: Re: How to write about a character adversely different to you So, I am very naturally a nice person. I respect everyone unless they have well and truly wronged me. I go out of my way to help

@Megan928

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You could think "How would I respond in this scenario?" and then do the exact opposite.
You could give your mean character a behavioral pattern that is simple to you but deeply engrained and maybe complex to them. All their knee-jerk reactions follow this track (maybe they always defend themselves, or always roll their eyes, as a result of their pattern of closing themselves off and deflecting. Or they overreact and attack the person who makes them angry they have a pattern of going on the offense; they're a fighter.). This ties to AmaiKotori's thoughts a little bit - I like her answer.
If I'm understanding your question correctly, you are stuck on how to make your fundamentally hateful character want to help, which goes against her default state. If that's the case, maybe you need to make sure her reason for wanting to help is super important and she must do it. Maybe the reason actually deeply stems from self-interest. Maybe she has a pause moment where she basically thinks, "This isn't like me. What the hell?"
If you have her around other characters who, say, are more like you (kind-hearted), you could make their differences in values/behaviors very apparent. If another character says something about your mean character's attitude, it can drive it home with the reader.
Good point on touching on backstory, too. I've heard that if you have a backstory for your character that you understand, and it ties into their strengths and weaknesses, they should come off as believable.

Have fun with it. How humans work is fascinating, frustrating, and awesome to dive into. Hope this helped a little bit. Just some random ideas I've learned and heard. Remember that characters are just people - but imaginary. People change. Don't forget that they can rectify their ways (like for my first point, the engrained pattern can be upended). Because all good characters change, right?

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