#5 Empathy

"He shook his head and held out his hand for the letter. Parvana folded it and gave it back to him. His hands trembled as he put the letter back in the envelope. she saw a tear fall from his eye. It rolled down his cheek until landed in his beard. 'My wife is dead.'" pg. 79

This paragraph shows how Deborah Ellis is a great empathic author. She makes the readers feel for the characters. Authors make the readers feel empathy by using descriptive words and words that make you feel a certain way. For example when you use the word trembled instead of shook it makes the writing better and more interesting. It helps the reader know what the characters are feeling.When I read that paragraph I feel sadness for the Taliban solider and I feel that Parvana would feel a bit awkward because a man who she thought was scary and mean was crying in front of her. Sometimes the author will use empathy right at the end of the chapter so the reader is dying to read more.

In the stories we are writing for Ms Weldon, I have a lot of empathetic moments. I have writing that makes you want to cry for the characters and others that make you want to jump for joy. Empathetic writing is not the easiest thing to do but when you think about what makes you happy or sad it gets easier. When I was writing my story and I wanted the reader to feel happy I thought of words that, to me, sound happy. I used ecstatic in stead of excited or depressed instead of very sad. I hope that if you every read my story that you will feel exactly the way I wanted you to.

Deborah Ellis is an exactly writer and I hope to, someday, be as good as her!