Week 12 Lab #WritersWrite

•  40 Ways To Write About Empathy
• I love the initial description of empathy "According to Psychology Today: ‘Empathy is the ability to recognize, understand, and share the thoughts and feelings of another person, animal, or fictional character.'"
• I have never seen empathy broken down into sub-categories and I really love the 3 categories. Each category has just enough distinction to set it apart but still be under the umbrella of empathy. 
• Compassionate empathy is my favorite 
• The 9 signs of how to tell if someone has empathy is great. I'm thinking of ways to do represent characters in my stories based off of these 9 signs. 
• Several of these I would not think of on my own but I agree with them. For example, taking responsibility would not be one of the first things that come to my mind when thinking about empathy. But people who take responsibility accept blame that could be moved around to other people. Maybe that would fall under compassionate empathy. 
• Similarly, the 9 signs of lacking empathy are mostly intuitive. The text describing narcissistic and anti-social personality disorders is interesting. I have not heard of either of them, but it is sad to me that, according to this article, "there is nothing you can do to make them feel something they are incapable of feeling." 
• Love this line "A true empath listens carefully without jumping to judgment. They do not interrupt. They do not share the fact they have had a similar experience. They do not immediately propose a solution. Empaths try to understand how another character feels and why they feel that way."
• I could create a character that has the qualities of a psychologist. For example, a character that intently listens to other characters and asks questions for more understanding and clarification 
• Mentors are synonymous with empathy 
• Body language signs are interesting. I'm curious how placing palms upward is a sign. The other signs I can understand 
• The last point of F has great ideas for integrating empathy into a story and making it animated!
• Love this post because I have always loved the idea of the quality of empathy and I enjoy learning more about it and how I can apply it to my writings. 
• Don't Commit These 9 Fiction Writing Crimes 
  
• Over describing scenes & settings is a trap I fall into. Sometimes I get lost in my imagination and just continue describing something to the point its redundant and irrelevant. Being short and concise but still descriptive is something I have been working on this semester. 
• "Are your characters complete enough to stand on their own, even if you took away the elements of your story around them? Make sure the answer is yes.
• I like this quote in reference to "hollow characters." It is a good test to put characters through to measure their quality. 
• Procedural inaccuracies are a crime I didn't think of. But I agree it may even feel disrespectful to some. 
• This is another interesting article because several of these I struggle with myself and have to intentionally fight myself and check myself to make sure I do not continue making these mistakes. 

Creative Writing