Samir Kasim asked Scott Sigler:

In infected, you wrote about how a disease results in people turning into murderers. How did you write about this transition, what was the problems you had then?

Scott Sigler Samir,

The biggest problem for this story was isolation, a key factor in almost all horror stories. Why? Because if you can pick up the phone and call the cops to come shoot the Big Bad, it's not much of a story.

With INFECTED, my main character isn't in an isolated cabin in the woods, he's not on an island, he's not trapped in a haunted mansion. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a good-sized city. Since his disease needs time to progress (because we're using plausible science to tell this story, and it takes time for things to grow), I needed to find a reason he wouldn't just go to the doctor and get help. Again, the need for isolation. To solve that problem, I incorporated massive paranoia into the symptoms of the disease. There is a reason for that paranoia (which I won't spoil here for anyone else who reads this answer) which is integral to the plot in a way separate from how it helped me achieve isolation.

Making him a killer was easy, as he's spent his entire life fighting the cycle of violence that plagues his family. His father beat him. His father beat his mother. Perry (our main character) spends much of his normal day trying to not lash out at people, to not hit them, because solving problems with violence is his natural state. He's a very heroic character in that sense, and the tragedy comes when the disease erodes that bit of will and turns him into his base state.

-Scott-

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