Imaginative Scenarios & Empathy
Any scenario, be it the end of the world or a trek through a backyard, can become something more if you use a little imagination.
To me, imagination is largely an exercise in empathy. You expand your perception when you try to consider the world as taken in through the senses of another person or living being.
For example, if you're in an art museum you'll come across different works from history; plates once used to dine on by noblemen in Austria, the armor was worn by a child training to be a knight, an ornate gold-framed mirror once used by a mother and daughter in the preparation for a ball, and etc. Maybe there is a specific person in your mind you can try to see the world through, or maybe you make someone up? You get the picture.
But empathy doesn't end with humans.
If you're sitting by a creak, you can try to think about what a fish sees as it swims through the water, or how a frog survives dining on dragonflies and water striders. You can glance up at the trees and see birds carrying straw to build a nest on the high branches of a birch. What must those birds be thinking? Are they thinking at all, or are they on autopilot, driven by the evolutionary need to reproduce? What about the bees - are they too merely subject to their instincts?
From empathizing with various lifeforms, you can build a world unlike your own, in which your neighbors may be many times larger than yourself, and your family might rely on you for their survival. You can see the world as larger, scarier, or perhaps all looks small from above as you live upon a mountaintop at the peak of civilization, an eagle.
Thinking from different perspectives, human and non-human alike, I find that I have an easier time creating worlds and unusual scenarios for characters to survive in or thrive in.
In my series, Fearghus Academy, I have a world that I plan on exploring deeper and deeper with each novel. As an author, I need to see both the protagonists' and the antagonists' perspectives. And if I'm creating a new species, I may want to consider the perception of another living being, like a bat or a gopher, a snake, a spider ... Or something fantastic that has little basis on our planet.
Then, in my new (and a bit experimental) science fiction series Eyes Of The Blackest Cloud, I have to consider how a planet would survive without sunlight. This means I'm considering the survival of not just humans, but of entire ecosystems filled with plants and animals. How much would die? What could be done to enable the survival of some life? How many people and animals would starve? What about diseases? When looking at survival from the smallest lifeform to the largest, I have to consider the needs of these creatures and how those needs will or won't be met based on the scenario.
So, friends, there's a whole lot to consider when writing. But whether you're a writer or not, using your imagination through empathizing with all life can lead you to enjoy the world and the passing of time on a wider, deeper level. You may find yourself wanting to protect all life more, too. This world is precious, and we need to take care of it.
