Empathy is important to a writer. We need to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of our characters. This is so much easier when we have empathy for others. With that in mind there are some characters that are very hard to write for me. I have a hard time putting myself in the shoes of certain ones. I must stretch myself as a writer to do these characters effectively which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As a writer we need to continually grow in our craft.
Which character has been the hardest for you to write? For me it is the psychopath. I can’t imagine not feeling for others, not having that empathy that is so important to a writer.
I so agree with you. I have a very hard time with villans in general, let alone a true psychopath. Frankly, I have lead a pretty sheltered and secure life, which I realize I am incredibly blessed for, but I have very little to draw on to ‘get’ the evil in people. I suppose that is good, I don’t want to understand the psychopath, but it sure makes it hard to write one.
Would you share which of the characters from one of your pub. books was harder to write?
I had the hardest time with my heroine’s ex-fiance, a secondary character, in one of my contemporary romances. For the longest time, he was a completely unlikeable character, someone whom I poured into every wrong ever done to me by anyone who’d hurt me. But then I realized, he had to have some redeeming qualities, otherwise, why would my heroine have fallen in love with him in the first place. It was really hard to go back and rewrite his backstory and his character to explain why he’d hurt her the way he did. But it was a healing process for me to be able to forgive someone who’d hurt me in the past, just like my heroine forgave her ex-fiance!
Cheryl, the kidnapper in my May book. A little girl is kidnapped. That was hard for me.
Margaret
I could write a psychopath-easily! I am one, after all. 🙂 But I’m just weird that way.