Empathy Through Fiction

Fiction allows us to explore our own feelings towards something, but also get into the mindset and ideas of others. Reading a story brings us into a character’s world, and helps us not only to see why we think a character is reacting a certain way, but to actually go further into the concepts and read the words in the charcter’’s head, understanding fully those motivations and not only being able to guess at them.

Reading fiction, more than watching fiction, allows that connection. Watching fiction can also illicit emotions, and help us draw conclusions, but many of those are based upon our ideas of what our reactions would be, pulling understanding from our own experiences and expectations. We can read the facial expressions and nonverbal language of characters, but most of those cues are going to be driven by our own bias, for good or for bad.

The act of engaging in fiction reading means that we we are building our understanding of an experience, not only our perceptions of it, but the author’s message underscored by the thoughts and feelings woven into the story.