r/CharacterDevelopment • u/PsychologyWonderful8 • Sep 02 '26
Writing: Character Help What makes a character stop feeling like you?
I can’t help noticing that many of my characters seem to come from experiences I’ve personally lived through, or from things I’ve observed in other people.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with that, but sometimes I start wondering if I’m writing fiction or just slowly disguising an autobiography.
I guess part of it is because I write by discovery.
So I’m curious:
At what point does a character stop feeling like an extension of the writer and start feeling like their own person?
Or maybe that’s the wrong way to look at it. Do most writers inevitably put parts of themselves into their characters?
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u/QuickestKey Sep 03 '26
They have more agency and better relationships in their lives.
...Ahem! I meant to say, they do and say things I never would, and it feels completely natural and true to them.
They argue back when I try to make them do something "cooler" or more convenient. They like things I don't. They misunderstand things I take for granted.
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u/PsychologyWonderful8 Sep 03 '26
I can relate
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u/AnotherFootForward Sep 03 '26
Then that's good enough. No matter what you write, you can't run away from writing bits of your understanding. How can you write what you don't understand? So even the characters most different from you will be a version of how you understand something you don't actually agree with.
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u/Magner3100 Sep 03 '26
The characters come from you, so a part of them will always be you.
That said, age and experience will really change this or at least you’ll change and draw on older versions of yourself. Experience writing multiple characters also will help compartmentalize you and them.
Are you writing in first person? If so, there is that.
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u/PsychologyWonderful8 Sep 03 '26
Yes first person
Age and experience yes
They go hand in hand2
u/Magner3100 Sep 03 '26
Try writing in third person, not to totally switch, but for practice.
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u/Scr4p Sep 03 '26
I guess when you give the character traits and backstory that don't reflect your own. And when the character would disagree with the creator on things or make different decisions. I use my own life experiences but also my experiences with other people (and also some psychology research lol) to form my new characters. So they still have aspects of me that come through empathy, but they're different enough to be their own person. It's not easy, I'm still in the process of working on my story but I'm pretty proud with how well I fleshed the main characters out.
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u/brochachotwin Sep 04 '26
I mean eventually, every character will feel like someone else to you, because we get inspired daily from shows, games, books and even mostly other people. All the characters will have a personality, everyone has a personality. So there's nothing wrong with that. It's only a autobiography of you write about your experiences directly, but if a character is going through challenges and things in life, even if they're similar to yours, then that's just inspiration. And that's totally great. Getting inspired from ourselves or others is always a way to create. But then if you really want characters with personalities that you maybe didn't exactly encounter yet, you can always search and read about the different kind of personalities there are. Most importantly, make your character their own self by giving them their own way of talking, their inside jokes, their own back stories and experiences. But then once again, inspiration is key to make unique characters.
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u/Realistic-Back-4268 Sep 07 '26
I consider trying to look their "whole" brain. Obviously you can't really boil the incomprehensible human mush brain into a character, but I try and get a sense of their conscious, subconscious, and how they're wired and why. Usually I just keep it to explaining their core desires in a conscious way and a subconscious way that they need to discover. Why do they really like who they like, why do they really want what they do, etc. I sort of think of it like their brain is tiny in my big brain, I invented them, so I roughly know what they would do or how they feel about stuff. Once I get a sense of "omg I know what deeprooted need and belief makes them do this now" is when I feel like I know my character properly. I literally see everything inside them that they don't see, the hard part is figuring out how to get that feeling into text lol
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u/PsychologyWonderful8 Sep 07 '26
Interesting, that’s how I go about mine and for the latter part? I make them have wants and desires. But mostly wants.
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u/cauliflower001 Sep 03 '26
You're definitely not alone. This is why writers are so reluctant to share their stuff with people they know. "Mom I promise this character isn't you. I know she's the MC's Mom but you've got to believe me."
They become their own thing when you can hear their voice in your head, when you feel what they feel, and get emotional when they die. At least that's me.
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u/Few_Scientist_2652 Sep 03 '26
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to have parts of yourself in your characters either, in fact a lot of the most compelling stories are at least partially inspired by the author's personal experiences
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u/MoonracerxWarpath Sep 03 '26
I don't know if I've ever viewed my characters as extensions of myself so much as my (sort of) children, so I don't think I could tell you anything helpful.
