I don't think it's an incredibly radical premise to try and have sympathy for someone who has made a mistake.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.
On many issues, empathy can pull us in the wrong direction. The outrage that comes from adopting the perspective of a victim can drive an appetite for retribution.
It works both ways: there are victims of tragedy who come to me who have experienced grief of such magnitude that they cannot reconcile. Likewise, I cannot change the mentality of those who committed the crimes or the fools who followed them.
Sympathy is charming, but it does not make up for pain.
It really is a strange time we're living in, when saying 'Don't kill people' is considered a radical point of view.
One of the hardest things to believe is that anyone will abandon the effort to escape a charge of murder. It is extremely important to suspend disbelief on that. If you don't, the story is spoiled.
If the reader is rooting for the protagonist, they'll forgive you just about everything else.
People don't ever seem to realize that doing what's right is no guarantee against misfortune.
The comments I most appreciate come from ordinary readers who've happened on one of my books at some time of stress in their lives, and who actually credit the book with helping them through a bad time. It's happened a few times in forty years.
Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.
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