Sympathy and the Writer

Even though we crank out words that may never get read, and words that only we understand, and some of us die way too young with so much unpublished, and unread (Keats, for example) I suppose you might have thought I was vying for some sympathy, and that would be nice, but no. I'm talking about how we 'use' sympathy as tool for getting our reader to care. It's quite shameful what we writers do to our characters to create a feeling in the reader that they must keep reading, watching and listening to find out what happens.

If your character doesn't suffer, no one cares how great their life is.  And too much suffering becomes stifling, too. Take the movie Departed. Without giving the ending away, let's just say there was way too much suffering. I'm not advocating a trip back to Grace Livingston Hill, but somebody hand me a sanitized wipe after I watch this one next time, for all the blood.

I've been to performances, and read books where I just didn't care what happened, because the events did not push any emotional buttons for me. Frankly, I had this experience while reading the Great Gatsby. Even though it is hailed as some of the greatest literature of the last century, I didn't click in, because Gatsby wasn't compelling as a person, maybe because  he didn't seem to care much either.  I found the same disappointment with the widely promoted Wide Sargasso Sea. Nhnn. No one really cared, until it was too late.

And then there are my favorites:
Jane in Jane Eyre- gives up her one true love, through no fault of her own,because her conscience will not permit her...well, I don't want to give away the story. Read it for yourself.

The Count of Monte Cristo- Who doesn't die a thousand deaths and relive a thousand days of imprisonment with Edmond's unfair treatment at the hand of friends?Talk about a series of unfortunate events...

War and Peace- The careful reader is right next to Pierre through the whole narrative (and this is not light reading, folks) simply because his weaknesses, and his own knowledge of them are revealed glaringly from the beginning.

This sympathy factor works not only  in the characters who are considered 'good' or hero/heroine types, but can be employed with the antagonist as well, wresting the reader's own sense of decency from his mind, and placing it in under the power of the story.  Consider what a little admiration does for the Joker's character, for example, in Heath Ledger's command performance of the villainous bloody-lipped mastermind. We are almost a little sad that someone that clever gets his...or does he? And if it is not crass to say so, the same sympathy causes us to look with just a little more fondness on that fabulous performance, because it can never be repeated!

I've decided I'm going to go back to the drawing board and beat my characters up just a little more. A punch here, a disappointment or heartbreak there. A few bankruptcies or foreclosures, an arrest or two. Perhaps a star-crossed romance and a stalker.

After all, if Rocky didn't get beat to a bloody pulp in the ring many times over, there would only be one Rocky movie, not a couple hundred.