Chasing Perfection
Something you might not know about myself is that people will often tell me I'm empathetic.
Empathetic.
That's how I'm described. Not bold, daring, or adventurous. Empathetic. What exactly does that mean? Does it mean I just say the right things when people are talking to me? Does it mean that I feel for people going through things that I have no idea about? Does it mean that people come to me when they need to talk? Does it mean I just pat them on the shoulder and say, "Oh, you poor unfortunate soul."?
It's a little bit of all of the above. Being a writer, a lot of times I find myself putting a little bit of me into them. Hence why one of my characters has accidentally become the most sickeningly sweet person who always says the right thing.
Being empathetic is not a bad thing. We need to be able to sort of feel for another person even if we don't know what they're going through, but there's a point where it becomes something beyond empathetic. It becomes some weird, awkward form of empathetic that doesn't really work. No one is able to perfectly understand anything and everything that someone else is going for. No one's perfect like that.
So when you write characters, or when you even think about yourself, just know that you can't be perfect. Your characters can't be people/animals/things that have no flaws and can perfectly adapt to everything. Everyone has a weak point. A chink in the armor, so to speak. The flaws don't have to be obvious from first glance. That's the beauty of writing. Every character can have so many levels of depth to their personality and backstory.
When you create a character or a world, keep in mind that things can be rough. Your outline, your rough draft, your plot, all of it can be this rough mess by the time you're finished. It's the editing part that lets you polish up the things that you want to fix up.
There's no point in chasing perfection. Just do the best you can.
That is all.
Empathetic.
That's how I'm described. Not bold, daring, or adventurous. Empathetic. What exactly does that mean? Does it mean I just say the right things when people are talking to me? Does it mean that I feel for people going through things that I have no idea about? Does it mean that people come to me when they need to talk? Does it mean I just pat them on the shoulder and say, "Oh, you poor unfortunate soul."?
It's a little bit of all of the above. Being a writer, a lot of times I find myself putting a little bit of me into them. Hence why one of my characters has accidentally become the most sickeningly sweet person who always says the right thing.
Being empathetic is not a bad thing. We need to be able to sort of feel for another person even if we don't know what they're going through, but there's a point where it becomes something beyond empathetic. It becomes some weird, awkward form of empathetic that doesn't really work. No one is able to perfectly understand anything and everything that someone else is going for. No one's perfect like that.
So when you write characters, or when you even think about yourself, just know that you can't be perfect. Your characters can't be people/animals/things that have no flaws and can perfectly adapt to everything. Everyone has a weak point. A chink in the armor, so to speak. The flaws don't have to be obvious from first glance. That's the beauty of writing. Every character can have so many levels of depth to their personality and backstory.
When you create a character or a world, keep in mind that things can be rough. Your outline, your rough draft, your plot, all of it can be this rough mess by the time you're finished. It's the editing part that lets you polish up the things that you want to fix up.
There's no point in chasing perfection. Just do the best you can.
That is all.
I definitely feel as if empathy comes with being a writer. Often times, I find myself distastefully attached to certain characters, to a point where my mood is often altered even once I have closed the book.
ReplyDeleteI have the same thing! Things that happen to characters in books have a massive effect on me, and a few books brought me to tears (*coughcough* TFIOS *coughcough*).
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