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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/33339
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I feel I've got a huge obstacle, whenever I'm pretending" to be a character and trying to make out how he/she would react.

I feel strongly that **the mentality of the creator is reflected in his work.** And that's a problem when trying to write **characters with different mentalities.**

You don't want characters to be straw men, nor mouthpieces of the author, and not self-inserts. Characters should have their own **reasoning** , **flaws** and **"human" factor** ; their ideals don't necessarily correlate with mines, and they can sometimes be the right ones.

I've read other authors who I feel forced the moral outlook on the story, to the detriment of the book. And that scares me; these authors set out with the intention of teaching something to us, I also have this intention with my writing. But I don't want to write something as alienating as those books were for me.

So, I have a hard time creating different characters, both good, bad, and morally ambiguous, as some aspects of me will seep into them. If I can't prevent it entirely, I want to minimize this seeping.

**How can I write characters with ideals different from my own, without making them [strawman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)?**

I feel I'm constrained because **I can't understand emotional decision making that well, or other people's logic for that matter.** However, an overwhelming majority of my characters fall into the emotional category, with only a few exceptions.

Original score: -3