The Word Leader Podcast: A Writing Podcast

1. Writing is Empathy

September 22, 2020 Leandre Larouche
The Word Leader Podcast: A Writing Podcast
1. Writing is Empathy
Show Notes Transcript

By writing, you are developing your empathy. You are formalizing your thoughts. You are prioritizing your ideas and framing them in a way that will make sense for your target reader. If you aren't using empathy in your writing — as in any other area of life — you are not going anywhere. Empathy is the basis for everything.


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1. Writing is Empathy

I'm here in Saguenay, Canada. I have some thoughts for you guys this morning. Have you ever consider the idea that writing is difficult for the same reason it is valuable? Writing is difficult for the same reason it is valuable. Now you all know when you read something concise, clear, and powerful, there's always a tremendous amount of work that went into it. And I'm sure you are aware of that as a writer, as an aspiring author, as someone who is wanting to use the written word as a weapon, as a catalyst for their career or their business, et cetera. 

And you know, when you sit down to write and when you take writing seriously, it's like the whole world is coming against you; like everything is going to destroy you. You start taking Writing seriously and you realize how difficult it actually is. Like it's a massive puzzle. You have all these components. You have all these chapters, these paragraphs, these sentences, and then you have everything that goes into a sentence. And like, how do you, how do you put these together coherently for your reader to understand? 

Man, that's a massive undertaking. Now, as I said, it is, it is difficult, but it is extremely valuable for that, for that same reason. And you know, as humans we think, and most of the time we think through language. We have these thoughts, you know, there's this little voice in our head sometimes, we talk to ourselves and we also feel emotions. We also feel emotions. And so we see things, we experience things and we have an emotional reaction. Now, these things, they're rather abstract. 

And we have these experiences that are vague. That are, you know, raw. And so they need to be understood. We need to make sense out of them. And so that's where Writing really comes in. Because, you know, as a person, you have your knowledge, you have your experiences. You have a bunch of things that are unique to you, right? So, I'll give you one example. I am fascinated, I would say I'm even obsessed, with politics, and so I know a fair bit about politics. 

But, you know, other people know about other things and they may not know as much about politics. So when I sit down to write about politics, well I'm not writing for myself, am I? I have to consider who is going to write and who is it going to be helpful for. So I have to really think about, "Okay, what does my target reader already know? What assumptions do they hold? And what beliefs do they hold that I have to acknowledge before writing for them?" And that's really difficult, but it is so valuable because it's empathy. 

It's empathy for the reader. And if you don't show empathy, you are not going anywhere. Listen, I heard somewhere, even cruelty is empathy. Torture is empathy, in a way. And here's what is meant by that: if you were going to torture someone, and I apologize, this is kind of rough here on Sunday morning, but if you were to torture someone, you have to think about what is going to hurt, right? You think---you come up with the ideas you think, "Oh man, that's, that's really going to hurt, so I'm going to do that to that person cause I want to torture that person." 

So, you have to feel. You have to understand how the person will feel in order to do that, and that's a really hardcore example. And I don't like that example at all, but I think it is so telling that in a sense, even cruelty, even torture, is empathy. And, so, when it comes to writing, it is all about empathy. By writing, you're developing your empathy, you are formalizing your thoughts, you are prioritizing your ideas, and you are framing them in a way that is going to make sense for somebody else. 

And that's the most difficult part of it because you can just burp out a mess and call it a day, but that's not writing, or that's not authoring at the very least. And so what you need to do is make sure that it is coherent, that it is also engaging, and that it is even beautiful for your readers, so that they want to read what you wrote. And that is what makes Writing difficult. But it's also what makes it valuable, because if you cannot go through that process, then you haven't really earned your right to share or to publish your work. 

You have to have gone through that difficulty in order your work to be publishable. So that's what I had for you guys today. I hope this was helpful. I hope this was inspiring and I will talk to you later. What's up everybody! I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, there are a couple of ways you can show your appreciation. You can rate and review this podcast. You can share it with a friend or a family member, or you can share it to your social media. Thank you for tuning in.