Empathy and Fiction
One of my new favorite blogs, Quiet: The Power of Introverts, had an article today about fiction and empathy. The author shared a study that suggests that people who read fiction are more empathetic than nonfiction readers. I wonder if this could be extended to writing fiction. Good writers can inspire empathy in the reader — but do writers also develop more empathy over the course of writing about a character? When I find myself trying to write a villain, I discover that I can’t just remain detached and aloof; I have to get into that villain’s mind and understand what drives him or her. I have to have some level of empathy in order to portray that person well and if I don’t have it initially, I slowly develop it as I write.
I would love to devise a study in which people are asked to read a short story; then half of the subjects would write a few paragraphs from a particular character’s first person point of view and the other half would write about the character. Then I would measure the subjects’ empathy for that character. I bet you dollars to donuts those who had to write from the character’s point of view would score higher on the empathy scale.
There is a quality in certain kinds of writing that I tend to think of as “heart,” but more precisely is probably the measure of the author’s empathy for his or her characters. I think this lack of “heart” is what rubbed me the wrong way about Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom; I just didn’t feel that he even liked his characters. There was a certain quality of detachment about his characterization, as if he were just sitting back and holding them up for examination or even scorn. In contrast, I’ve just finished Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” which features characters who make many of the same mistakes Franzen’s characters make (adultery, drug abuse, lying, etc.) and yet she writes deep into the heart of each character so that you understand why they are doing these things that you so wholeheartedly wish they would not do, and you feel the inevitability of it without judgment.
Empathy, I think, is truly the key to why I read and why I write.
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What an excellent observation. What you call empathy of a writer for their characters, I called soul. But, you are right, empathy is a willingness to identify yourself with the character’s dilemma. So many writers don’t go that route. They are clever and the narrative twists are many, but they just do not identify themselves with their characters and that leaves me closing the book before it is over.
I completely agree with you – there are writers who write with heart and those who don’t! I haven’t read any Franzen yet but I will be even more interested after reading your post…I just finished Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone (well, I finished it right before E was born) and Malone is definitely a writer with heart!
@lilalia, Clever writing can be fun but ultimately it’s not as substantial as writing with empathy and soul.
@courtney, I will be interested to hear what you have to say about Franzen when you get around to reading him. Lots of people disagree with me and make the case that he is empathetic towards the characters in Freedom, but I just didn’t see it.
Very interesting point about “heart.” It makes me think of Robert Altman (my favorite director). One of the main differences between the movies of his which connect with me and the ones which don’t is how he seems to feel about the characters.
In the good ones, he seems to feel that the characters have value and are deserving of kindness (however wrong-headed and clueless they may be — and he always sees their weaknesses very clearly). But in some movies it really looks like he just got sick of the whole lot of them about halfway through the picture.
@Anthony — thanks for your comments (here and elsewhere on the blog!). That’s an interesting observation re. Altman — I hadn’t thought about it in the context of film, but it seems to apply there as well. Now I’m thinking about Almodovar and how he manages to engage our empathy for some pretty pathetic and/or troubled characters.
I agree, Almodovar is a very good example. He doesn’t condone things which are wrong, but you understand why the people do what they do.
(I usually get onto moves when I talk about writing, mostly because I think I learned more about writing from movies — and especially from Altman — than I have from books. I wrote about his influence on me when he got his honorary Oscar: http://u-town.com/collins/?p=35, plus I’ve reviewed a bunch of his movies, too.)
[...] been remembering Kristi’s recent post about empathy in fiction and I realised that I have been struggling to add more light and shade to the character because I [...]
Agree 100%.
That is why, to me, Stephen King is a great writer: he shows empathy towards his characters.