Walking On The Dark Side

Getting into the head of an antagonist is one of the most difficult things I have ever done. When I was writing Selarial’s Song, I did some of the story from the POV of a mercenary who delighted in torture. I had to go even more deeply into his twisted mind in Dream Song. The experience gave me nightmares, but it was necessary in order to write his character realistically.  I find I cannot spend much time in the mind of a truly evil character without paying for the experience. Like Yoda said, “Once you start down the path to the dark side, consume you it will.”

It taught me a couple of things.

First, if you want a strong, realistic antagonist, you must know what makes him/her tick. If you are going to write anything from his/her POV, you have to know how his/her mind works. You have to feel as they would feel, see as they would see, react as they would react. Maybe my imagination is a little too good. I found out more than I wanted to know, certainly more than I was willing to write at the time. Looking back, I see I should have probably been willing to let more of his character surface in the story and it’s something I am working on for future bad guys. It is hard to write a character when what you’ve found in their mind makes you want to throw up. Maybe I’m squeamish

I do know that if you don’t explore them, they will be flat when you write them. When you do get a solid impression of their personality, their part of the story comes to life and the tension between the antagonist and the protagonist is stronger. The reader clearly sees what’s at stake in as realistic of terms as the writer is willing to go. Sometimes, even further than the writer is willing to go in actual words. If set up properly, a mere suggestive line or two can create more vividly horrific images in a reader’s mind than all the explicit, gory description you can come up with. Personally, I find explicit, gory descriptions counter productive, sometimes even boring, but that is another post.

Second, you need to be prepared to detox after a trip into the dark side. Exactly how is a personal thing, but if you don’t do this, long excursions into evil will begin to color your perceptions of the real world. At the least, it will make you rather grumpy and temperamental. It is similar to the kind of detox I used to have to do after spending a few days with an elderly relative whom I loved, but she was one of the most negative people I knew. After being around her for a few days, everything looked gloomy and I had to purge the negative and reset my thinking.

I have ventured far outside of my comfort zone into unpleasant realms. I think as writers, we must do this to some degree or risk losing a realistic voice in our writing.

Just don’t forget the chocolate!