Interesting topic on another forum - so I thought it might raise a thought or two here. Do you shed tears for characters in books? I'd like to focus on books and leave out films, TV or visual art for now.

I think it depends quite a lot on one's own emotional state at the time, but I shed tears for Katherine Swinford in the book by Anya Seton. I know exactly when it was - - 1960 when I could identify with her pain and suffering although in a vastly different world

I think that the older one gets, the more one realises the skill of authors who can write words which can so well tune in with a reader's emotions.

It doesn't work the same with audio and braille, because the story is not directly from page to brain, but my reader and I both felt really sad when we came to the end of Margaret Forster's book about the homes she had lived in. She did not over- or under-emphasise the basic facts, so there was total honesty in her writing.

Susan