I think I never really felt emotionally distraught by my writing.
I don't delve into my characters like that, and I don't think I can.
When writing a character I focus on who they are, where they come from, what they do. I need at least a vague idea of their life.
Maybe not for every minor support character, and not the parts that have no bearing at all on the story.
For example: I try to adjust their speech patterns to reflect them. Like Harold Miller refering to japanese people as "Japs".
In a period piece I would try for more archaic language.
But because I don't delve into them, but more or less just infer from who they are how they would act and react to things I guess they are somewhat similar throughout my stories.
The more memorable ones are the caricature like characters like Harold, or Eagle and Star.
As for empathy with characters: For my own characters I seldom find myself in a position where I am sad for them. With other authors characters that is different.
In both cases it is very dependant on how well developed the character is, how much I like them, if they have cool attributes, what particulary happens to them and how.
@Claire managed to make me feel a bit sad for Claire and Eleanor. But curiously also Marla, because of how her life will fall apart.
With
@Lucius's Ziptia I wished I could have read of her suffering under the whip.
