but if you make the reader care about one person and then show the suffering through their eyes, it humanises it

Yes, exactly - that's the scale at which humans can apprehend it.

Emma

Trivial doesn't have to equate with mundane.

Most of us live trivial lives, and easily relate to trivial stories. It's the little things in life that nuture us. Long live those who can make the little things sound interesting.

Maybe authors who insist on crash-bang-wallop don't have sufficient imagination to raise the trivial above the mundane.