Mean people suck. They really do. But that’s okay, I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s a good thing. Because…honestly…if there were no mean people I’d have no one to passionately torture and kill off in my novels.
Whoever said “Revenge is a dish best served cold” wasn’t altogether with it. Take that quote, add a whole lot of “The pen is mightier than the sword” and you have a winning combination.
Yes, I believe in what goes around comes around…and, if I can help it get around any faster, I’m all for it. And yes, I will go completely out of my way to write a scene that may not be related in any way to my project just to give my enemies their come-uppance. That, my friends, is my right.
Real life is a big gray area. I always try to reflect that in my writing. Bad guys became bad for a reason. Good guys can stray from the path of righteousness. But the people I punish in writing will always be obvious because there is nothing gray about them. The reader will be repulsed, annoyed, or amused by them. Sometimes their names will be a giveaway…something ridiculous like taking some tough, manly characters and dubbing them Honey, Bunny and Bubbles. Those three are in for a really bad ride. They will live in infamy by my hand. Will my adversaries realize those sickening characters represent them? I don’t know. I don’t care. I know, and that’s all that really matters. As my Special Agent Kathrin Night says in one of her adventures: “What is important is that evil was held accountable, and good was rewarded.” Amen.
So now when you read my books, you will have the satisfaction of knowing one of my secrets: that someone who has done something bad is getting their payback…in print…for eternity.
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K.S. Brooks is an award-winning author and photographer, and Co-Administrator of Indies Unlimited. For more information, please see the IU Bio page and her web site: http://www.ksbrooks.com/
This post originally appeared on K.S. Brooks’ Blog on September 4, 2009. And yes, mean people do still suck.
A woman after my own heart!
And it feels so good Ashley!
🙂
I'm planning to stay on your good side, though I'm tempted to be a dick for literary fame! 😉
JD – I've actually had TWO friends say they wanted bad guys named after them. I just don't get that!
I want to be the charming guy who appears every once in a while to say something witty. You know, like in real life. 🙂
I can work that in!
🙂
Hey – I already called dibs on "Honcho McNally."
Um, I don't write spaghetti westerns, sorry!
😉
I've done it, but changed the names to protect the guilty. No need for a law suit at my age. Too revealing!
Felt good though, didn't it Arline?
🙂
Gleefully yummy!
Thank you Yvonne! Like I said, better than therapy! LOL
Oh yes, awesome, Kat. It feels really good to write a thriller when you are pissed off at someone. I wrote six chapters of my serial killer because I was pissed and she was the first to die in my first chapter of Angel of Death. Now I haven't been that mad at anyone lately so that book is shelved at the moment. But yes it feels good to write when you are mad.
Oh Jackie, I hold on to the stuff for YEARS before naming the characters. There’s no statute of limitations in my head LOL.
😉
So cool!!! Zap a few bad guys for me while you're at it, lol!
Note to self – always be really, really nice to Kat….;-)