Why writing well depends on learning love.
You cannot be a good writer if you haven’t learned how to love the human beings in your life. Here’s why: if you don’t know how to love other people, how can you love your characters, which, as a writer, you must treated as “other” to you. If you don’t know how to learn more about other people, or how to ask questions of other people, then how will you know how to learn about your own characters? How will you know the right questions to ask about the people you’re writing about?
If you don’t know how to love your characters, how can you expect any sort of audience to love them? If you don’t know how to learn more about your characters’ personalities, why would other people be interested in learning more about them? If you’re not asking questions of the characters in your writing, then why would any reader or consumer have any questions about them either?
Finally, if your audience is not interested in learning more about the characters in your story, if your readers are not asking questions about the people you are writing about, that means your piece is boring. Don’t write boring.
If you don’t know where to start, try finding additional humans for whom you can feel love and curiosity whereever you go.
Here’s a hint: if you don’t yet know how to love other people, you need to start by learning how to love yourself. You are also a person, and an “other people” to other people. If you don’t know how how to love yourself, start by trying to learn more about yourself and asking questions about yourself.
