Here’s something I’ve been thinking about lately: the discipline of writing affects every aspect of a writer’s life (assuming they’re serious about it), and every other aspect of a writer’s life affects his or her writing. Because of this, I think there are certain character qualities that are even more important for those of us who want to be proficient creative writers than for other people to pursue. The foremost of these (in my opinion) is compassion. It’s pretty near impossible to become a great writer without compassion, and it’s terribly difficult for a good writer not to be compassionate.
Let me explain what I mean – firstly, by compassion. “Empathy” might actually be a better word, but it’s a more morally neutral idea, so I don’t like it as much. Compassion, the way I’m using it, means understanding and sympathizing with other people’s problems and desiring to help them. Writers, particularly writers of fiction, need this quality, not only because it’s the right attitude for anyone to approach others with, but also because all stories are about people and their problems. How can we write about imaginary people if we don’t understand and respect the real people around us? You can write stories about yourself and your problems, but that gets boring after a while, especially if you’re a middle-class American whose biggest challenge on a given day is getting your printer to print (those things drive me crazy!).
To write an interesting story, I’ve found, I need to be able to get inside someone whose life is very different from mine, see the world from his or her perspective, and then still care enough to help him or her find a way out of life’s problems. This doesn’t mean that I agree with everything the character thinks or does: as the author, I know that some of those thoughts and actions are going to get her into big trouble later in the story, and I’m prepared to teach her a few hard lessons if I have to. But if I understand why the character does what he does, if I can get inside his head and understand what he wants, what he’s afraid of, and what he’s willing to do to overcome his fears, then I’ll care about what happens to him – and hopefully the reader will, too.
The reason I bring this up is that a lot of writers–myself included–are introverts, people who might prefer to spend hours working alone with their computer or notebook than one hour with a big social group. And I think everyone can tend to shy away from relationships with people who have a lot of problems. We don’t want to get involved in the mess. We don’t want to invest time and emotional energy getting to know people who are different from us, especially if they’re carrying a lot of baggage. But it’s important to do so, because it takes us out of ourselves and helps us see what the world is like to someone else, and what we can do to help them. It’s a humbling and ultimately rewarding experience–and it helps us become better writers.
This works both ways, by the way. I’ve found that the more I try to imagine what life must be like for other people, the less frustrated and arrogant I am towards the real people I meet every day. Being a writer has taught me that everyone, no matter where they live or what gender they are or what their background is, wants more or less the same things and struggles with the same weaknesses. Being a Christian teaches me that those weaknesses come from man’s sinful nature, and those desires (the good ones, anyway) come from the mark our Creator left on our hearts. I still have a lot to learn about compassion in real life, but with those two sources of wisdom available to me, I think there’s hope for improvement.
More importantly, I loved the characters. All of them. I even loved the story’s main villain, because he was so evil in such a subtle way–he doesn’t even do anything particularly bad until the end, but I knew he was evil from the moment he was introduced. Swede, the 9-year-old, Western-loving formal poet, made me smile during every scene she was in. All the characters seemed very real, all different mixtures of good, bad, and plain ridiculous. But Reuben Land was my favourite. Very down-to-earth, yet often beautifully descriptive, and unfailingly honest even about his own shortcomings, Reuben’s voice really made the story what it was. A father with the boldness and power of a 20th-century Elijah, and a series of miracles so extraordinary you only expect to find them in the Bible, could be hard to believe in Peace Like a River‘s setting, but Reuben’s narrative made them seem profound rather than unbelievable. 
