What writing evil tells you about yourself.
My good friend is a police officer and while preparing to write the first book in my 7Elements series, I asked him if evil people exist. He told me most people were not evil, they just make impulsive or questionable decisions. However, he said, there are some people who just want to watch the world burn.
Ah… I thought. Here were the people I needed to meet.
The first place I went was to a few books about serial killers by FBI profilers. Many of these books seemed to be useful, but entirely too narrow. A serial killer is a very particular sort of evil or, more accurately, only one type. I needed more information than this in order to creatively extrapolate or deduce the right balance of evil for my villains.
The next place I went to was a MasterClass on the nature of evil. It ended up being an excellent theological view of “evil” in dualistic religions. So that helped in a more biblical sense. I still hadn’t managed to find what I needed.
I came across a book about witches and the occult that focused mostly on the horrible sufferings those accused underwent at the hands of evil–interestingly enough–in attempts to rid the world of evil. This information spilled more data into my growing mental bank of evil inspiration.
Ultimately, to create an “evil” character, I just needed to think in extremes.
A monster with a self-defined justifiable reason for desperate measures. An anarchist who believes he is acting for the betterment of people everywhere. A bad guy (or girl) who is willing to do anything to achieve a goal because even having very good reasons for the things you do don’t always justify “any means necessary.” Believing you are above judgment because your goal is good, sure seems to sprout evil eventually.
Giles: “What do you want me to say?”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Lie to Me” (1997)
Buffy: “Lie to me.”
Giles: “Yes, it’s terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day.”
Buffy: “Liar.”
The terrible things people do to one another do inspire, if not the nature of evil, at least the means by which it is perpetrated. Abusive relationships, animal behavior theories, even newspaper articles can give you the means. The motivations simply need to be complex enough and you somehow must temper horrible acts with rewarding ones for both the victims and the reader (sorry guys).
What about demons?
What made a person evil and, because they dovetail, what were demons–or what was the lore? It turns out people tend to understand that which is closest to what they already know so world religions gave me the most intellectual springboards for creating my own evil. Christianity is far from the oldest religion out there, so the Muslim Jinn, Hindu Karma, and even the cosmic balance of Taoism inspired different facets of the evil in my books.
Well, evil with a twist is the way my world experiences those intangible creatures. Monofaceted, flat demons would be easy to hate and don’t make for engaging stories. The demons (and angels) are not so simple. “Becuse you are a demon means you are evil” is too one dimentional a concept for me. “Because you are a demon WE THINK you are evil” is a far more interesting idea–or even “Becuase you are a demon WE MADE YOU evil” is better yet.
Maybe ordinary poeple won’t ever be able to create perfect villians.
I, myself, am not an “evil” person (or so I would like to think). There’s some element of staring off into the abyss and having it stare back. You can certainly stomp down the twisting staircase of horror pretty darn far. Writing a slasher film (or book in my case) might have been easier.
It’s very simple to write a villian who looks ugly, acts ugly, and has no redeeming qualities. Those are hateable but… uninteresting. There’s something to be said for creating a villian who smells good, has a winning smile, or perfect fashion sense but a ruthless nature. Perhaps, no amount of research will give you all the answers about WHY terrible people do terrible things.
When I stared into the dark abyss it spoke, this is what it said: Not being able to understand terrible things doesn’t make you a bad writer, it just means you aren’t a terrible person, too.
Love for choosing to read and Gratitude for your time,
