characterization would need to be different to reflect reality.

Understanding different beliefs and standards.

By sticking to your own personal code of morals, what you do is deprive yourself as a writer of being able to write from any other stance. How can you understand the mind of a criminal? How can you understand how someone of a different religion sees a given situation? Study helps to get beyond this and allows a writer to paint a rich picture of reality, rather than a bland landscape in which the characters are limited by personal knowledge and belief.

Understanding reaction.

When you look at circumstance, many people have different reactions. To make your written work believable you have to stand beyond your own personal feelings. The feelings and emotions which form your moral opinions stifle the writer, since they build up barriers which stilt the writing process. How does a lady react to being raped? Now imagine that same woman in a different political climate who half expects to be raped? Of course, it is morally wrong, though the reaction of each woman would be different.

When we, as writers, step beyond those boundaries of moral judgment and understanding, we open up possibilities. A writer who limits themselves to their own understanding will have stiff characterization simply because they believe that a person SHOULD react in a particular way, when it is a fact of life that all people react differently to similar stimuli, depending upon the moral beliefs and background of the character they are portraying.

Understanding consequence.

Consequence is something we are taught as children. All of our lives we are reminded of the consequence of actions and this forms part of our moral judgment. However, those same standards do not apply to everyone. The consequences of a husband cheating on his wife are obvious from one standpoint, although the consequences may result in a different scenario than one would first imagine, if you put imagination, characterization and background into a story to explain the difference.

Similarly with murder A writer will not have murdered but may have sympathy for the character who murders as a consequence of fear. The murder is no less sinister than cold blooded murder with no purpose, but by being flexible, we can make characters do things with differing consequences which add to the authenticity and reality of a story.

Stepping beyond personal moral boundaries is essential to developing

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