Are humans inherently good but sometimes led astray? Or are we inherently evil, with the occasional lapse into grace? The answer is a matter of personal faith, but we probably agree that we all have a mean streak. Therefore, any discussion of writing with authenticity requires that we acknowledge our worse angels.
All but the saints among us experience the delightful frisson of schadenfreude when a bratty kid bonks his head due to his own misbehavior or when the person who’s been tailgating you on the freeway gets caught by a speed trap. We are quietly delighted when an obnoxious co-worker calls out sick.
In worse cases, we might slip from observation into speculation. Would it be so terrible if that co-worker had something worse than the flu? And if that reckless driver spun out of control on a sharp turn ahead, wouldn’t that serve him right?
Do you get mad when someone crosses you, thwarts you, insults you? Your boss belittles your work or doesn’t give you adequate credit. A bully embarrasses you in public. Your neighbors let their dog use your yard. Someone cheats you out of money or betrays your trust. You might imagine a stronger comeuppance, something more vengeful than simple karma. Sometimes, we don’t want to wait for fate to step in.
And when those thoughts become action…?
There are many novels I could mine for today’s post—American Psycho, Lolita, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, The Picture of Dorian Gray—All stories about bad people running wild. Crime thrillers and murder mysteries provide ample examples of bad actors whose envy, anger, greed, or pride take them to bad ends.
On the other hand, mysteries aren’t told from the culprit’s POV. The reader is generally kept at a distance, ignorant of their thought processes and motivations until the end. And characters like Patrick Bateman and Humbert Humbert are so far removed from the bounds of decent human conduct, I doubt anyone reading this can see themselves in their shoes. We might be fascinated by them, those of us with a dark sense of humor might laugh at them, but we don’t really relate to them. We console ourselves with the thought that we are not like them.
But when we write, relating is the entire point. Nabokov may never have lusted after a child, but he lusted after someone. Creating a bad actor requires acknowledging our intrusive thoughts. Even if you don’t write about the uglier aspects of life, human nature contains multitudes, including anger, jealousy, vindictiveness. Nobody likes a Pollyanna.
And if you do plumb the depths of human behavior, your best path forward is finding the dark threads in your own nature and following them through the labyrinth to the monster dwelling at the center.
Patricia Highsmith is my go-to writer for characters residing in the dankest corners of the human experience. With her misanthropic reputation, Highsmith had an advantage over most of us, as her intrusive thoughts didn’t need much oomph to power to the surface, but we can still pick up a lot of lessons from her writing.
I love that her novels are written from the POV of the character we’d generally consider the villain. Some of her characters are sociopaths, taking advantage of people they consider inferior. Some are common con men or perverts whose bad conduct triggers a series of events that whips out of their control. Some are decent men who have a bad day, which leads them into temptation and danger.
While we’d agree that their results are evil, it’s difficult to paint Highsmith’s protagonists as the bad guys. We get a glimpse of their life before it goes astray. We watch a simple choice result in unintended consequences. We cringe when a protagonist continues down the wrong path instead of backtracking to safety. Best of all, we understand them, their hopes, their hurts, their unquenchable thirsts. Their choices make sense, and may even seem justified, even when their story ends badly. We may not see ourselves exactly, but we recognize their human emotions and needs.
In Deep Water, protagonist Vic Van Allen is no villain. He’s married with a child, lives in the suburbs, and runs a boutique publishing house with money from his family trust fund. A life many people would envy, except that his wife openly cheats on him. The neighbors know – Melinda drags her string of lovers to dinner parties and backyard barbecues – but maintain their relationship with her because they like Vic, who refuses to end either her conduct or the marriage. But by the time the novel opens, Melinda’s behavior is taking a toll.
He looked at her as she bent over her dressing table, gathering lipstick and keys, swaying in her cream-colored topcoat, and he suddenly felt that he didn’t care what happened to her tonight, because she was going out to denounce him again and it would serve her right to smash herself into a tree or to get stuck in a ditch on a fast turn. Then he thought of the hairpin turn on the hillside halfway between their house and the Mellers’. There was a cliff there, and the road would be slippery tonight.
At one of those dinner parties, the discussion turns to the recent murder of one of Melinda’s former lovers. Speaking to his wife’s current lover, Vic jokes that he was responsible. It’s a spur of the moment comment, intended to scare the man away from his wife, startle and upset Melinda, and retake some of his authority. In that instant, the pride Vic’s been swallowing gets the better of him and he lashes out.
And can you blame him? Melinda inflicts repeated public humiliation on Vic. She knows he’s still in love with her, but rejects him privately. It’s natural that he’d confront his wife’s next boyfriend. We might not blame Vic if he swung a punch. However, this time, his retribution is light; he responds with words, a joke. But that joke stirred up a private wish – that he’d been strong or ruthless enough to rid himself of his wife’s previous lover. The thought is intriguing.
As the days pass, Vic convinces himself that he would have been justified in killing Melinda’s last boyfriend, and his friends agree. No one believes Vic did it, or even could do it, but they couldn’t argue the man wouldn’t have had it coming. The more Vic toys with the fantasy, the more enticing it becomes. And when Melinda takes her next lover, Vic makes the natural choice, perhaps the only logical choice. What began as a joke, a comment made in response to public embarrassment and a threat to his family, takes on a life of its own.
He remembered a knot, a dark, hard knot of repressions and resentments in himself, and it was as if his murdering De Lisle had untied the knot. He was more relaxed now and, to be perfectly honest, happier…A discharge of repressed hatred, perhaps that was a better metaphor than the untying of a knot. But just what had pushed him across the line from fantasy to fact that night in the Cowans’ swimming pool? And would it happen again under the right circumstances? He hoped not.
Highsmith torments Vic through some one-third of the novel before his thoughts start to take their dark turn. The reader watches Melinda humiliate him in front of the neighbors. We hear Vic’s friends plead with him to put an end to her behavior, one way or the other. We follow Vic’s intrusive thoughts – which initially are only thoughts – until they guide him to his fateful choices.
And it all started because a husband wanted to bully the man sleeping with his wife. I can’t imagine circumstances in which I’d kill someone who had sex with my SO, but I know what humiliation and rejection feel like. I’ve wished ill on people. I can imagine being pushed up to the line. Would I cross it? Unlikely, but when a man is up against the line, crossing it only takes one step.
What makes you mad? When do you feel threatened, jealous, or vengeful? Pinpoint a moment of high emotion, not a mere inconvenience. Take that emotion through a dangerous path, as it becomes a thought, then a wish, then an idea, a plan, a choice, an action.
Can you imagine yourself in a scenario where violence is the wrong answer and yet remains attractive? Could you commit a murder that wasn’t in defense of your life or family? Could you kill for convenience or spite or to keep a secret? Because someone offended you or has something you want? Are you willing to spill that blood on the page?
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