Creating Realistic Villains

Every mystery or thriller requires a villain.

Mention the word, and most of us automatically conjure up a character from a novel or film. Hannibal Lector leaps to mind for many—the prototype of the sociopath. Or Professor Moriarty—master criminal and arch enemy of Sherlock Holmes. The scalp-hunting Judge from Blood Meridian.

But not all villains are sociopaths, or career criminals, or however Judge Holden may truly be defined.

The term villain comes from an Old French term roughly translated as “rustic” or “boor.” Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable asserts our idea of wickedness associated with the word is “a result of aristocratic condescension and sense of superiority.”

Quite a different take on our interpretation of the word, isn’t it? Yet most of us do indeed look down on the villain. We may secretly admire his/her ability to transcend normal behavior in pursuit of a goal. But, would we seriously want to be him/her?

In a novel, the villain is the opposite of the hero. The main purpose of a villain is to provide conflict, which is the driving force of story. The villain must be as fully developed as the hero. The most important aspects of creating a villain are that they be realistic and properly motivated.

Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley is clever and charming. But he’s not above murder. Pinkie Brown in Graham Greene’s excellent “Brighton Rock” is a selfish, teenaged thug, yet he worries about his immortal soul.

Human beings are complicated creatures. None are entirely good or evil. Not all villains are sociopaths or psychopaths. Some are simply driven into that situation by circumstance. And they come in both sexes. You didn’t really think the women were getting off unscathed, did you? There are plenty to go around: Mrs. Danvers in “Rebecca;” Annie Wilkes in “Misery,” and who could forget Lady Macbeth?

Though we may not condone a villain’s actions, it is important that the reader understand and even sympathize to a degree with the motivation. For instance, we all have financial needs and can understand how a person might desire to improve his/her situation—even if we don’t condone the method. We’ve all experienced fear, jealousy, anger, sexual desire, wanting to even the score—the list goes on and on. These are all motivations a writer can utilize to create a memorable villain.

Think about it. I’ll wager you will remember more villains than heroes from the books you’ve read.

Not Just Another Day

Martin Luther King Day is just another day off work for many people who are too young to remember the reason for the observance.

For those of us who do remember King and pay tribute to his dream it’s disappointing the stench of bigotry still stalks the land, shaven-headed, red-necked and symbolically robed as well as coiffured and clean-shaven in expensive suits.

While it’s often forgotten, King’s work purchased equality and justice for all people and not a single race. Naturally there was a focus on his own race, but he was too great a man not to recognize the unity of all humans.

Prejudice is not always about race, nor has bigotry ever been restricted to one geographic area.

It shames us as a nation that we accept without reprimand those who piously quote the Bible and recite the Pledge of Allegiance while inciting atrocities or heaping disrespect on others they consider to be less equal than them.

As King himself put it, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

London's Secret to Success

Saturday (Jan. 12) is both the birthday of Jack London and Work Harder Day.

London is among my pantheon of heroes and a writer who exemplifies the virtues of working hard to achieve a personal goal. Read his novel "Martin Eden" (published in 1909) and you’ll realize making a name as a writer was as difficult in his time as it is now.

My introduction to London was in his early non-fiction works "Tales of the Fish Patrol" and "South Sea Tales" discovered early on in my father’s library. Later I devoured his most famous novels, though I agree with those critics who claim his true genius was in the short story.

Virtually self-educated, he pulled himself up from poverty working in canneries, mills and a number of maritime tasks which would later provide the inspiration for his stories. He saw his only hope of achieving his goal was to get an education. He managed to get in the University of California, Berkeley, but was able to attend less than a year.

His love of reading and learning was encouraged by a sympathetic librarian, Ina Coolbrith. Later he would attribute his literary success to eight factors, among them: “Vast good luck, good health, good brain, good mental and muscular correlation.”

In my reading of his career I discovered several unexpected connections to my own Pennsylvania roots. His mother, Flora, was the daughter of Pennsylvania canal builder Marshall Wellman. London was a participant in the Coxey’s Army protest march of unemployed workers in 1894, which passed near my home en route to Washington, D.C. (He was actually part of the Western contingent known as Kelly’s Army and related his experiences in the story “Two Thousand Stiffs.”).

In an article titled “Getting Into Print” published in 1903, London wrote: “Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.”

Good advice for Work Harder or any other day.

Looking For An E-Book?

This is the time of year people with new electronic reading devices and/or gift book vouchers go looking for fresh options. If you're in that category, the Crime Fiction group on LinkedIn has a special promotion made just for people like you. Come and find a new-to-you author. Visit the promotion at http://www.reviewsbytdev.com/content/2013-New-eBook-Reader-Promotion.

Crime Fiction group members include readers, authors and publishers who enjoy lively discussions of crime and mystery fiction. As of December 2012, the group had more than 1,600 members. If you're interested in joining, go to http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Crime-Fiction-1814346/about?trk=anet_ug_grppro. Oh, and in case you're wondering--yes, I'm a member and I have a book included in this promotion.