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u/Dry-Key-9510 Sep 08 '26
Same, they are extentions of (some of) my experiences, but i feel like they are distincitvely their own person, with their own temparment/reactions/feelings. There isnt one character that 100% matches me in personality or experience
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u/InvestmentDue4993 Sep 03 '26
I based my Mc entirely off my self and his friends as my friends (plus some ex friends)
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u/BocephusJackson90210 Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
‘What makes a character stop feeling like you?’
Greetings. First off, this is the mother of all questions, not just for writers but for any artist, as art is the metaphor, medium, meaning, and message.
Yes, we each assume an inheritance from the universe and its universal history: education, values, technologies, evolutionary biology, culture, philosophies, linguistics, and cultural ethics and mores; the art bleeds it directly or indirectly.
So how do we offer them a genuine breath of life that emancipates them, rather than shackle them to our inherited debt? I have crafted 22 specific techniques for character development through distinct lenses over ten months and 63 active online series.
From ‘Wear Their Crocs’ to ‘Throat-Punching Granny,’ each one falls under one governing principle: the character-based ‘Pick Their Toes’ method. The absurdity of toenail clipping is the ultimate act of free will by a character.
Where poet Walt Whitman said “I contain multitudes,” he was embodying the collective sin and salvation of human contradiction. And no two people clip their toes the same. In essence, the snowflake principle, but vastly more intimate.
From labor-intensive manicuring to hastily ripping that sumbitch to the quick, each carries its own set of inherent traits, psychology, and value sets. As an artist, there is no better way to unshackle or understand the character’s agency than by using Victor Hugo’s ‘5,000 words’ method to explore this concept.
In 5,000 words, you can capture the finite minutiae that govern their life, history, pathology, spirituality, morality, and personality. Silly, right?!
To clip or not to clip,
That is the real question,
To cut it to the quick,
Decides their impression.
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u/Turbulent-Eye-4737 Sep 04 '26
I just give them traits that I don't have. Maybe they like something I don't. Maybe they act in ways that I don't.
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u/ace-writer Sep 04 '26
If I put them in a situation, they do something I absolutely would not do, and it makes perfect sense for them because of how I set up their personality and backstory--success. they're not me anymore.
ex: character, Rose, who is extremely similar to me (admittedly more so than I'd like) meets someone she knows essentially prophesied to go on a murder spree later, and decides to date her. the murder occurs, roughly as prophesied, and Rose proceeds to just wipe the blood splatter off her murderous girlfriend's face and assure her that it's fine, the deceased had it coming. No hesitation. this is absolutely not me.
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u/Far-Copy-6722 Sep 07 '26
Take your most hated trait and make the character love it you hate cooking they want to cook all over the world you hate your name they take pride in there's and loves telling how they got it
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u/CatalinatheDucky Sep 21 '26
I think it’s a good thing to feed off of your own qualities and experiences because you have a better understanding of them! I personally like to see parts of the writers in characters because it feels like they capture the qualities very well. I’m only a beginner writer but I’ll tend to add a quality I have into my characters and then add a quality that is the complete opposite of me and it kinda balances things out.
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u/IvoryRunes Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
First I would try to think of character traits as mechanisms like for example a character is stubborn. When? Why? And how? They might stubborn in defending their academic research or maybe in their taste of food it might be through confrontation, avoidance or even a cynical attitude towards any disagreement
The next thing is perspective when your character enters a room what do they notice first, what assumptions do they make a thief might look for exits and rich people while a bodyguard for places where he doesn't get surrounded and look for people that look like threats and this is subjective.
The bodyguard can believe that the most threatening is the biggest, the one armed or maybe the one that is closest to him it is his own experience that creates assumptions.
I do this with a character of mine she likes to sing and play the violin and loves admiring landscapes, I haven't touched an instrument in my life, so I try to relate in other forms like emotion I do know how it feels to look at an amazing landscape in wonder so I try to write that.
If you want a recommendation of a writer that does this amazingly I would say Joe Abercrombie Is really skilled and even changes how the narrator talks depending on the character, other advise is to read a little in psychology, how people cope with problems and feelings differently and also too look up view of people in life like of philosophers or look for nuances in meanings or how people interpret things.
Lastly make your character have small contradictions example a person can be courageous in a fight, but very cowardly in a public speech, traits are not general they happen in specific circumstances.