An article about writing unlikeable characters in my monthly writing magazine set me thinking about my own villains. Having written three psychological suspense novels and fourteen travel mysteries, and killed off some twenty or so victims, I suppose I can claim to have some experience in writing murderers. That said, I can’t think of any one of them who I would describe as evil. One of the themes which always seems to creep into my books is how individuals are driven by circumstances – some even provoked – to take violent action.
On the whole, I have a great deal of empathy for my killers - most are weak individuals whose lives have been blighted by their victims. They see the deed as exacting some kind of justice for past wrongs often against their loved ones rather than themselves. Money, ambition, power and control and sex are often cited as the main motivations for fictional murder mysteries. I can think of only one of my characters driven to kill because of greed (Blood Flows South). They are the only significant character I’ve ever written that I never tried to get into their head – to feel their emotion. I did create a psychopath in the early days for one of my psychological suspense novels Watcher in the Shadows. I did spend time with him. I remember thinking about him as I was shopping in town one afternoon and caught sight of myself in one of the large plate glass windows in a shop walking as he would walk. I took a quick embarrassed look around but luckily the street was deserted, and I don’t think anyone saw me.
As my regular blog readers will already know, I am not a plotter. I never know my killer at the start of the novel. Apart from the established characters in my series, all the others develop as the book proceeds. If I make a decision too early, the intended killer can turn round and flatly refuse to do the deed. (If that sounds ridiculous to the non-writer, I can assure you that I am far from the only crime writer who has made that claim.) Besides, it’s much more fun to create four or five suspects and make the final decision in the last few chapters.
Far, far more unlikeable are my victims. They are the only characters I think about in detail at the start. They are all self-obsessed who ruthlessly ride roughshod over all and sundry. A few may have one or two redeeming characteristics, but no reader feels much sympathy when they meet their end. The only ‘innocent victim’ that I have written that I can think of was the geisha who Harry finds stabbed in Undercover Geisha. As a writer, I find the victims are much more fun to write than the majority of secondary characters. I’m not quite sure what that says about me, but let’s not go there. Though it does mean that it takes several chapters to establish their personalities before I can bump them off.
The established patten in crime novels is to have ruthless male killers and hapless female victims. Though I have my fair share of male murderers, by far the majority are women and I probably have a great many more victims who are male than female.