EMPATHY: The Number One Tool Writers Need to Develop Dynamic Characters

S2_E42. EMPATHY! The Number One Tool Writers Need to Develop Dynamic Characters 

EPISODE DESCRIPTION - Last week, I gave you the 5 dialogue tricks every writer needs to create a clear and dynamic storyline. This week I discuss how to create dynamic characters through empathy. 

The basis of story is understanding the human condition from an empathetic point of view. In order to do this it is absolutely necessary for a writer to understand and confront their own sin nature. If you don't understand people, you cannot be a good writer. So this, in turn, means that you must be aware of the world around you. The actual world, not the false created world you pretend it is. 

There is a desire to deny evil, because if evil doesn't exist, then we're not guilty. And what do human beings want to do more than anything? We want to justify ourselves! By knowing that evil exists inside of ourselves, we can then translate more believable characters and more believable scenarios to our stories. 

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UP NEXT - Next week we get out of our comfort zone and change the way we think about engaging culture. 

Transcript

THE STORYTELLER’S MISSION WITH ZENA DELL LOWE
S2_E42: EMPATHY! The Number One Tool Writers Need to Develop Dynamic Characters 

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT 

Published June 16, 2022

00:00
INTRO: Hello, and welcome to The Storyteller's Mission with Zena Dell Lowe, a podcast for artists and storytellers about changing the world for the better through story. 

00:11
TOPIC INTRO: Today, I want to talk to you about character development, because I find that in a lot of the work I'm critiquing, there are just characters that aren't fully developed, fully fleshed out, they're not three dimensional. 

00:25
PRESENTATION: There are a lot of characters that end up becoming props to the other character - to the main character. And there are just a lot of superficial characters, caricatures, rather than truly realized characters. And so how do you get that? How do you change that? How do you cultivate truly developed characters?

00:47
KEY PRINCIPLE: Well, I would like to argue that you start through something called empathy. Now, this might be easiest to see if we look at the antagonist or the villain. Because what often happens in work is that our villains or our antagonists become caricatures. They become the mustache twirling villain, and they're not truly authentic or even really believable, because they've been portrayed in such a way that lacks authenticity. 

01:18
So antagonists motivations are more authentic when they're being driven by something that you have either experienced personally yourself, or something that you can understand. You can understand their skewed perspective, you can understand why a villain would be thinking this way, there's something in the argument that actually makes sense to you.

01:43
When you start approaching your characters from a logical point of view, even if their worldview is twisted, or they have false conclusions that they draw, whether it be the antagonist or the main character, you want to make it so that it actually has a foundation... 

02:02
"Man, I can kind of see how that would be the case. Yeah, it kind of does make sense." Because that means that we're approaching it from a perspective of human empathy.

02:13
We’re not just creating characters that are bad to be bad. That doesn't make any sense. It's not actually believable. Nobody starts out trying to be bad to be bad. And yet, we also have to understand that evil actually does exist, which I will get to more in a little bit. 

02:34
But the point is, it has to make sense. It has to be persuasive. Their logic is twisted, but it can't be absurd. There's got to be some part of you that gets why they think what they're doing is okay. It's that whole, "There by the grace of God go I," kind of discussion. 

02:54
So no more cookie cutter, melodramatic caricatures if the characters become more believable and convincing - based on their perspective. It's all about perspective. How do they see the world?

03:08
EXAMPLE: So for example, I had a friend who had an antagonist that he developed that was motivated by the secret belief that the world would be a better place if he was in charge of everything. Well, turns out that was my friend Shawn's sort of secret belief. Everywhere he went, he just thought, "Man, if I were in charge of this, I could make this go so much smoother."

03:33
Whether it be at work, or a writer's group, or a church group or whatever. He just sort of secretly thought he should be in charge of everything - and he kind of worked from that place. 

03:44
Well, he ended up realizing that was a pretty arrogant position. And then he created an antagonist, who also worked from that perspective. Really, really great idea. But notice where that comes from, it is born out of the frustration of chaos.

04:02
Really, this is a guy who is trying to create order in a chaotic world. So we can understand how if you take that particular trait - that you feel out of control - It feels chaotic. And now I'm trying to fix it, and then you sort of slowly but surely develop this belief that, "I should be in charge of things," where that could lead over time.

