Opinion | Empathy Is Essential to Writing Fiction. It’s Also Disappearing. - The New York Times

The only true way to expand your world is to inhabit an otherness beyond ourselves. There is one simple word for this: empathy. Don’t let them fool you. Empathy is violent. Empathy is tough. Empathy can rip you open. Once you go there, you can be changed.

One essential element, the wellspring from which so many inspiring ideas originate, is empathy. Our ability to understand and share the feelings of someone else is what allows us to get to the deeper truths and begin fashioning a story around them. It’s because of empathy that we can get outside ourselves and begin the search for what moves others.

Empathy is a powerful phenomenon. Our ability to adopt the point of view of someone who seems completely different from us based on our shared core humanity is one of our distinctly human abilities. Use it wisely; the further you take us into the heart of someone completely different, the more rewarding and transformative our journey will be.

we need hard empathy. It’s essential to broadening our perspective, deepening our humanity, healing social rifts, and preparing us to be of service to others. It makes our personal relationships more resilient—we recover from disagreements faster and are less likely to give up on each other, whether it’s with a family member, friend, or romantic pa