Art is Empathy—Don’t Write What You Know

Every writer knows you're supposed to "write what you know," but if we only write what we know, most of us are pretty limited. Not only that, but we miss out on the opportunity for art to be an exercise in empathy. 

Empathy, by definition, is trying to imagine what it feels like to be in someone else’s situation. Writing about that can help us to solidify and share that empathy. For us external processors, it is much easier to follow that thought or experience all the way through in written form. But whatever your best processing looks like, empathy writing can be a way to demonstrate that people matter enough for you to try to understand what they’ve been through. 

There are so many things that we can write about without having been through them ourselves, especially if there is someone close to us who can tell us about their experience. But I would be remiss not to spend some time discussing the point where “empathy writing” is no longer helpful. The topic can’t be so far outside your experience that you actually can’t empathize with it. For example, I have enormous respect for African American women and the challenges they overcome, but I live in a part of the United States that doesn’t have a lot of ethnic diversity, so even my second-hand understanding of that experience is limited. It would not be helpful to African American women for me to try to write about their experience. I care deeply, and I try to understand as much as I can, but I can’t actually empathize.

There are still plenty of examples of empathy that is appropriate and can be helpful. People who have never seen the ocean can imagine enough to give a poetic interpretation of what waves on your feet feel like. Single people can empathize with long-lasting love. Married people can empathize with the experience of divorce. People with four grandparents can empathize with the grief of losing one. 

It’s important to evaluate whether a topic outside of your experience is wise to engage in your writing, and if it is, it’s never a bad idea to have someone with that background give you feedback. But writing from a place of empathy can be a powerful tool to make us more empathetic and connected.