I suppose so- what do you mean?
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I didnāt understand what you meant.
empathetic imagination is the ability to understand and or feel the thoughts, opinions, emotions, feelings, beliefs of a character.
you mentioned that you struggle with this ie that you canāt do this aka when you read a book or watch something you donāt feel the feelings of the characters etc
I am asking if the character is autistic does the same thing happen in your experience?
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Yes.
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novels involve two things.
- writing
- telling a story
for the writing part.
- anotate what you read AND practice it yourself.
- give yourself writing exercises to practice
for telling a story part
- watch youtube videos that explain structure
- consume your favorite types of media like manga and breakdown the structure. look at how they tell a story. analyze that way.
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Alright. I understand.
Thanks for the tips.
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I also made a thread on how to annotate.
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why did you tell me this?
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I just thought about it.
So, yeah, I want to publish a novel so I find that when people say things like āwriters need to readā or āyou must read books if you want to publishā and are very vocal about it, it stresses me out because I am never consistent with reading and I can never will myself to do it. If I force myself to then it wonāt feel genuine to me and will feel like a chore.
Thatās when I feel like a failure as a writer, because I donāt read enough books. It makes me feel like a disappointment.
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ah i see. i get why you feel like a failure. im just asking did you tell me so i would understand more? or for some other/ additional reasons?
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Sorry about that.
Yes, I wanted to share a bit more with you.
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Thereās no reason you canāt publish a book even if you never read books. You just have to learn from Audra Winter and GET YOUR BOOKS EDITED! She committed the cardinal sin of thinking she had mastered writing just because sheās put in 10k hours of practice, but Malcolm Gladwell never promised that putting in 10k hours guarantees youāve mastered your craft.
She then claimed sheād hired two editors, one of them the editor of the Hunger Games, (you too can hire those very same editors on Reedsy!) but a YouTuber contacted the two editors, and what they claim she hired them to do versus what she claims she hired them to do were two different things. That book mess was not at all their fault, it was entirely hers.
If you donāt get a swelled head, and get your books properly edited before publishing, then it doesnāt matter whether you read books or not. Itās just easier to write if you have a good grasp of the mechanics of writing, and reading a lot of books helps to cement those things into your mind.
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I do read, I am just not consistent enough with it.
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Ngl, Iāve published 8 shorts this year so far (1 more almost ready to go, 2 more just waiting on editing, and 2 novels waiting on editing) and I donāt think Iāve actually picked up a book this year other than Atomic Habits. It isnāt a prerequisite. My reviews are fine and sales are good, so Iām not sure you need to be a voracious reader in order to make something readable.
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Thank you for letting me know.
another thing I forgot to mention is Alexithymia (sp?). which is a separate condition from autism but can be a comorbidity and if a person has that it can effect their enjoyment of reading media etc.
cuz another reason people enjoy reading is cuz even if they donāt feel what characters feel it activates their own feelings specifically which they enjoy experiencing.
if a person has alexithymia they are unable to specifically identify their emotions/ feelings so it effects their ability to enjoy reading, consuming different forms of media etc.
this is different from not enjoying experiencing own emotions/ feelings or suppressing them which could also effect enjoyment as well.
idk if this relates to @Qualeshia12 experience or not but if it does- and its due to supression I would work on that but if its not ; then I would adjust my annotating advice from what you find boring vs engaging to what you like vs dislike.
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Iād never heard of that before, but Wikipedia has a page on it and I think you may be right. (*ļ¼¾-ā) ä¹
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I can sympathize with characters, it just takes a bit for me to understand what is going on in the story. Iām not completely unable to experience how the other characters feel. It will just take me a while to understand what is happening for me to get there. What I am reading doesnāt register to me yet because my mind is cluttered and I tend to space out when I read.
Sorry for not mentioning that sooner.
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Alexithymia is not about empathy. alexithymia is the inability to identify your own emotions and feelings/ you donāt know what you are feeling- does that resonate with you?
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Ah, understood.
My apologies for misunderstanding.