04:25
That could be a wonderful antagonist down the road if that belief never gets checked. If nobody ever calls you on it. Or it's never brought to your attention so that you can repent of it and recognize your arrogance, and your frustration, and your need for help in a chaotic world. Or maybe your unresolved childhood trauma or your unresolved trauma in general. That makes you driven to try to create order from chaos all the time, and not admit that you're out of control. 

04:58
KEY PRINCIPLE: So one of the best things that you can do then as a writer, is be in touch with your own sin nature. 

05:06
You need to know who you are and what you are capable of. The basis of story is understanding the human condition. But from an empathetic point of view. We have to be able to get into the mindset, the skin of our characters, and understand what makes them tick and allow it to make sense to us. 

05:31
KEY PRINCIPLE: If you don't understand people, you cannot be a good writer. So this, in turn, means that you must be aware of the world around you. The actual world, not the false created world that you pretend that it is. 

05:48
There are many people in this world who either deliberately take a sanitized view because somehow they think that they are avoiding evil. Like if they're staying on the outside, and they just sort of stick their head in the sand, that somehow that's a good thing, because we're not supposed to be a part of this world. 

06:11
Or there are other people who think that they have to be positive all the time. Otherwise, they're contributing to, or creating negative views of society or some sort of negative society. 

06:23
And I just think that that's a false perspective. We can't be in denial, especially if you're a Christian, you have to have a realistic view of the world, not an idealistic one. And that doesn't mean that we're being negative or pessimistic. We simply have to see the world the way it really is. 

06:45
EXAMPLE: And it's not just Christians who struggle with this. In fact, there's a lot of people who struggle with this. I remember reading about a couple who had decided to bike all over the globe, and they ended up being murdered by Islamic extremists. And the husband had been keeping a blog of their travels.

07:05
And one of the things that he had written shortly before they ended up being murdered is… ”You read the papers, and you're led to believe that the world is a big scary place. People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted, people are bad, people are evil. I don't buy it." 

07:24
He continued, "Evil is a make believe concept that we've invented, to deal with the complexities of fellow human beings, holding values and beliefs and perspectives that are different from our own. By and large, humans are kind, self interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind, generous, and wonderful and kind." 

07:48
Now, conservatives have often framed the tragedy of this couple as a cautionary tale about not just the perils of travel, but also of naivete in general. 

08:00
They argue that an overly generous understanding of human beings and human nature is behind much of today's progressive movement. And I think that's true to some degree. The real issue is a denial of evil. 

08:15
There is a desire to deny evil, and I want you to understand from a theological perspective, why that might be the case, and a psychological perspective too. 

08:26
KEY PRINCIPLE: Why would we want to deny the existence of evil? Because if evil doesn't exist, then we're not guilty. And what do human beings want to do more than anything? We want to justify ourselves. We all do! Search your heart, you know it's true, you want to be justified. So, a denial of how evil we actually have the capacity to be as human beings, is a precursor to justifying our goodness. Certainly, we want to justify how good we are outside of the need of a savior.

09:03
If evil doesn't exist, then I don't need a savior. But if you're going to be an honest storyteller, whether you're a Christian or not, you need to open your eyes to the darkness all around you. You need to not have a polished, "Pollyanna," feel good, rosy view of the world. But rather become familiar with the truth of the world around us. 

09:33
Now the world isn't as bad as it possibly could be. Nevertheless, evil does exist… so does great goodness. This is why we can be moved sometimes when we witness something that's just so pure and beautiful and innocent. 

09:49
EXAMPLE: My dad and I went to see the Winnie the Pooh movie that came out fairly recently with Ewan McGregor. It wasn't very good. But I looked over at my dad, who is an atheist, and he was sobbing at times.

10:11
And I'm convinced that the reason that he was so moved - and this is a man who is not a terribly emotional person, by any means. If anything, it's the opposite, he's a very stoic person. And yet, here he was bawling like a baby - in a very fair at best movie. But it's because it taps into an innocence. It taps into that time in his life when there was something pure, when there was something hopeful and beautiful. 

