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.
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.
3:20 & 4:53 are the only two times the AI voices pronounces Rowling's name correctly.