How to Do Evil Well
I really don't feel like writing.
Or, rather, I really do feel like eating and watching Netflix.
However, I am constantly belaboring my students about how they must write every day, so I feel convicted by my own words.
I was chatting with a friend yesterday about how to write good writing. (Yes yes, redundant and all that. I know.) The conversation lighted specifically on describing well or having good word choice. I initially hypothesized it has to do with loving one's characters: believing in them, hoping for them, understanding them, empathizing with them. My friend asked how one can empathize with thoroughly evil characters: serial killers, child rapers, torturers.
I impulsively thought something along the lines of, "Deep down, there's good in everybody." I readily realized that's a pathetic presupposition. There are too many real-life counterexamples to that notion.
I tried to stick with fiction though. I have watched a few seasons of the TV show "Dexter." There are some amazingly sadistic characters in that show.
Then I thought of Heath Ledger's Joker. Reportedly, Jack Nicholson warned him about the role. The role seems to have destroyed Heath Ledger. Most can agree, I think, that Heath crafted an amazing character.
I imagine that, to make such a quality character, Heath had to put himself inside the dark psyche of Joker. I have also heard tell that, when C.S. Lewis was writing The Screwtape Letters, he also got a little messed up trying to envision demons' motivations. It seems that, to write evil characters well, one must embody the evil they contain to some extent.
Orson Scott Card, in Ender's Game, wrote, “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”
I'm not sure how to tie it together. I don't really have a crisp, definitive conclusion. For now, though, it seems that loving one's characters – whether they be good or evil – is the portal through which a writer may understand them and subsequently write them well.
I'll have to think more on it, but that's a good place to start.
Or, rather, I really do feel like eating and watching Netflix.
However, I am constantly belaboring my students about how they must write every day, so I feel convicted by my own words.
I was chatting with a friend yesterday about how to write good writing. (Yes yes, redundant and all that. I know.) The conversation lighted specifically on describing well or having good word choice. I initially hypothesized it has to do with loving one's characters: believing in them, hoping for them, understanding them, empathizing with them. My friend asked how one can empathize with thoroughly evil characters: serial killers, child rapers, torturers.
I impulsively thought something along the lines of, "Deep down, there's good in everybody." I readily realized that's a pathetic presupposition. There are too many real-life counterexamples to that notion.
I tried to stick with fiction though. I have watched a few seasons of the TV show "Dexter." There are some amazingly sadistic characters in that show.
Then I thought of Heath Ledger's Joker. Reportedly, Jack Nicholson warned him about the role. The role seems to have destroyed Heath Ledger. Most can agree, I think, that Heath crafted an amazing character.
I imagine that, to make such a quality character, Heath had to put himself inside the dark psyche of Joker. I have also heard tell that, when C.S. Lewis was writing The Screwtape Letters, he also got a little messed up trying to envision demons' motivations. It seems that, to write evil characters well, one must embody the evil they contain to some extent.
Orson Scott Card, in Ender's Game, wrote, “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”
I'm not sure how to tie it together. I don't really have a crisp, definitive conclusion. For now, though, it seems that loving one's characters – whether they be good or evil – is the portal through which a writer may understand them and subsequently write them well.
I'll have to think more on it, but that's a good place to start.
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