Writing Despicable Characters

[doug anderson]

I know that something about bad guys has to be likable. I would imagine I could even find something about Dick Cheney that is likable if I actually met him -- although I don't want to meet him: I prefer to judge him by his actions. I'm afraid of being charmed. But writing bad guys is tough for me. I have them prejudged. I know they're scumbags before I start out, and this sometimes gives me trouble. I'm thinking of characters written by great writers that fail in this regard: Don John in Much Ado About Nothing: he's the most uninteresting character Shakespeare every wrote.

At present I'm trying to write a guy who obviously has charm and can deceive people, but I'm struggling. I simply don't like him.

Anybody have this kind of trouble?

[doug anderson]

But certainly you must know characters who you think are genuinely evil but have a certain appeal.

[John McFetridge]

I've met a lot of criminals (I'm related to a few) but they're all criminals for profit. As IJ says they've convinced themselves there were no other options (certainly none that paid so well).

If I've ever met anyone evil I didn't know it.

It's just my tastes. I'm not really interested in stories about "evil" people or villians who act on deeply-rooted psychological problems.

Lots of people like that stuff, though, it's very popular. I've just never found anyone that has much to say about it.

[doug anderson]

Well, I think insurance executives who deny claims retroactively and destroy peoples lives are evil. I think human traffickers are evil. They cause incredible suffering. One doesn't have to be Hannibal Lecter.

[John McFetridge]

Oh, for sure, there's plenty of evil in the world. The thing about the characters is that they're people within an evil system. What I mean is that the insurance exec and even the human trafficker likely weren't born evil and if those situations didn't exist they probably wouldn't have created them - they might even have found other jobs and not have acted in an evil way at all (I don't know about the lawyer, though he had to have decided before he went to law school that he wanted to be evil ;)

So then it's a question of how far removed from the evil we are before we no longer feel any responsibility for it. I'm not affected at all by Hannibal Lecter but that insurance exec could easily be me if I'd been hired by that company years ago and worked my way into that position by increments - I would have been happy about each promotion until I'd buried myself in a mortgage.

Now, I doubt I could have worked my way into human trafficking, that seems a little distant from my world, but I'll confess to having been in some strip cubs that made me wonder what deal the dancers had with the club owners.

So, I should add, I like the sounds of your story from what's slipped out here recently.

[Dana King]

To me, there's a difference between doing bad things and being evil. Evil doesn't have to have any reward other than doing it; the examples you cited above (insurance exec, traffickers) are in it for the money. They may have a conscienceless regard for how they make that money, but they're not doing it just for the satisfaction of hurting people.

[I. J. Parker]

I only know Dexter from sampling a novel. The concept is pretty repulsive and may be dangerous in the fact that it makes serial killing acceptable and even attractive. And that point is supported by the fact that the books are bestsellers. They feed into a popular desire for that sort of thing. My faith in the good sense and restraint of the general public is pretty low already.

[Eric Christopherson]

I see Daffy Duck spluttering "despicable" nearly every time I encounter that word. (Is it just me?)

I'm with Jack in that the trick is to get inside the character's head to the extent where you no longer see anything wrong (while in that POV) with what your character is doing, only right, or more likely desirability or necessity. Not an easy thing with sociopaths (or psychopaths), I grant you.

[doug anderson]

I'm old enough to remember Donald spluttering. Now that you've mentioned it, I can't stop laughing at the world.

[Dana King]

Eric,
No, it's not just you.

[I. J. Parker]

That doesn't really allow you to accept or understand the character. People turn to crime all the time because they see no other choices. In noir, they frequently drift into it, sometimes because of love for someone.

If, however, you're dealing with truly despicable crimes (child rape and murder, serial killings, torture), then you'd better just settle fo psychopath. Not sure if sociopath is any more endearing to me.

[Jack Getze]

Thanks Eric. That's what I was trying to say. Your villain can't do much wrong in HIS eyes. He's a wonderful guy down deep, maybe misunderstood and narcissistic (sp?), but who has a very important goal he must achieve, and damn you if you get in the way.

[Dana King]

Maybe you need to write a short or a flash piece from his perspective, even if you don't use any of it in the book. Use his voice, justify his actions, make everything seem reasonable from his sociopath perspective. Doing it that way will force you to think like him, and, hopefully, to feel like him a little.

I can usually get inside my bad guys pretty well, probably because I'm a prick at heart.