Creating Character Empathy, Part One: having empathy as a writer

image by adamr, freedigitalphotos.net

Every now and then, a story comes along with characters who get under our skin. We start thinking of them as real people. We feel their hurts, cry when they go through heartache, celebrate when they succeed, perhaps even catch ourselves praying for them.

In those stories, the author has succeeded in creating character empathy. To do this:

1.     The writer must have empathy for the character, and

2.     The character must create empathy in the reader.

We’ll start by addressing the first component today.

Writer empathy

If a writer feels nothing for her characters, how can we expect the reader to feel something? Our lack of emotional investment will show on the page. Our characters will feel wooden, stereotypical, and lacking in life.

Here are some ideas for developing empathy with your characters.

1. Know your character

To feel empathy for our characters, we need to know them like we know our best friends in real life. We need to know their strengths, flaws, quirks, fears, insecurities, and what makes them laugh.

The more we know about them, the more three-dimensional and real they will become in our minds. When they are real to us, they will start to become real to the reader.

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2. Walk a mile in their shoes

Empathy requires you to put yourself in someone else’s situation and imagine how it would feel.

If your character is going through something you’ve never experienced, don’t just guess at what it would be like. Do some research. Talk to people who’ve been through a similar experience, and ask them to describe their feelings.

Their reactions may not be what you’d expect. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to feel when facing a difficult circumstance. Real and honest writing requires you to dig beneath the “expected” responses and tap into what is true.

Of course, it should go without saying that you’ll need to be extremely sensitive in how you approach this. Your research is always secondary to the real feelings of the person you’re interviewing, and how ready they are to talk about their experience. Some people will find it cathartic to talk through their emotions; you can help them feel heard and give a voice to their experience. Others will not be ready – in that case, don’t push.

If the topic you are writing about is a very difficult one, consider reading first-person accounts instead. Blogs, online forums and biographies are all good sources. You will get a more complete picture if you access a variety of sources and/or speak to a range of people.

3. Find the universal emotion

Even if your character is going through something you’ve never experienced, chances are you’ve felt some of the emotions that arose from that experience.

image by David Castillo Dominici, freedigitalphotos.net

By tapping into your own experiences, no matter how different, you can access those universal emotions and put them to use.

Say your character has a son who’s gone missing. She feels panic and helplessness. You’ve never had a missing child, but you’ve felt that fear and helplessness while you waited for your husband to undergo risky surgery.

Or perhaps your character is waiting for medical test results for suspected cancer. You may never have been through this exact scenario, but you’ve waited nervously to hear whether you got a job that you desperately needed. Or you’ve waited fearfully for the vet to tell you whether your beloved pet will need to be put down. You can take that grain of understanding and extrapolate how it might feel to face something even larger and more overwhelming.

Our emotions occur on different scales and for different reasons, but at the core of them, we have all felt the same things at some point in our lives – whether it be fear, sadness, anger, joy, jealousy, nervousness, betrayal, excitement or hopelessness.

4. Practice empathy in real life

The more empathy you allow yourself to feel in real life for people going through a range of circumstances, the more your heart will open with compassion and a deeper understanding of humanity. These things will only enrich your stories.

This great little video will interest you if you’ve ever wondered about the difference between sympathy and empathy. (Or if you’ve ever found yourself using the phrase “At least…” to a hurting person!)

image by imagerymajestic,
freedigitalphotos.net

5. Let yourself feel

It’s okay to cry over your characters. The more we feel for them, the deeper and more real they will become on the page. Allow yourself to open your heart, even if it feels strange at first to care for a person who doesn’t actually exist.

Soon, it will feel so natural that you’ll catch yourself thinking about your character in between writing sessions, and wondering how they are faring. And that’s the first step toward creating the same powerful emotional response in your reader.

More on that next time.

Over to you. Do you find it easy or difficult to develop empathy with your characters? Do you find yourself drawing on your own life experiences as you write? - and how do you write about situations you haven’t experienced? How do you feel when you’re going through a tough situation and someone tries to downplay it with the words “At least…”? (Or have you found yourself doing that to others?) Anyone ever cried over a character, or am I the only one??

TWEETABLES

Writers, have you ever cried over your characters? You should! Here's why: Click to Tweet

To create empathy in the reader, you must first have empathy as a writer. Click to Tweet

Why caring about your characters can help your reader care too: Click to Tweet




Karen Schravemade lives in Australia. When she's not chasing after three small children, she spends her spare minutes daydreaming about the intricate lives of characters who don't actually exist. Find her on her website and Twitter.