Split Personality Writing

During the last couple of weeks and months I've been working on several different stories and therefore thinking from several different points of view.  Every novel requires at least one main character, and as a writer, I should know enough about them to know how they think, how they view the world, how they'll react to events.  At least, that's ideal.

So that means every time I sit down to write something I have to have a split personality.

Lately, I've had an even greater sense of being double-minded when writing because, 1) I've been writing so many stories, and 2) I've been writing novels from more than one point of view.

For example, I started working on a novel about a woman whose husband doesn't remember her.  Every other chapter is written from her viewpoint and then his viewpoint.  It's been interesting to write through a man's eyes, first of all, and fascinating to consider how other people think and react to each other.  The wife knows everything that happened while the husband doesn't.  Not only do they have different personalities, they have different memories.  She loves him, and he thinks she's pretty but doesn't know her.  I have to be able to see things the way she does and the way he does.

You're going to have to think like
your protagonist and your antagonist.
(Picture by Monsters-Scare-You)

But that's how it is in every book.  Even if you're writing from a first-person perspective and you don't change from one character's mind to another, you still need to consider how each character thinks and how they would react to events.  Secondary characters might be offended or flattered by something your antagonist says based on their background and personality, while your antagonist was simply stating what they thought was obvious without regard to how it would be taken.

Writing requires that you get inside someone else's head.  In fact it requires that you get inside every one of your characters' heads.  You might start to see the world differently.