That's all great advice. She knows what it takes. I agree, and I do all those things all the time in my writing. While I wholeheartedly agree that empathy is important (and I believe it is one of the most important things to engender in the reader), there is one place where that just does not work-first-person villains. Empathy is the strongest tool for getting your reader to bond with your protagonist, and is usually accomplished by giving them problems to deal with. That bonding should happen as early as you can manage it, early in ch 1. But in first-person, there will be no empathy for the villains. Since everything in first-person comes from the mind of the protagonist, there is no way they can have empathy for them, assuming the villains are premeditated. Would your protagonist feel for the villain and respect how much the villain loves his mother while he has a gun pointed at their head? Likely not, meaning redeeming qualities in a villain are also not likely to make it into a story narrated by a protagonist. People who are out to murder them or make their lives miserable are pretty much always going to be nothing more than black hats to a first-person narrator/protagonist. Anything else would just be ridiculous. Giving villains redeeming qualities can make them more realistic, that is true. But that is not going to be the way a first-person narrator/protagonist is going to see them, and not the way they tell us about them. If it were, the story itself would not be realistic. But, well, there might be exceptions, such as when the villain doesn't really act premeditated. One that comes to mind is a terrific performance by Donny Wahlberg in The Sixth Sense. Yes, the character does shoot his psychiatrist, played by Bruce Willis, but BW's character has tons of empathy for his patient-at least up until he gets murdered by him. The DW character is not premeditated. He's just broken, and therefore, dangerous. Of course, Rowling wrote in third-person, and the difference here is The Sixth Sense is a movie, and movies are not in third or first-person. They are in objective POV or camera POV, which is entirely neutral. If that sort of scene appeared in a first-person novel, though, that could be an exception. Other than rare scenarios like that, a first-person protagonist/narrator will likely have zero empathy for the villain and also will not ponder their possible redeeming qualities as they plot how to prevail over them. Readers/viewers might have empathy for them, but that will not be on the page in a first-person story.
Dexter would beg to differ with your statement that first person villains can’t be empathetic. I think the idea is that unless you create a black and white cartoon character, which wouldn’t be very interesting, you can help your reader understand how the character became who they are. The reader doesn’t have to agree with your chapter’s decisions to have empathy, but only to understand why they are making the decisions they make. Also, and I struggle with this myself, you could have said the same thing in one or two paragraphs.
@@skeller61 I'm sorry, did I make a 'statement that first person [sic] villains can't be empathetic'? The 'statement' I remember making was something completely different, which is that first-person narrators are typically not going to see their mortal enemies as empathetic or ponder their 'redeeming qualities', unless the narrator is unfocused, possibly insane, and is most likely a terrible main character who will scuttle any attempt at the reasonable storytelling that is commonly expected in a first-person novel, which would reveal that the author is not up to the job. That, and that since all information is funneled through the protagonist, the reader won't get it from other sources, either. Maybe 'beg to differ' with what I actually said rather than what you are incorrectly claiming I said. We can take the TV show, 'Dexter' off the table. Dexter was never a story told in first-person, except in the novels. I thought the show was brilliant and the novels were, 'meh'. And regardless how Dexter himself might have felt, as the narrator in first-person novels, I think it would be hard to find moments where he expressed empathy for child molesters (first victim in the first novel and first episode), so I don't see any way, since all info comes from the protagonist, where any of that could end up on the page. Every single first-person story adapted to film is moved completely out of the realm of first-person and into the realm of camera POV, which is a completely different thing than first-person POV. In the rare film and TV where there is voiceover narration, such as Dexter, which did it really well, that does not place them in the realm of first-person. It's similar, but it's not first-person. There are scenes in the show that Dexter is not even in, taking it even farther from the realm of first-person. Any scene in a first-person novel that the narrator/protagonist is not in can only be told as a frame story directly to the protagonist then potentially retold to the reader. So a villain in the TV show, Dexter can certainly be painted as sympathetic, even if the lead character of Dexter might not see them that way, because this is storytelling very different from first-person, where all POV comes from the protagonist instead of from the camera. And in a first-person novel, there are still plenty of opportunities to show how a villain became who they became. Dialogue with other characters where elements of their past come out, a 'speech in praise of the villain' scene where an underling praises them or the villain praises themself and reveals things, and a 'hero at the mercy of the villain' scene where they praise themselves. But good luck getting the person narrating the story to the reader, the protagonist, to show that they feel any empathy for them or to wax poetic about their redeeming qualities, as they are the only conduit through which all story elements flow. You are not required to read posts. That's up to you. When commenters comment, they. have. the. floor. There is no effing countdown timer ticking. There are zero restrictions on how much a poster might feel the need to say. If you know what you're saying, there's no need to struggle with anything other than making sure you believe everything you're saying is relevant. Someone unable to make anything other than a single weak, rambling, unfocused point condemning someone for making multiple points, all of which they feel are relevant, is nothing less than reprehensible.
That's all great advice. She knows what it takes. I agree, and I do all those things all the time in my writing.
