Is it difficult for you to write characters who are different from you? Screenwriters often face a conundrum where the characters in their scripts end up too much like themselves. It makes sense that your characters might think and act like you since they're coming from your brain, but it can severely limit the kinds of stories you can tell.

How do you break free of this trap and create characters different from yourself? Below is a simple, two-step strategy that you can use.

Step 1: They Want Something Different

I’m a big proponent of figuring out what your protagonist wants, and having them set out to get it. Character goals unlock all kinds of benefits in your script, which I’ve written about before.

But you can also use character goals to help you create a character who is different from yourself, by making the character want something that you yourself wouldn’t want.

For instance, if you don’t care about money and you create a greedy character, they are automatically going to be different from you because they’ll have different underlying motivations. The same is true if you are highly financially motivated and you write a character who is not.

In either case you’ll be forced to think like someone different from you. The further you walk down this path, the more the character will separate itself from you.

Step 2: What are they willing to do to get it?

You can create more separation between yourself and your character by thinking about the kinds of things that you’d be willing to do to reach a goal, and have your character do different things. If you naturally seek the middle ground, have them be uncompromising. If you’re hesitant, have them be aggressive.

To take this further, you can give them an entirely different moral code. While you may be a moral person who does not lie, cheat, or steal, your character may see those all as tools that will help them get what they want. (And if you are a liar, try writing an honest character!)

Creating more separation

This might be hard at first, because your instincts will be taking you in a different direction, but as time passes you’ll start to see the character as a person separate from you. It will become easier to think like they think, instead of how you think, and it will be much easier to fill in the shades of their personality without feeling the gravity of your own attributes.