I recently overheard a published novelist badgering his friend, "You have to write: it's the only way to express yourself and work through your emotions!"
I later found out that the recipient of the hassling was an excellent water-color artist and a decent saxophone player...as if he couldn't express himself through art AND music? Surely, the writer was a bit stuck in his own world...making me wonder how often we look at others but only see what our own field of view permits us to see?
Now, that's a nice twist to use in a story: the flawed character, the narcissist who cannot really see anyone else with clarity--he superimposes his own image and experience. Sadly true: we fail to see others for lack of looking beyond the end of our own nose!
How do you get inside someone else's life? Their experiences, their feelings?
Part of the answer, of course, (duh,) is to be a good listener: don't solve their problems, don't criticize their actions, don't reprove their emotions--just listen.
Here's another part of the answer, one I'll bet you didn't expect--be a good reader.
Didja expect that? Ha! It's not really my own idea (really, how many truly original ideas are invented every year? Not many!)...but I sorta synthesized it from thinking about Stephen King's dictum that to be a good writer one needs to both read a lot and to write a lot!
My point is...the well-read person has a great breadth of (second-hand) experience. The reader is more likely to have met a similar person or problem in print, and can truly better understand their friend's plight.
That's what I think...what are your thoughts?
