Gaining reader empathy rant

[limyaael]

And off we go on this one. Once again, I think I should define the term in the title of the rant as I’m using it: reader empathy, here, is the ability to tie the readers to your characters and make them feel for those characters. That isn’t the same as sympathy, which involves an element of wanting the characters to succeed. That’s because reader

Comments

[klgaffney]

When his first friend, acquaintance, enemy, son, spouse, rival, parent, teacher, student, subordinate, commander, peer, lord, subject, customer, mentor, love interest, comes on the stage, how does he react?

that's such...*purrs* i love that. when an author can think to do that, or, better yet, the character's just so alive that it's natural. so important, and so overlooked. it makes all the difference between a wooden puppet and a real live boy.

Present those ordinary things. Itchy heroes are very easy to empathize with in the sense of shared experience.

which only reminds me that a lot of my favorite little gems in comic books are not the massive time traveling, super dramatic saving the universe arcs, but rather those little inbetween issues where say, martian manhunter's dealing with a chocolate sandwich cookie addiction. *chuckles* okay, maybe not the most exciting example. but the guys with the phenomenal powers are (should be?) still subject to bad hair days and socks eaten by the dryer too. brings 'em right down to our level, hooks us, and then they can sorta take us along when the go face the big bad. *glee*

[limyaael]

that's such...*purrs* i love that. when an author can think to do that, or, better yet, the character's just so alive that it's natural. so important, and so overlooked. it makes all the difference between a wooden puppet and a real live boy.

This is one place I think the very rigid and ordered school of thought when it comes to characterization- doing profiles for every small thing and so on- falls down. If a writer goes into a novel with every character decision already made, it overrules natural patterns, and sometimes facets of the character's personality that are supposed to mesh flat-out contradict each other.

[onyxflame]

that's such...*purrs* i love that. when an author can think to do that, or, better yet, the character's just so alive that it's natural. so important, and so overlooked. it makes all the difference between a wooden puppet and a real live boy.

That's another area where experience with RP can help. I don't care *how* loving and compassionate your character is, sooner or later she'll find someone that she absolutely cannot stand. And she shouldn't be telling her life story to everyone she meets either, unless she's the kind of person who likes bragging about her scars. Treating different people differently has been used out the wazoo to show that someone's a manipulative bitch, but it's a rather natural thing when you think about it.

Which is why I don't like the whole character sheet idea. Ok, so I jot down that my character is honest. Under what circumstances is she honest? Which friends, if any, would she lie to protect, and how would she react to doing so? How would she react if she found out someone lied to her, and how would her reaction vary depending on who was doing the lying, and what they were lying about? How honest is she really, as opposed to how honest she wants to be? (I run into this a lot on those personality test thingies. There's never an answer for "sometimes A and sometimes B, depending on the situation" or "well I'd *like* to do A but I suck at that so I'd probably do B".)

Which is why I know some of my characters very very well, but I couldn't really describe their personalities in terms of simple words. There have to be words and actions and life to really know a character.