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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/42594
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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?

Original score: 27