10:45
The feelings that he had as a kid, when he would read Winnie the Pooh, the innocent statements of the characters that were so profound and sweet. And my dad has a profound love of animals - that's where he is moved most in life. 

11:03
Why, though? Well, because animals have an innocence, a purity, a beauty about them, that is untainted, whereas human beings don't. So even in his denial of the existence of evil, he's actually affirming it in his reaction to these types of things. 

11:24
We need to become familiar with the world as it really is. We don't understand evil, a lot of us. I mean, we participate in it, but we don't fully understand it, because we don't want to believe that it exists in us. We tend to chalk up things that are bad that we do to satan's influence, or things that other people do. 

11:55
EXAMPLE: I remember the Menendez brothers, who killed brutally their parents. Well there is now a new move, to get these ‘boys' out of prison, these ‘men’ out of prison. On the basis of - they didn't commit an act of evil horror - they were only reciprocating the abuse that they had received by their parents. 

12:19
But at the time of the trial, this was not the case. They had done something unspeakably evil. But there's this desire to make it about society. Or if you do happen to believe in the supernatural, that it was satan's influence, and then to deny man's culpability, certainly our own culpability. 

12:42
We want to be morally justified, do we not? So we often then, either deny the existence of evil altogether by appealing to some sort of argument of moral relativity or societal standards that we've adopted to say that something's bad, but really, it's not. And like that gentleman said, "People are basically good, people are basically kind," and we deny the existence of evil. Or we put all of the onus on the influence of satan.

13:17
I used to have a college professor who would say, "You know, we blame satan for our sin, but really, he doesn't need to do much. In fact he rarely has to be involved at all. We're perfectly capable of committing atrocities on our own, because we have it in our hearts to do it." 

13:39
And human beings that are honest with themselves, will know that. In fact, the more honest you are with yourself, the more you see, the more you see, that's true.

13:54
I had a mentor at one point in my life, who was arguably one of the most godly people that I've ever met, that I've ever even had the privilege of knowing... Yet, she saw herself as all her good deeds were like filthy rags, and it wasn't just lip service. See, we can say that… but deep in our hearts, we still believe that we're doing pretty good. But she knew it wasn't true. The more "holy" she got, if you will, the more she saw how proud she was - how arrogant, how selfish.

14:39
KEY PRINCIPLE: But again, depravity doesn't mean that we're as bad as we possibly can be. It simply means that we are infected by sin at every part of our humanity. So it is in our members, it is in our being, which is why we have the capability of committing evil. 

14:58
EXAMPLE: This was one of the problems I felt with the Star Wars franchise when they did episodes one, two, and three, and we're supposed to get the backstory of Anakin Skywalker. And it was this need to justify the atrocities committed by Anakin to give him a reason to do it that made him more sympathetic, or more human, or acceptable, or whatever. But it wasn't true. 

15:28
All we needed was for him to truly enjoy the power of the "dark side." Who of us wouldn't? This is the whole reason why we're attracted to the occult. We get either secret knowledge, secret power, or secret insight. It gives us something that makes us feel special and powerful. Right? 

15:54
So again, Anakin, all he needed to go to the dark side, was to like it. Instead, there was the whole false thing about him being deceived about his wife. I mean, it just ultimately didn't even make any sense. And it didn't match what we already knew in episode four, where Darth Vader was seduced. Or Anakin Skywalker was seduced to the dark side by Darth Vader. 

16:21
Seduced... the seduction, it implies this pleasurable content, right? Not deception, but an enjoyment of the dark powers. Because evil exists, and we are capable of it. 

16:37
CONCLUSION: So we have a skewed perception of humanity. But we also have a readily available research facility that we can visit at any time we want. We can access it immediately, right now, and it's ourselves, because we're human. 

16:59
CALL TO ACTION: Therefore, if we are honest with ourselves, if we are honest with ourselves, we can see what we're capable of. We can be in touch with our own sin nature. By knowing that evil exists inside of ourselves, we can then translate more believable characters and more believable scenarios to our stories. What are you capable of? What exists in your heart? 

17:30
OUTRO: Thank you for listening to The Storyteller's Mission, with Zena Dell Lowe. May you go forth inspired to change the world for the better through story.