Sympathy in Stories: How It Helps You Connect to Characters

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Published: October 1, 2025 | Last Updated: October 15, 2025

Formal Definitions and Nuances

The American Psychological Association defines sympathy as “feelings of concern or compassion resulting from an awareness of the suffering or sorrow of another.”

Merriam‑Webster describes it as “a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful.”

In psychological research, sympathy is often referred to as “empathic concern.” It is understood as “feeling for another” rather than “feeling with another.” In other words, you maintain some distance while caring. You do not fully take on their emotional state.

Sympathy Versus Empathy and Related Terms

Now you might wonder, what’s the difference between sympathy and empathy, for example? Sympathy, empathy, pity, and compassion are terms that overlap, but still differ in subtle ways:

• Empathy: You share or mirror another person’s emotions. You attempt to see things from their internal vantage point.
• Sympathy: You understand what someone feels and care, but you don’t fully feel what they do.
• Pity: You feel sorry for someone in a way that may imply distance or superiority. Sympathy carries more respect.
• Compassion: Sympathy plus a desire to help. You not only feel concern, you act on it. (Some sources treat compassion as a close cousin or extension of sympathy.)

Sympathy in Fiction and Film

In storytelling, sympathy helps you connect to characters emotionally. A sympathetic character draws you in.

Both authors and filmmakers deliberately create sympathy using tools like:

• Backstory that explains past pain or loss
• Moments of vulnerability or failure
• Injustice or cruelty happening to the character
• Visual or narrative focus on emotional struggle (close‑ups, internal monologues)

Sympathy often serves as a gateway emotion. It can open you up to deeper feelings, such as hope, grief, or anger.

Consider Finding Nemo, one of my favorite animated movies: the early loss of Nemo’s mother establishes Marlin’s fear and your sympathy for him. You want him to succeed because you care about what he’s gone through. (You already had sympathy before you empathize fully.)

Psychological Mechanisms and Social Role

Sympathy is closely linked to helping behaviour. People who feel sympathy are more likely to offer support, aid, or comfort.

For sympathy to occur, several things must happen:

1. You (the audience) must attend to someone’s suffering (notice it).
2. You (the audience) must interpret what you see as distress or need.
3. You (the audience) must feel concern for their welfare, rather than just observing it.

In social contexts, sympathy helps maintain bonds. It supports cooperation and moral behaviour.

Limits and Challenges of Sympathy

Sympathy can be selective. You (and the audience) may feel it more strongly for people you see as “deserving” or like yourself/themselves. When developing your characters, ask yourself, Who are they, and why should we care?

The best characters are written in a way that connects with the core of humanity, which is love, and transcends race, religion, and all the other structural systems that the human ego has created in the world. When done well, it works! How else would you explain our sympathy towards an animated, anthropomorphic fish?

Also, be aware that sympathy does not guarantee understanding. You and your audience may misinterpret someone’s internal experience, even as you care for them. In other words, we might feel sympathy for a character, even though we don’t share or cannot relate to the same feelings. Movies do this all the time with all kinds of feelings, just think about horror movies, for example.

Summing Up

Sympathy is the understanding and caring you feel when someone else suffers, without fully sharing their emotional state. It lies between detached observation and full emotional merging. In stories, sympathy builds your bond with characters. In life, it motivates help, support, and connection. But it also has limits: it can be inconsistent or carry emotional costs.