ravenswept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ravenswept) wrote2010-10-05 06:34 pm
ravenswept) wrote2010-10-05 06:34 pm
Entry tags:
Writers: Massive Amounts of Potential Evil
When you think about it, writers have the potential to be some of the most evil people you know. Not all are going to, of course, some genres just don't lend themselves to it. But to the ones that do, the good ones, they're the kind that got called into the principal's office because they accidentaly left a notebook in class and a teacher got nosy.
It's part of the process of creating something that people will believe, thinking out the details. Not just for inherient world building or trival facts, but the who, why, and how of the villians/antagonists. You need to know how they'd go about doing whatever it is they do, so you have to think about how they'd go about doing it. You have to think about what they're going to do. You have to think bad.
Right now I've got Scarred taking up time and brain-space. I need to think of the walk-through of how Ryan goes about kidnapping women so he can forcibly cut the majority of their skin as to etch graphic art onto their skin; how does he keep them there; how does he care for them afterwards; what equipment does he use and how does he keep them from ruining the work? Just how insane is he? And going through it all, was I less a decent human being (and less lazy), this would be totally do-able.
I'm also having to figure out how to start my own criminal mafia empire from scratch when writing the Noir story (hey, remember that one?). How would I rise up, how do I keep my power, what kind of people do I employ? Where do I set up shop, when do I play my hand, when do I fold, how do I much to I tolerate disobediance? It's a very strange mindspace to have to think in terms of doing something unlawful with full intention of getting away with it.
For most, it's not always that big a deal. Their villian is the villian, s/he does villianious things and is defeated. Their actions only need to be vaguely described as to motivate the hero. But when the antagonist is an actual person (in the fleshed out sense), you can't just glance over them. Motives and history need to be explored, however much or little, to make them who they are so the reader can feel the same pity/sympathy/revulsion as you hope to instill.
And it doesn't always have to be a really bad thing either, it could just be a quick scheme. In Neil Gaiman's American Gods, there's an early scene where Mr. Wednesday dresses like a security officer and takes people's money that was meant for the ATM deposit box, under the guise that the machine was broken, helped along with the beginning of a snow storm. He made out with a few thousands dollars. Gaiman came up with this con uniquely for his book, having studied conmen and their ways, and came up with an original work.
Fast forward months after the book comes out; newspapers report a man dressed as bank security waited outside in the snow with a bankbag, taking people's money that was meant for the ATM deposit, and made off with several thousand dollars. Mr. Gaiman in the search for realism had created a crime so real that it could, and was, actually recreated in real life.
There are, I think, other instances of fictional crimes being recreated by real lifepeople morons. I include movies in this circle as well, because at some point somebody did have to write that scene. And there are several accounts of stupid people who have repeated what they've seen in movies, and then tried to claim that it was the movie's fault.
The whole idea that writers go through it all is just kinda strange to think about. Because then your mind starts to wonder about the kind of person who takes the time to think about such things. Is it okay to think to deeply about how to commits horrible acts, even if it's only for a story? Then you wonder if you're kind of an idiot for worrying about something that's only ficitonal.
These are things I think about while trying to decide how one would best go about kidnapping a woman to use as a human etch-a-sketch.
It's part of the process of creating something that people will believe, thinking out the details. Not just for inherient world building or trival facts, but the who, why, and how of the villians/antagonists. You need to know how they'd go about doing whatever it is they do, so you have to think about how they'd go about doing it. You have to think about what they're going to do. You have to think bad.
Right now I've got Scarred taking up time and brain-space. I need to think of the walk-through of how Ryan goes about kidnapping women so he can forcibly cut the majority of their skin as to etch graphic art onto their skin; how does he keep them there; how does he care for them afterwards; what equipment does he use and how does he keep them from ruining the work? Just how insane is he? And going through it all, was I less a decent human being (and less lazy), this would be totally do-able.
I'm also having to figure out how to start my own criminal mafia empire from scratch when writing the Noir story (hey, remember that one?). How would I rise up, how do I keep my power, what kind of people do I employ? Where do I set up shop, when do I play my hand, when do I fold, how do I much to I tolerate disobediance? It's a very strange mindspace to have to think in terms of doing something unlawful with full intention of getting away with it.
For most, it's not always that big a deal. Their villian is the villian, s/he does villianious things and is defeated. Their actions only need to be vaguely described as to motivate the hero. But when the antagonist is an actual person (in the fleshed out sense), you can't just glance over them. Motives and history need to be explored, however much or little, to make them who they are so the reader can feel the same pity/sympathy/revulsion as you hope to instill.
And it doesn't always have to be a really bad thing either, it could just be a quick scheme. In Neil Gaiman's American Gods, there's an early scene where Mr. Wednesday dresses like a security officer and takes people's money that was meant for the ATM deposit box, under the guise that the machine was broken, helped along with the beginning of a snow storm. He made out with a few thousands dollars. Gaiman came up with this con uniquely for his book, having studied conmen and their ways, and came up with an original work.
Fast forward months after the book comes out; newspapers report a man dressed as bank security waited outside in the snow with a bankbag, taking people's money that was meant for the ATM deposit, and made off with several thousand dollars. Mr. Gaiman in the search for realism had created a crime so real that it could, and was, actually recreated in real life.
There are, I think, other instances of fictional crimes being recreated by real life
The whole idea that writers go through it all is just kinda strange to think about. Because then your mind starts to wonder about the kind of person who takes the time to think about such things. Is it okay to think to deeply about how to commits horrible acts, even if it's only for a story? Then you wonder if you're kind of an idiot for worrying about something that's only ficitonal.
These are things I think about while trying to decide how one would best go about kidnapping a woman to use as a human etch-a-sketch.
no subject
I do wonder if that's why people view "creative" or "artistic" types as being a little odd, because we slip into spaces that freak people out. Anyone can wonder how a conman would pull this off or where a serial killer would get rid of a body, but most people don't want to accept that they can think so darkly. Or that those who are serial killers or mutilators or Attack of the Clones fans aren't so different from "normal" folks -- or at least, not so different that their actions can't be fudged or mimicked for a story.
no subject
no subject