A child inspired me. I never saw her. Her grandfather and I are members of Emerald Coast Writers and in a pre-meeting discussion we were fawning over our grandkids, as grandparents are licensed (and fully expected) to do.
He had taken his family on a vacation and he and his granddaughter, who is six, were out [...]

 
Writers connect characters to readers through emotions.  That makes it vital to understand them.  Otherwise, the odds diminish of depicting them accurately or of having the reader react to whatever is depicted the way the writer intends they react.
 
We live in an age of rage.  Where people once reacted with restraint, today they are far [...]