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

[gehayi]

But who else is to blame if the hero promises to do something for a person he doesn’t like, slacks off, and doesn’t do it? His conscience sits there and irritates him. It’s not a gaping wound, it’s an itch.

That made me think of Stephen Donaldson's Mordant's Need duology. There are a couple of soldiers in The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through named Ribaud and Argus. They're stubborn, foul-mouthed veterans who make a lot of sexual and suspicious comments about the heroine, Terisa, which make her uncomfortable. After a while, I started wondering when the two of them were going to attack Terisa. And Terisa herself isn't sure how far she can trust them, or if she can trust them at all

[blunder_buss]

In essence of number 4, it reminded me of a book I'm starting to read. Inside, a character is trying very hard to get away from a villian. He tells another character how evil he is. Okay, yeah. But what really struck it home for me was just HOW BLOODY BADLY the character was trying to get away. When he's introduced, he's half-way out of mind with fear and nearly killed himself escaping. THAT got my attention. If he's trying that hard to escape this psycho, then he must be some real piece of work.

Or, in Final Fantasy 7, you're trailing a villian. You only see glimpses of him, not actually meeting him until half-way through the game. You've been told he's super-powerful, blah blah. But what REALLY drove that point home, is that after you barely escape a gigantic and extremely powerful monster ... you find another one, impaled on a tree. Seeing that monster skewered on a tree like a sishkebab scared the ever-lovin' shit outta me.

Showing is MUCH better than telling.

[xerne]

Damn, yeah, I remember that scene in FF7.

It helped that it took me like four tries to get through there, too.

[blunder_buss]

That was one of the most rattling scenes I've seen in a Final Fantasy game.

You mean it took you 4 tries to get through the swamp? Seriously? It only took me once ...

[xerne]

I was a hard-headed thing, new to RPGs.

And, er, unaware of how the plot sometimes herds you to chocobo farms...

[evilprodigy]

the scholarly study of magic

I'm curious, are you referring to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell? Because I love that book.

[limyaael]

Yes, I am. I really enjoyed it as well. It was- to use the cliché of a completely different novel- like nothing else I've ever read.

[fadethecat]

6) Include the petty and ordinary.Sigh. If anything, I overdo this. But I'll admit it's because I like reading that sort of thing. (I remember a discussion of the fifth Harry Potter novel in which someone said it had far too much ordinary day-to-day stuff that ought to have been edited out, and I responded that those were my favorite bits. I could really see what the setting was like when people weren't saving the school or each other or what not

[limyaael]

I think the day-to-day material gets to be too much when the author doesn't actually use it to develop the characters or world, and just includes it for its own sake- the same way that fantasy writers can include too much fighting and sex just for their own sakes, and do nothing with them to advance characterization or plot. I want to know why it's in there, and if there's no available answer, then I might get suspicious.

Most excellent rant.

[saadiira]

On number 2, I can think of a movie that portrayed this very well. I am going to now go nuts trying to recall the title, but it involved a french woman, named Aimee, who was actually kidnapped by pirates, and sold into an hareem.

It was historically based. She did not wangst, but instead, worked within the system. I'd think it was most likely based on a book, and I'd probably love to find that as well.

-Dira-

Re: Most excellent rant.

[limyaael]

I've seen mostly fanfiction writers and readers use it, but it's definitely out there.