back in 2009, we love soaps published some thoughts from irna phillips.
the entire piece is worth reading. but, for this thread, this paragraph resonates:
2. Identification. It is a perilous practice among dramatic writers to allow their situations or characters to become too remote from the average listener. On AS THE WORLD TURNS, for example, I have tried to keep my characters on a life-size scale. They are well off, but not wealthy. They are average in intelligence. My villains (though I reject the concept of the totally irretrievable character) are never so villainous that the listener turns away in disgust. There must be that element of universality in everything - that something that causes the listener to say, "Yes, I have felt that way," or "I have known someone very much like that."
By
wonderwoman1951 ·