So there I was, minding my own business writing one of those truly twisted novels that grabs hold of you and has to come out when I came to the killer’s debut. I’d never attempted to write a character quite so creepy and wasn’t relishing that first passage. In fact, I continually wrote around him, putting off the scene until I felt I could do justice to him instead of creating a killer cliché. Yes, I could have abandoned the effort and gone on to something else, but a disturbing dream I’d had several months prior provided the inspiration for the story and I felt compelled to follow it through.
How do you write a fresh psychopath? Readers today have been clubbed over the head with serial killers (pardon the pun) to the point that it’s become a joke in many literary agencies and publishing houses. The only way I could think to do it was to go to my default: research. Continue reading “Inside the Mind of a Killer: Researching your Antagonist”
Forget everything you know. Tear down the gilt statues. Destroy your inked idols. Paint your words across the sky in bright vermillion. Whisper them on butterfly wings. Dance the dance of your forefathers, wrapped in silken words. Create for them a beautiful implosion. They are as blossoms falling. They are like wondrous corpses. Let the colors swirl and shift.