While I wholeheartedly agree that empathy is important (and I believe it is one of the most important things to engender in the reader), there is one place where that just does not work-first-person villains.
Empathy is the strongest tool for getting your reader to bond with your protagonist, and is usually accomplished by giving them problems to deal with. That bonding should happen as early as you can manage it, early in ch 1.
But in first-person, there will be no empathy for the villains. Since everything in first-person comes from the mind of the protagonist, there is no way they can have empathy for them, assuming the villains are premeditated. Would your protagonist feel for the villain and respect how much the villain loves his mother while he has a gun pointed at their head?
Likely not, meaning redeeming qualities in a villain are also not likely to make it into a story narrated by a protagonist. People who are out to murder them or make their lives miserable are pretty much always going to be nothing more than black hats to a first-person narrator/protagonist. Anything else would just be ridiculous.
Giving villains redeeming qualities can make them more realistic, that is true. But that is not going to be the way a first-person narrator/protagonist is going to see them, and not the way they tell us about them. If it were, the story itself would not be realistic.
But, well, there might be exceptions, such as when the villain doesn't really act premeditated. One that comes to mind is a terrific performance by Donny Wahlberg in The Sixth Sense. Yes, the character does shoot his psychiatrist, played by Bruce Willis, but BW's character has tons of empathy for his patient-at least up until he gets murdered by him. The DW character is not premeditated. He's just broken, and therefore, dangerous.
Of course, Rowling wrote in third-person, and the difference here is The Sixth Sense is a movie, and movies are not in third or first-person. They are in objective POV or camera POV, which is entirely neutral. If that sort of scene appeared in a first-person novel, though, that could be an exception.
Other than rare scenarios like that, a first-person protagonist/narrator will likely have zero empathy for the villain and also will not ponder their possible redeeming qualities as they plot how to prevail over them. Readers/viewers might have empathy for them, but that will not be on the page in a first-person story.
Dexter would beg to differ with your statement that first person villains can’t be empathetic. I think the idea is that unless you create a black and white cartoon character, which wouldn’t be very interesting, you can help your reader understand how the character became who they are. The reader doesn’t have to agree with your chapter’s decisions to have empathy, but only to understand why they are making the decisions they make.
Also, and I struggle with this myself, you could have said the same thing in one or two paragraphs.
@@skeller61 I'm sorry, did I make a 'statement that first person [sic] villains can't be empathetic'? The 'statement' I remember making was something completely different, which is that first-person narrators are typically not going to see their mortal enemies as empathetic or ponder their 'redeeming qualities', unless the narrator is unfocused, possibly insane, and is most likely a terrible main character who will scuttle any attempt at the reasonable storytelling that is commonly expected in a first-person novel, which would reveal that the author is not up to the job.
That, and that since all information is funneled through the protagonist, the reader won't get it from other sources, either. Maybe 'beg to differ' with what I actually said rather than what you are incorrectly claiming I said.
We can take the TV show, 'Dexter' off the table. Dexter was never a story told in first-person, except in the novels. I thought the show was brilliant and the novels were, 'meh'. And regardless how Dexter himself might have felt, as the narrator in first-person novels, I think it would be hard to find moments where he expressed empathy for child molesters (first victim in the first novel and first episode), so I don't see any way, since all info comes from the protagonist, where any of that could end up on the page.
Every single first-person story adapted to film is moved completely out of the realm of first-person and into the realm of camera POV, which is a completely different thing than first-person POV. In the rare film and TV where there is voiceover narration, such as Dexter, which did it really well, that does not place them in the realm of first-person. It's similar, but it's not first-person.
There are scenes in the show that Dexter is not even in, taking it even farther from the realm of first-person. Any scene in a first-person novel that the narrator/protagonist is not in can only be told as a frame story directly to the protagonist then potentially retold to the reader.
So a villain in the TV show, Dexter can certainly be painted as sympathetic, even if the lead character of Dexter might not see them that way, because this is storytelling very different from first-person, where all POV comes from the protagonist instead of from the camera.
And in a first-person novel, there are still plenty of opportunities to show how a villain became who they became. Dialogue with other characters where elements of their past come out, a 'speech in praise of the villain' scene where an underling praises them or the villain praises themself and reveals things, and a 'hero at the mercy of the villain' scene where they praise themselves.
But good luck getting the person narrating the story to the reader, the protagonist, to show that they feel any empathy for them or to wax poetic about their redeeming qualities, as they are the only conduit through which all story elements flow.
You are not required to read posts. That's up to you. When commenters comment, they. have. the. floor. There is no effing countdown timer ticking. There are zero restrictions on how much a poster might feel the need to say. If you know what you're saying, there's no need to struggle with anything other than making sure you believe everything you're saying is relevant.
Someone unable to make anything other than a single weak, rambling, unfocused point condemning someone for making multiple points, all of which they feel are relevant, is nothing less than reprehensible.
How to SELL great fiction is another great point. J.K. Rowling herself just about didn't even get Harry Potter published.
3:20 & 4:53 are the only two times the AI voices pronounces Rowling's name correctly.