Empathy is the key to great writing. If you can really understand the worldview of those that are reading what you write, you’ll tend to be much more effective.
In her book “Everybody Writes“, author Ann Hadley shared two great quotes that go into this.
First, she shares how empathy isn’t just something you have; you need to work for it.
“Empathy—like writing—isn’t a gift. It’s a discipline. It takes some intentional effort and diligence to develop enormous empathy so that you can apply it to your writing.”
Taking it a step further, she shared some thoughts from Facebook content strategist Jonathon Colman about what comes next:
“Start with empathy. Continue with utility. Improve with analysis. Optimize with love.”
If you can start from a place of empathy and refine from there, you’ll end up producing far better content than if you just dive in without a plan.
Empathy — a discipline! Never thought of that before, but now that you’ve shared the quote it’s suddenly a BFO! Not sure exactly how to build a plan to improve empathy but just that idea is exciting.