Empathy: “the experiencing as one’s own of the feelings of another” from Webster’s. It seems that empathy in our society has lost popularity. These days if something doesn’t affect you personally, it’s of no consequence and can be ignored no matter how many of your neighbors are affected either positively or negatively. Writers, if they are any good, can’t have such a narrow view unless they are writing the “plot only action novel”. To write about a wide variety of characters and have them come across to readers as authentic and realistic, the writer must have empathy with a wide variety of people that translates to all of their characters. That’s the only way we can write about people we don’t know and make them seem real, vibrant and alive to the reader. How did we learn this and how can we share it?
Examples can be found in each of my novels.
