight and level your head. With your eyes closed, visualise your garden (or wherever you are). Try and feel the air (hot or cold, dry or damp?), the smells, feel the dress pooling around your ankles.

Second step: Begin the scene.

Lady Eleonor smiled at her eight year old son, playing with the little servant boy. Her husband had brought the little boy as a slave from his latest battle against the Muslim Kingdom of Granada.

!!! Modern sensibility comes in: Slaves and religious intolerance. Yeah. Perfectly in tune with the times, I'm afraid. Harden yourself: having slave muslims was ok in medieval Europe (and common enough in the southern kingdoms). They could be black, dark skinned or perfectly white - it didn't matter. It was normal. Because Eleonor is a likeable character, her only concern will be about having the boy well-treated... according to his station. Resume:

"Mark," she called sharply when the little boy stuck a dirty finger in his nose. "That is not appropriate behaviour."

Slave or not, if he was to be a play companion of her son, he must behave courteously. But enough of play time! It was time for her son's lessons and she still had much work to do with little Mark. She'd had him baptised as soon as possible and was now making sure he understood the fundaments before Father Matthew started teaching him some Latin.

Let us move on to Mary.

First step: Take a deep breath and close your eyes. You are no longer J. Doe: you are Mary. Sit straight and turn your head slightly downwards. Once more, visualise everything around you.

Second step: Begin the scene.

Through the window of Lady Eleonor's chambers, Mary sees the young men honing their warrior skills. One of the younger ones, thinner than the rest, is once more being swarmed.

!!! Modern sensibility comes in: the boy is being bullied and Mary, as a sympathetic character, is going to decry and try to help him. Take a step back: while it's perfectly acceptable for the character to think that swarming is unfair, she would never dream of interfering: it would be humilliating to have a woman come in to his defense, and, as a woman, she has no right to meddle. Come to think of it, it would be natural for her to assume that being so often 'swarmed' was an appropriate way to help him improve, something like 'tough love'. Resume!

He was desperately outnumbered and, from what Mary could see, he was bound to end the practice all bruised. It upset her to see the scene - to her female eyes, the older boys seemed so violent! - but she was sure John would improve quickly. At least she hoped so. If only his father had wished him to become a clergyman... He was far more skilled at writing!

Last Resort Options

If fighting off modern sensibility is difficult, try to make parallels with something that is natural for you. You should also hang on as hard as you can to the logic that makes something evil nowadays an acceptable option at the time.

Torture, for example. Try to get inside the character and see torture as a sort of truth serum. Yes, you as the author know that torture doesn't guarantee truth as a person will say anything to stop it, but still, as the character, you know they would never own to that murder if they hadn't been tortured and everyone knows the criminal was the one who did it.

On the other hand, your character may feel that torture is only appropriate when one knows for sure who did the evil deed, and they may also feel that some types of torture are a bit too cruel.

If the lack of female freedom enrages you, hold on to that rage and turn it around: now what enrages you is those people who defile marriage. Those people destroy the community and bring down God's wrath on everyone! Sodom and Gomorrah, remember?

Better yet, do not focus on what women cannot do; focus on what they can do. If a woman can't choose her husband, what can she do to have some control? Maybe she can talk to her mother and see if she can put in a good word (at least to avoid someone she despises). Or maybe it's out of her hands and all she can do is... flirt a little behind her parents' back while she's still single.

Forcing a raped girl to marry her rapist sounds evil? Then keep in mind that to not do so means she will end up in prostitution. Maybe she'll end up murdered or sick. Her body sullied, her soul lost, and her honour destroyed. Yes, it is unfair, but far worse would be to not force that man to compensate her in the only possible.

Do not try to counter the logic and arguments of the past using your current knowledge, but if you must counter some ideas, use the arguments of the time. There were a couple of medieval saints who preached against the husbands who beat their wives, so being a medieval person doesn't mean that everyone agrees with domestic violence. Of course, violence at the time meant something far more drastic than nowadays: slapping the wife on occasion wasn't the problem, but beating her till she was unconscious was definitely not seen with good eyes.

While what I wrote focuses a lot on medieval times, the same is valid for any culture. Get inside that culture and find out how people think and feel. Remember that 'People are ok with X' doesn't mean that everyone in that culture accepts it whole-heartedly.

Even if the problematic worldview is not about a culture but a person - an abusive partner, for example - the author still has to understand how the character thinks and feels. Read accounts of real people (both abusers and abused) and understand their logic. Then get inside the characters' shoes and do not let your own consciousness slip onto the text

Remember: you are not J. Doe, the author. You are that character and their logic must come to the fore until the scene is written. Close your eyes and feel yourself become someone else.