Transferable Empathy

Writing fiction, for me, comes down to how well I can empathize with someone. This someone is usually a character I've created, for good or for evil, for humorous or serious purposes. Readers can often sense when you, as author, don't especially like a character you've written, and that's fine. In the world of fiction every hero needs a baddy to fight, and every beaten dog needs an asshole owner who likes to pounce it off a wall or two.

What's not so fine is if your reader senses you've created this jerkoff character with absolutely no understanding, or empathy, for what makes the jerk the way he is. If you don't know your jerk throws his dog around because he was mistreated as a child, or a pack of wild dogs devoured his family on a car trip to Ottawa, then what you've created here is a Straw Character, Easily Blown Away By Any Puff of scrutiny that Happens to Come Along. Why does he have a glass eye? A hook for a hand? A propensity for touching little boys inappropriately?
But I'm not simply talking about back-story here, or interviewing your character to see what her favorite color is. Only charlatans think a paragraph or thirty pages of back-story truly creates a breathing character (either one or three dimensional). These charlatans may go on to win prizes, and chat with Opera, but deep down good writers know these other writers suck. What you need to be is empathetic, people. You need to understand and feel for the worst, most basic character. That UPS guy who delivers a package to your protagonist, says three words, and saunters off never to be seen again? Maybe he has a rash on his inner thigh. Maybe he squints a lot because he needs specs. Man, wouldn't that suck to have a rash, or squint a lot?

Now, I haven't always been the most empathetic person on the face of the earth. Many would say, not even close. But those people are dickheads and I hate them. But I shouldn't hate them, should I? No. Not if I want to put them in a story some day. And the more I write the more other people's minds, and hearts, seem open before me, or at least my imagination. Instead of being totally bored in a room full of people, I find myself actually paying attention on occasion, if only to steal what someone's saying or acting like for my own uses. Now, in my newly acquired state of high empathy. whenever I see a drunk crazy person on the street I wait at least five seconds before turning away, just in case they say something amusing. You see? I'm becoming more empathetic, transferring myself into another person's shoes, so to speak. It's a long, arduous process, to be sure, but a necessary one if you want your characters to seem like a real people your reader might actually meet on the street.

The Jesuit priest Anthony deMello said that no evil can be done in a state of true awareness. So everyday I strive to become more aware of the people I encounter, if only I can write caustic, sweeping generalizations about them later.