Writing Interesting Characters (part 2)

One of the toughest things about writing interesting characters is not writing yourself into all of them. As an example, it's like some composers write music that all starts to sound predictably familiar—there's not enough differentiation because it blends and is too recognizable as that composer. If you think your personality is interesting enough for your story, then it's not necessarily a bad thing to write yourself into one character, but be careful not to let all the other characters become clones of yourself. How do you beat this tendency, though? Sometimes, writers swing the pendulum to an extreme because they're trying too hard to avoid writing themselves again. The downside to this is that such extreme characters often feel contrived or unrealistic—we can't identify with them because we've never met a single person like that in our lives. Consider your own life and how you live for a moment. Who are the people in your circles? How often are you outside of your comfort zone? If there is someone you know that you feel is extremely different, ask yourself what it is that makes them so different? Did they grow up in another country, state, or city? Were their life circumstances vastly different from yours? Taking note of this is only the beginning to understanding other people and how to write different characters, but it's a start.