The Importance of Emotional Inhabitation

One of the most important thing a writer can learn is the tool of emotional inhabitation. By this, I mean you learn to inhabit your characters' headspace, still omnipresent enough to see the fault lines in their thinking, but familiar enough to understand and sympathize with their thought patterns (even or especially the terrible ones) all the same. After all, often times in our worst and best moments, we have a road of thoughts or a direct lack of that led us there, and discovering that journey of impulse or insecurity is crucial to making a character seem real.

That can all be, of course, easier said than done. So here are three ways you can work to emotionally inhabit the characters you want to write for, whether they belong to your latest WIP, or are from one of my favourite pieces of media.

1) Figure out your character's gaps in knowledge

One of the things that makes a Shakespeare play so enjoyable as an audience member is that the audience constantly, consistently, knows more than the figures on stage. We know the lovers have been affected by magic, we know the nefarious plots unfolding and who the murderer is. We are always let in on the joke or the choice that dooms the characters to their fates. Shakespeare understood that spoilers are secondary to execution every step of the way.

But the most important rule to keep in mind, perhaps, is that no character is aware that they're in a story. (Unless you want to go the Doki Doki Literature Club psychological horror route.) The good hearted protagonists in a children's show don't actually know their kindness is going to reach their enemy and that everything is going to work out. Two coworkers who hate each other in a Romance branded novel don't know that they're going to fall in love, but we do.

Keeping in mind the gaps of knowledge between characters is especially important when writing from multiple POVs (Points of View). A mercenary hired to kill the princess won't know that maybe she grew up in a hellish, dysfunctional family unit. Character A doesn't know that Character B has been secretly in love with them this whole time. Even a novel that has two POVs of the same conversation can play with the wildly different take aways each character in the conversation may have.

Understanding the gaps in knowledge is also crucial to developing relationships and not looking like an idiot who didn't consider the in-universe explanations of the story. For example, in Avatar: The Last Airbender, when enemy turned ally Zuko presents himself as a friend to the heroes, they understandably reject him outright. The audience has seen every moment of doubt, anguish, and change Zuko has been through, but the characters haven't. At this point in the story, they have absolutely no reason to trust him, and by honouring the protagonists' points of view arguably over the audience's (or Zuko's), the writing makes the moments they become do friends with him all the more worthwhile. Instead of feeling like plot or that emotional continuity has been sacrificed for Zuko's arc, each of these elements add to Zuko's arc, leaving each step of his redemption feeling undeniably earned from a narrative, structural, and emotional standpoint.

2) Consider their upbringing and culture

Alongside those gaps of knowledge is where the knowledge the characters do have comes from. A character who grew up in homogenous part of their world, like a desert or a tundra, will know how to survive their unique environment, but will know diddly squat about foraging in a jungle or forest, such as what plants to eat and what predators may be lurking nearby.

When you emotionally inhabit a character, you want to think about their day-to-day life. This doesn't mean you have to know every detail of their life and plot out a minute by minute example as a writing exercise (although you certainly can), but knowing the biggest cultural things just makes sense. More than clothes and food in some ways, the biggest cultural things to keep in mind are the cultural norms and social mythos they carry around.

What are the gender roles in their society like? Are there any? How is religion thought of? Are the state and religion seen as separate, or are they intertwined, and who considers this a good or a bad thing? What social myths (like the American Dream) do they believe in, or are some of your characters a skeptic? Who raises the children and why?

No culture can encompass all cultures out there, nor all viewpoints. There will always be experiences left out given the inherently limited nature of a single person and single character. Even if a character leaves one religion for another, they will have been brought up culturally in one and have the perspective of a convert. Characters can evolve and change, but seeing how they change from their childhood (or if they don't) is an important cornerstone of understanding how and why your character thinks.

3) Keep their biases in mind

A naturally limited perspective, though, means bias. A cultural norm that works for someone else may not work for another character, and that can be an easy way for characters to clash and have conflict. That doesn't mean by the end of an arc they both have to have the same perspective — often times the most fascinating arcs are when two opposing characters swap perspectives — but it is realistic.

There are pros and cons to nearly every religion, every choice, every culture, every family structure. Even if there aren't pros, our villains are often the people who think otherwise. We have to make sure their logic is sound, lest their motivations fall apart or come off as trite.

A character's bias can also lead them to being flat out wrong about something, or having a more nuanced and varied perspective. Someone can see the cracks in something and not throw it out entirely, or a character could be unable to handle the cracks and instead pretend they don't exist. Each can inform a character in a way that allows the author to remain more impartial, figuring out how or if they want a bias to change, or if the bias is actually correct. But to the character, their biases are always founded, and almost always right, and figuring how they reach their conclusions and justifications is interesting and important character work along the way.

Conclusion

Understanding a character's bias requires looking at their gaps in knowledge due to their culture and upbringing, emphasizing with the pain they've gone through or the experiences they've managed to dodge. If you want to learn how to emotionally inhabit your characters to make them feel more realistic, like fully formed people, this list can be a great jumping off point of things to consider!