I got a note this morning from Phil Britton about the Wednesday 8/6 post, “Empathy.” Phil writes, “I’d love to hear your take on how to balance this with the idea of ‘never play to the gallery.'”

Great question. I can see I haven’t been clear enough in the past couple of posts. 

What I DON’T mean, and DON’T lobby for is “giving the fans what they want.” Forget that. The artist’s role is to lead. Nobody in Liverpool in 1962 was waiting for “Love Me, Do.” But when the Beatles released it, suddenly everyone went crazy.

“Give the people what they want” is legitimate, I think, if we’re debating where to locate our new frozen yogurt store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Answer: where there is no frozen yogurt store now.

But for you and me as artists, that concept is creative death.

Here’s what I DO mean when I say the artist must put herself in imagination in the place of the reader/viewer:

I was watching an episode of “The Bear,” Season Two. The opening scene took place in a hospital room. The character of Marcus was standing bedside with his mother or father (I forget which) in the bed. The director of the episode, Christopher Storer, had to decide where to put the camera for the opening shot.  He decided to put it at bedside level, beside the bed, looking up past the side of the patient’s head, toward Marcus standing beside the bed.

How did he make that decision?

He knew what the scene was about. He knew what he wanted the audience to feel, to understand, and to take away from the scene. He asked himself, “What’s the best way to achieve this? Where should I put the camera? Behind Marcus? Outside the room looking in? What rhythm should the scene be in? Do we need music? What music? How should Marcus play the scene? Etc.”

Christopher Storer put himself in imagination in the place of the viewer. He thought, “This is the opening scene of this episode; the viewer won’t know where the episode is going. I have to set this scene up so that it makes sense, it hooks the viewer, it leads on into the next scene, and so forth. Where do I put the camera?”

That’s what I mean by empathy. That’s what I mean by being aware of who our readers or viewers are—what they know of the story, what emotions have hooked them, etc.

We’re not pandering to them or “giving them what they want.” They don’t know what they want. We’re giving them WHAT THE STORY WANTS, which equates to what (we hope) is the most interesting, most fun, most entertaining, most moving, most enlightening version of the ten bazillion possible versions we could give them.

That what I mean by creative/narrative empathy. It applies in all fields and to all of us all the time.

Hope this helps.