You Don't Walk Alone

You may think I’m a bit late in writing a tribute to Ray Bradbury. Though I admire the man and his amazing output this little essay isn’t exactly a tribute. What I intend to stress here is that no matter how talented or dedicated to craft a person may be no one achieves the ultimate pinnacle of success entirely on their own. Bradbury’s life is an excellent illustration of this fact. Bradbury was born into a working class family. In his early years he was surrounded by a loving and encouraging extended family and the warmth of that relationship and its benefits would be reflected later in some of his best loved stories. He had fond memories of an aunt reading him stories as a child and that may have influenced him to begin setting down his own tales on paper before he entered his teens. He actually earned his first pay as a writer at the age of 14 when George Burns hired him to write for the Burns and Allen radio show. After graduating from high school, he joined the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, befriending Robert Heinlein and many of the other big names of the genre. It was with the help of Heinlein in 1940 he made his first professional sale to a West Coast magazine of which many have never heard. Ray Bradbury never went to college. Instead, he went to the library all day, three times a week, until he got married at 27. Ever afterward he continued to laud the library as his “university” and, in gratitude to his alma mater, made a practice of organizing fundraisers for libraries. Despite his fame, Bradbury had his share of rejection, too. For a long time, he couldn’t get a publication outside of science fiction magazines. It was Truman Capote who finally recognized Bradbury’s talent, pulled his story “Homecoming” out of the slush pile, and convinced his editor at Mademoiselle to buy it. The New Yorker has only ever printed one of his stories, even though he sent them several hundred over the years. And in the 1970s, The Paris Review declined to publish an interview with him because they found him “too enthusiastic.” The Review made up for that error of judgment in 2010 with Interview No. 203. Bradbury claimed a wide variety of influences, which included friends and family. And he never forgot his debt to them. That, my friends, is the purpose of this essay—never forget the importance of other people in your life. None of us walk alone.

The Sheriff Rides Again

If you've read Fallen From Grace,I hope you'll be happy to hear Sheriff Sylvester Tilghman, Lydia Longlow and some of their friends from Arahpot are coming back in a sequel. I've signed a contract with Billie Johnson, publisher of Oak Tree Press, for Sooner Than Gold. What's it about? I'm glad you asked. It's the summer of 1898. The nation, just coming out of an economic slump, has been at war with Spain since April. And Sylvester Tilghman, sheriff of Arahpot, Jordan County, Pennsylvania, has a murder victim with too many enemies. There's Claude Kehler, who's found standing with a knife in his hand over the body of Willis Petry. Then there's Rachel Webber, Petry's surly teen-aged stepdaughter, who is quick to admit an act intended to do him harm. There's also a band of gypsies who claim Petry is the Goryo who stole one of their young women. If that isn't enough to complicate Tilghman's life, add in threats to his job by McClean Ruppenthal, former town burgess; missing money from illegal gambling; a run-in with a female horse thief; scary predictions by a gypsy fortuneteller, and the theft of Doc Mariner's prized new motorcar. There's plenty of good eating, church-going and socializing between the misdeeds. And, before all is over, Sylvester solves the crime and even comes a little closer to his goal of finally marrying the elusive Lydia Longlow. And, if you haven't read Fallen, there's still time. It's available in print and electronic formats: http://www.oaktreebooks.com/Shop%20OTP.htm http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-From-Grace-ebook/dp/B0051PDXZ8/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1339371192&sr=1-4 http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fallen-from-grace-john-lindermuth/1102720041?ean=9781610090117

Who's Afraid of the Prolific Writer?

I was amused by a recent New York Times article about mainline publishers urging genre writers to produce more than one book a year. The article told how publishers were desperately seeking to hold onto readers beguiled by other forms of entertainment and how the Internet was making readers demand faster output. Way down in the article it noted some authors are so productive they're difficult to match, giving as an example James Patterson who last year published 12 novels. (They failed to mention he rarely produces anything more than an outline these days, relying on a stable of co-writers to do the actual writing.) For God's sake, have these people forgotten about John Creasey, George Simenon, Isaac Asimov, Alexandre Dumas pere, and a dozen more I could name off the top of my head who were never content with a one book a year limit? Simenon created more than 300 novels in 20 years, churning out 60-80 pages a day. Creasey produced more than 600 under a dozen pseudonyms. Naturally, not all of these were destined to be Nobel Prize contenders--though Simenon was capable of being what is termed a literary writer. And consider Joyce Carol Oates, whose production stands at 100 books in a mere 45 years. The woman is definitely not to be considered a hack. Any writer is capable of being prolific, given opportunity, time and incentive. Many of those who made it to the top tier of fame and fortune in the past either didn't need the money or additional reward and/or were constrained by their publishers who expressed ill-founded fears of saturating the market. In my prejudiced opinion the market for MORE, not less books by popular writers always has been hot. Can you imagine any fan of Dickens shying from reading more than one of his books in a year? We needn't go that far back. Take, as an example, Stephen King. Despite a hefty bibliography, his fans clamor for more. No, it isn't lack of product has big publishers afraid. It's the new breed of small publishers who are willing to work and share the profits with their writers. It's the legion of writers now capable of publishing on their own without having to kowtow to a middleman who hogs the bulk of the profit. And it's new markets like Amazon which allow both the small publisher and the individual writer to take a chance on books which never got past the first reader (usually a smart-ass kid just out of college)in the old system.