I was reading a No. 3 (of 5) of Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, which essentially examines the Superman mythology from his arch enemy's point of view.
It got me thinking about bad guys (and gals, too).
It seems that most writers get so caught up in our heroes that we often neglect the necessary character work on our villains.
The wrinkle being that, unless they're simply sociopaths,* it's likely the bad guys have somehow justified their actions.
Their line of thinking may not coincide with ours or our readers' (at least let's hope not), but we all need to understand it.
Consider: even Hitler essentially argued that he was saving the world.
Yikes.
That said, all of our characters have to come from somewhere within. I'm not saying we all have inner evil, but we do all have to deal with it.
Writing into the fear or, let's be honest, the fascination, can be uncomfortable, even daunting. But it's also necessary if our antagonist is human with human motivations, no matter how disturbing, if we're to fully appreciate all levels of the story.
On a much more uplifting front, it was heartening to receive a note yesterday from an old friend who'd been reading spookycyn, which reminded me that not all ghosts are unwelcome.
*Now that I think about it, there's probably no such thing as a simple sociopath.
