What is your problem?

In writing, we know that good stories have tension and conflict if they are written to really grab the reader. These center around very simple ideas - a character wants somethings and tries to get it despite the obstacles, two people vie for the same thing, someone tries to escape an undesireable outcome, etc. In many cases, the desire and the obstacle are fairly straightforward and require little if any explanation. Writing about someone lost in the woods pretty much presents its own issue in the mind of the reader, because being lost implies an interest in becoming "un-lost." However, in more complex writing, and with more adventuresome works, sometimes part of the writer's goal should be to get the reader to understand why the situation is a problem in the first place. The reader should be able to empathize in some way with the character, perhaps even before they understand the character is in danger.

Let's re-examine our story of the person lost in the woods. What if we start writing about the character in the woods, but we don't explicitly state they are lost. What if we describe them walking through the woods, frustrated by the undergrowth and the thorn bushes tearing at their jeans, the tangles of weeds making some places mipassable, all while the character keeps an eye on the sun peeking through the canopy as it gets lower and lower in the sky. Are they lost? Are they just in a hurry to get home? Are they being pursued? Why the frustration? If we can get the reader to feel what the character feels before explaining the circumstances, it gives the writer more command over how they draw in the reader. If we open up by explaning that the character is lost, we immediately trigger a bunch of pre-determined associations within the reader, and lose an opportunity to introduce the reader to that character's very unique situation.

One of my favorite quick reads - Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - offers the lost-in-the-woods scenario and we immediately make all these assumptions about the girl getting lost during a trip. However, we are also offered enough insight into the little girl so that it becomes more than that, and when an external threat becomes another concern, we as readers are so deep within the character that we accept this sudden change of pace. If the additional element was introduced before we got to know the girl, it would've changed our assumptions about the girl's actions and become a different kind of story.

Now, why am I bringing up all this talk about getting the reader to empathize with the character and better understand their situation? Well, this is Pride Month, and a lot of people hear that term and dig up a lot of assumptions and phobias while forgetting to try and understand why it is an actual thing and its importance to many people. My response to them is just maybe to get to know the people first, try and understand their experiences, their obstacles, and why their situation, while different from other people's situations, is still valid and worth recognizing. Maybe use that empathy thing to figure out what the real story is instead of riding a bunch of predefined assumptions.

If you write with the goal being a reader empathizing with the character, you can get messages across a lot easier. And maybe if you live with a little more empathy, well, you can understand a lot more about the world around you.