Psychopaths, exemplars and character construction

As a culture we have a vast representation of psychopaths as the villains within literature and movies - from Hannibal Lecter to Gordon Gecko - and who am I buck such a trend.

So before constructing my bad guys and black hats, I did a little research.

The first book to read to get an insight into the topic is Snakes in Suits which provides an excellent and accessible introduction to the topic.

Follow up with Richard Hare's (he helped write the book and defined "Psychopathy" as a concept) at http://www.hare.org/

Add some wiki sites on psychopathy, narcisstic personality disorder and the psychopathic personality and you are well on your way to being able to describe a psychopath whether you have met one or not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychop..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narciss..., and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychop...

However - there was a very real gap in the available research material. People have done amazing and extensive work examining and measuring psychopaths and yet - where was the understanding of the reversal of psychopathy.

For example, Hare invented the PCL-R checklist which is a measure of psychopathy from 0 to 40. Score 5 and you're normal. Score 10 and you're basically a bastard. Score 20 and you're the scheming boss from hell, score 30 you're Ted Bundy, score 40 and you're the Anti-christ.

The PCL-R checklist summarises the basic charteristics of the psychopath here http://nowandfutures.com/large/Hare_P...

The personality characteristics that I found useful from a character construction perspective where detailed as "Factor 1: Aggressive narcissism"

1. Glibness/superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Pathological lying
4. Cunning/manipulative
5. Lack of remorse or guilt
6. Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric)
7. Callousness; lack of empathy
8. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

Hmmm - it is no accident that most of these are present in my major nemesis character "Chloe Armitage."

But note this, 5 is normal. If you can go from normal (5) to a score of 40, it begs the question - what's at -40 on this scale.

There was no word in the dictionary for anti-psychopath, so I looked around for a word to fit and found "Exemplar" as in exemplary and I decided that would do.

So how is an Exemplar the opposite of a Psychopath - well simple - let's just reverse the polarity of the descriptors and see what we end up with.

1. Glibness/superficial charm becomes depth and authenticity.

2. Grandiose sense of self-worth becomes the presence of a realistic grounded sense of self worth and the ability to relate to the self worth of others.

3. Pathological lying becomes persistent honesty, and integrity of thought, word and deed.

4. Cunning/manipulative becomes open, transparent dealing, seeking genuine mutual benefit.

5. Lack of remorse or guilt becomes active capacity for remorse/guilt, pursuit of redemption of self and others, and active avoidance of unworth acts.

6. Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric) becomes capacity for deep and life orientating emotional experience. Persistent emotional responses. Emotions based on both external and internal events.

7. Callousness; lack of empathy becomes active and life orientating compassionate responses to the suffering of others. Empathic experience of the joys and sorrow of others.

8. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions becomes active seeking of responsibility and accountability for both self and others. Willingness to establish open and transparent boundaries on responsibility and accountability.

So - looks like a solution - fantastic, just make the villains psychopaths and the heroes exemplars and it will all work in the story.

Not so fast. Ever tried to relate to someone who is the epitome of good or evil (well hopefully never), or try to write a character who is pure good or pure evil.

It doesn't work; the character is unrelatable, no light and shade, no humanity - and disastrously predictable, boring and deadly to the story.

Since the goal is reader engagement - give the villians a little light and the heroes a little dark.

Nuance is king.