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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33347
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

> How can I write characters with ideals different from my own, without making them strawman?

**I would say that attempting to do so, LZP, is a worthy goal in and of itself.**

(Also, I'd think that even those ideals we think define us perhaps do not circumscribe us as much as we may believe.)

**You might define yourself as orange.** But as orange, you are a color, like blue. To some people, you are the best color. Blue is the best color to other people. You and blue share that people love you.

You are a color that is associated with a fruit. So is Blue.

You are a color that sometimes is in our sky. So is blue.

Copper can be orange-ish, and it can be blue-ish.

Orange and blue are opposites, and as such are connected, as love and hate are connected, and war and peace are connected.

I think you can write the characters that you 'are not' (although I don't know that you truly are not, since humans are complex) by identifying those things that you share - even if it seems kat-a-wampus to your goal.

Maybe you are a pacifist and you are writing about a soldier. You both might be women, you both might have lost a child, you both might have thought of becoming a nun once. These are the elements you can focus into the character you do not find identity with - and build from there.

In the end, the exercise will likely be a good one. It stretches us to think about the human condition. **I like your question.**

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