In a recent post, Kristen Lamb asks if writers are too domesticated to write great stories. “There is a strange cognitive distortion we can all experience being a part of First World living,” she says. “We really don’t know what it is like to worry about most of that really important stuff at the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.”
In developed countries, most of us have our basic needs met. We have clean running water and indoor plumbing. We know where to find food. Having the time and freedom to write generally means we are not scrambling for food or shelter. We sit a bit higher up on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. “How often do we take these blessings for granted?” Lamb asks. “How much can modern life lull us into a form of sensory sleepwalking that make our writing come across as dull, colorless or inauthentic?”
Recognizing our blind spots is a good start. “We can only do and experience so much, so why not rely on the experiences of others?” Lamb writes. “The more we read, the deeper creative well we draw from.” Most of us will never know what it’s like to live in a war zone, or go days without food, or live without running water or electricity, or travel hundreds of miles on foot to reach safety. But we can read the experiences of others who do. “Empathy and imagination, like other writing muscles, need strength training,” Lamb notes.
In our fiction, practicing with deep POV can also help strengthen our empathy. Lamb suggests writing scenes with one topic from many different POVs. You may begin writing as yourself or someone very much like you, but eventually, you will have to diverge into different experiences and outlooks. You could also create a scenario with multiple characters and write from the POV of each. “We can make these people as benign or interesting as we want,” Lamb says. “There are plenty of everyday people who do extraordinary things—good and bad—with the right lever. Conversely, there are plenty of folks walking around who seem ordinary at first glance but are anything BUT.”
