Writing with Empathy

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Sympathy VS Empathy

The terms 'sympathy' and 'empathy' are commonly seen as similar entities. However, it is important to understand that although they are similar, they do not mean the same thing.

Sympathy is about feeling pity and sorrowful for somebody else's misfortune. For example, if someone has just gone through a bad situation, a common response could be: "I'm sorry that you had to go through that."

Empathy is all about gaining a deeper understanding of that individual's feelings. It is putting yourself in somebody else's shoes and being able to feel what another person is feeling.

We could say that:

Sympathy = being able to see the pain of somebody else

Empathy = being able to feel the pain of somebody else

Here is a video by Brené Brown explaining the differences between sympathy and empathy:

Why Empathy is Important for a Writer

I believe that being able to gain the empathic connection with your characters that Brené Brown describes, is one of the most useful characterisation tools that a writer can have. If a writer cannot emphasise with a character then it is unlikely that they will be able to create a three-dimensional being. Instead, they could risk creating a stereotype that their audience cannot connect with.

Gaining an empathic connection with your characters allows you to create realistic characters. You can feel how they feel. In this sense, you can experiment with action and dialogue. Your character's choices (actions) and words (dialogue) can only work together to communicate what your character desires when you can empathise with them. Thus, you can gain an understanding of the reason why a character would choose to act and express themselves in a particular way. The motive needs to feel organic, not forced.

Empathy does not primarily apply to protagonists, it also applies to antagonists. Even if you do not personally agree with their morals, it is still important to be able to emphasise with them. For instance, you could ask why this character chooses to act like this? Has an event happened to them that has influenced their behaviour?

Nonetheless, being empathic is not to say that we allow excuses for bad behaviour from our characters. There is a major difference between an excuse and a reason. The writer and the audience can still understand why a character acts a certain way but recognise it as unacceptable behaviour.

For instance, the character arc of Severus Snape in Harry Potter has always been up for debate among Harry Potter fans. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011), we see Snape's memories about how he fell in love with Lily and was bullied by James. The audience is told this information through flashback sequences where we see the world through Snape's perspective. Consequently, with the intent to elicit an emotive response and communicate a reason behind why Snape made particular choices in his adult life. However, as sad as his past is, it does not give him an excuse as to why he was mean to Harry. Nevertheless, it does give him a reason.

How to Empathise with your Characters

Being able to empathise with your characters is not always easy. If being empathic was easy then it would not be considered a vulnerable choice.

One way in which you can empathise with your characters is to think about their history/background. You can do this by thinking about your character's personality traits as a starting point and then building from why they might have a certain character trait. For example, my character, Riku, is pessimistic and this could be due to his negative home environment.

As a guideline, here are some basic questions you could ask your character/(s):

• Where and when were you born?

• Where did you grow up?

• What is your relationship like with your parents?

• Do you have any siblings? If so, what is your relationship like with them?

• Do you have any friends? What kind of relationship do you have with them?

• Are there any major life events that have changed you as a person?

• Do you have a significant other? If so, are you happy in your relationship?

• Do you have a job? What do you aspire to be/do?

• What is an important/difficult choice that you have had to make?

Once you have gotten adjusted with the basics of your character/(s) background, you could then move on to create an extensive character profile. A template with character questions can be found at http://www.eclectics.com/articles/character.html.

Another way that we can emphasise with characters is by drawing from our own experiences. As a writer, it is important to listen to what other people have to say. Whether that's your friend telling you about something that happened to them or when you overhear snippets of other people's conversations. When I lived down south, I decided to do a dialogue exercise when I would write down parts of other people's conversations that I would overhear. Of course, the snippets of the conversations sounded weird without context, but it was a good exercise to create natural-sounding dialogue.

An example of empathetic listening from Inside Out (2015):

Conclusively, empathy can be used to connect the writer and the audience to a particular character. It can often be the reason why people identify with one character over another - because they feel something for that character that they can emphasise with. It is only when a writer can walk in the shoes of their character/(s) that they can begin to understand who they are.

“Empathy is the only route to insight, both for you and for your audience.” - (Potter: 2001)