"My Characters are not Me" Train of Thought?

[Naruzeldamaster]

So, I'm a firm believer in the idea that my characters are themselves. Even though tiny bits of them are pulled from the DNA of my personality. They might have different views on things like swearing, sex, guns etc.

So I try to write them as if they weren't 'echoes' of me and like they're real people.
Although sometimes I do have to put the more potty mouthed ones in a corner and tell them 'no'
I like to go with the flow, then during the editing phase when the book is finished I'll refine/polish them until they're fully what I mean them to be.
To be clear on the 'echoes' thing, I don't mean like a mary/gary stue I mean like how some writers use their characters as a way to push their beliefs or whatever on the reader.
Neither one of these is appealing and I'd like to avoid that if possible.

Often I'll use the character swearing a lot to show their immaturity at the start of a story. As they grow as a character and mature through the course of the story, they swear less and less. Aside from the occasional 'hell if I know' type of swear.

 

[Malik]

 

[Malik]

So, yes. I feel you. My characters are not me. I needed to make that as clear as possible, especially with this new novel. I'm merely reporting what I saw.

STONELANDS has one partial self-insertion character--a guy who has my old role--though there's nothing else about him remotely like me. I made it a point to distance him from me every way I could manage.