Guide to Writing Novels (NovelToon Official)

3.3 Ways to strengthen empathy so that readers stay in your story

What is meant by empathy is an action in which the reader imagines himself as one of the main characters at the time of reading, and for the result, that is, the reader will feel whatever is felt by the main character, the main character, as if experiencing it directly and getting a strong feeling.

It is obvious that this is very beneficial in most circumstances. Our own problems and those of others will certainly bring a very different feeling, just as when we look at the Olympics, the participation of our national teams, our views and supports must be different, he said, whereas if it is more profound, whether the participants are relatives or friends, the level of attention will be more different.

So, empathy can make the reader pay more attention to your work, the deeper the plot, the more you wait for what will happen next. Or simply, empathy makes a work have a stronger appeal.

But everything has to be good and bad. At the same time when getting this benefit, empathy will also bring a negative impact, it is when the main character experiences a disaster, the reader's feelings will also be stronger, and the, and if these feelings cross the line that readers can accept, they will likely stop reading, even begin to berate

This also leads to some restrictions on writing online articles, for example, should the ending be happy, if in the end the endiing is the whole family died, under the strong influence of empathy, if in the end the end is the whole family died, under the strong influence of empathy, readers will not naturally accept it.

Of course, at the time of writing, we can once avoid the negative impact of this empathy, and only maintain the positive impact. So, for writers, especially online writers, empathy is definitely a good thing.

Then, how does empathy arise, how to strengthen it?

Before discussing this point, we must first distinguish empathy and recognition.

Empathy has been discussed before, which is a special feeling in which the reader places himself as the main character, while recognition is the level of recognition of the reader towards the actions of the main character. These two things are related, but not the same.

Let's talk about empathy first. The emergence of empathy is not difficult, in a sense, we do not need to do anything, empathy will exist naturally. As long as the novel has a main character, the reader will naturally empathize, even if the main character is just a cat, a tree, there will also be empathy from the readers.

The difference lies only in the strength or weakness of empathy, while what affects this point is the level of equality of the reader and the main character.

This equation comes from all sides, including the image, nature, values of the character itself, and various other sides. The higher the level of equality, the stronger the empathy. So, female readers will definitely be easier to empathize with the main character of women, young people will also be easier to empathize with the main character of young people... it can be said that each main character setting determines the strength or weakness of empathy.

What must be considered here is that, easily damaged difficult to build, the added value brought by a suitable setting is usually not proportional to the less value carried by an opposite setting. So if only for empathy, although for the main character settings should not be too blur—— this results in no added value, but also should not be too clear—— this results in more and less value.

Therefore, in addition to some unavoidable settings, such as gender, we should add settings that can clearly fit the reader group, for example ensuring the reader is young, then we must add the setting that the main character is a young person, while also having to reduce the group that cannot be ascertained, or the minimal setting of the group concerned, such as the certainty of the height of the main character.

There is more to note is, something that is internal is basically always important from the external. For example, the influence of the nature of the main character is greater than his posture. Therefore, a Chinese person crosses the time of being a foreigner, white on the outside and flat on the inside, with a foreigner crossing time as a Chinese citizen, it's flat on the outside and white on the inside, it's clear that the first empathy is stronger.

Here, there is still one more very important, but often overlooked——image readers themselves in their hearts, not necessarily matching the actual image.

Similarly, we ourselves may be timid, may not dare to make a sound when meeting a burly man on the way out, may be begging for mercy once pulled by it, may cry sobbing once slapped... however, when we look at the main character like this, we will admit this action, but what will admit that this is us?

Normally, most readers would not think so. And this rejection, directly destroying the recognition described above, and since recognition is affected, empathy is destroyed.

For example, explained above, due to the influence of empathy, the internal nature of the character will be more important, while internal performance, of course, expressed through words and actions. Therefore, the words and actions of the main character can or do not be recognized by the reader, namely the strength or absence of recognition, will directly affect the strength or weakness of empathy.

But, what is not the same from empathy is, recognition does not require that the words and actions of the main character are in harmony with the reader.

For example, the main character is captured by the enemy, tortured but does not give up. In fact, even though the reader reflexively beautifies themselves, it is also not necessarily going to feel that great, so the actions of the main character are not made the same as the reader, but this does not hinder the recognition of the reader, but this does not prevent the reader, they will acknowledge this kind of action, admiring the action.

In short, that is, the reader feels that what the main character does is right.

Recognition, not everything evolves toward morality. For example, the main character finds a treasure, morally, he should try to find the owner of the treasure, try to return it, if not, then try to charity with the thing, at least it is useful for the state, not to make their own, and if the main character does so, it is possible for the reader to scold him foolishly, perhaps disagreeing with this action, it destroys the confession.

In essence, make the main character weigh right and wrong well, then as much as possible choose a profitable one for yourself, and also make your own actions more authoritative, this is a general rule to be recognized.

From the example above, the main character realizes giving up a treasure is not in his own favor, so destroy the recognition; the main character smiles in the face of tantrums, this looks very good, so the reader can admit it; whereas he made a cowardly act, of course this was very useless, so the reader could not accept it.

That's confession.

The conclusion is, when the novel begins, when the main character appears, then empathy will be formed itself. Meanwhile, as the emergence of the character setting, strong or weak empathy will change, the more internal settings will affect the greater, after the setting has been shown all, empathy will reach a peak, the more, and after that empathy will be affected by recognition. If the reader acknowledges the words and actions of the main character, then the recognition will be stronger, and will maintain empathy or even strengthen, on the contrary, if the reader does not acknowledge it, the recognition will be destroyed, or worse, stop reading.

In comparison, recognition is more important than empathy.

　

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