It seems that once upon a time I thought this was so important: to try on your main character, to act and think as he would. There’s no doubt that it does help in getting into the story rather than holding it at arms’ length (as far as the keyboard anyway). The only problem here might be that you have the character acting as you would. How exciting is that? This is fiction after all; if your own life were exciting you wouldn’t be making things up. So why limit the protagonist to your own fears and lack of experience?
Sit back and just watch what he does. Is he the type to pick the penny up off the floor or one who wouldn’t bother? Or one who didn’t even notice it?
While we can imagine all kinds of things, and make them fairly plausible, here is also where experience comes in. That is, if you’re a watcher not just a doer. Years of listening to other people, watching them, noting their reactions, and here we’re lucky–watching movies and television dramas and yes, sitcoms, that enhance characterization often even better because it’s studied and concise, can’t help but add to the storehouse of what you could but never would do yourself.
Maybe fiction writing, just as in the reading, is living vicariously through someone else.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
I think of it as being a little like acting — only you get to play every part, and there’s no performance anxiety (at least no live audience, unless you’re successful enough at it that you wind up doing live readings).
When I need to get into a character’s skin, I find that writing a few journal pages from their point of view is helpful, too.