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Knowledge of our past is our inheritance. What we do with that knowledge will shape our destinies...
As most of you know, I'm a crime fiction writer, among other things. While it's not a particularly sunny topic, I thought today I'd address how to craft great (read: evil) believable, chill-inducing serial killers.
Let's start with a story:
So one day a man--we'll call him John--goes to a funeral. He happens to see a pretty girl that catches his eye. That night, after leaving the funeral, John murders someone who was at that funeral, and shows up at his victim's funeral a few days later. Eventually, the police catch John. They determine that he didn't murder the person at the first funeral he attended, but he did murder the person being buried at the second. So why did John do it? Any guesses?
Criminal justice students would probably guess things similar to the following:
1. John had a grievance with the second man. Perhaps he went to the first funeral specifically to stalk him? Nope. Actually he never met or knew anything about his victim until he attended the first funeral.
2. So maybe something happened after the funeral that made him zero in on the man? Not really. Nothing about that man in particular stood out to him.
3. Maybe he's just a psycho and needed to kill someone? Well, John is, in fact, a serial killer. So, by nature, he's a bit of a psycho, but that's not why he killed this particular victim. He did have a reason.
The motive behind John's crime is one that pretty much any normal, sane person would never guess. The answer is that he wanted to see that pretty girl again.
Confused? Understandable. That makes absolutely no logical sense. But then, serial killers are far from logical. If they were, they wouldn't being killing people.
You see, for John, killing is the norm. It's what makes him feel better, what gives him emotional release, how he gets things done. So, when he wanted to see that pretty girl again, it was only natural for him to pick someone in her circle of acquaintances and kill them because he knew she'd show up at the funeral.
Chilling, isn't it?
If you are a crime writer who needs to write a great killer, check out these tips. (Of course, they can be adapted to write just about any villain in any genre.)
**FYI: I'm out of town this week so while my posts are going up automatically, I won't be doing as much commenting/ communicating this week. I probably won't get around to many emails until after memorial day. Sorry for any inconvenience.**
This is the second in a series called Writing Great Mysteries. I'm going to go over the story structure of mysteries, revealing clues bit by bit, and a few other things. While this is about writing crime or mystery, it can actually apply to any genre. Often in other genres you have minor mysteries you want to reveal gradually, like who betrayed your main characters or what someone's surprise motivations are. In other words, these posts can be adapted to any mystery or slow-reveal in any genre you may happen to be writing. As such, I'll call my villains perps or killers, because that's what is usually the case in mystery/crime, but again you can adapt this to any antagonist.
So, now that you know what kind of reveal you want, (recap the three kinds here) it's time to move on to how to accomplish this reveal a little bit at a time in order to keep your readers engrossed.
This is the first in a series called Writing Great Mysteries. I'm going to go over the story structure of mysteries, revealing clues bit by bit, and a few other things. While this is about writing crime or mystery, it can actually apply to any genre. Often in other genres you have minor mysteries you want to reveal gradually, like who betrayed your main characters or what someone's surprise motivations are. In other words, these posts can be adapted to any mystery or slow-reveal in any genre you may happen to be writing. As such, I'll call my villains perps or killers, because that's what is usually the case in mystery/crime, but again you can adapt this to any antagonist.
