The Role of Fantasy

I'm back with another exciting installment of a series based on The Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. I'm using the information to create believable antagonists. Today's post may also curl your toes or turn your stomach, so hang onto something.

Douglas says, "After interviewing a large number of serial predatory criminals, we were able to compile what we called a Sexual Homicide Motivational Model, organized according to the influences, both environmental and emotional, that seemed to determine the developmental course these men took throughout their lives and criminal careers: the factors that commonly contributed toward a motive to commit violent acts." 

You can't get away from the "ick" factor when delving into the minds of depraved individuals, but if you want to create a great antagonist, you need to know what makes him tick. It seems that fantasy is the key.

(This fantasy photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net. This is not the fantasy of most violent offenders, just so you know.)

Douglas says that 50 percent of the criminals he interviewed had their first rape fantasy between the ages of twelve and fourteen. That's not a typo, it really says between twelve and fourteen. He goes on to say that not every boy who fantasizes about rape will turn into a rapist or murderer. It is entirely possible they grow up to be law-abiding citizens with proper impulse controls. But adults who began fantasizing about rape at an early age, combined with the homicidal triad (see earlier posts), impulse control issues, and a need for dominating those around them can easily escalate into a violent offender.

The fantasy of your violent antagonist need not be sexual. Some offenders fantasized about overcoming the problems in their lives, the pain and failure that came as a result of their superiority and inadequacy (see earlier posts). This fantasy involves being successful and getting revenge on the people who hurt him, disrespected him, or held him back from his true potential. Sometimes these fantasies include humiliation, debasement, or physical harm that doesn't lead to death. Other times, torture and death is the only thing that will satisfy the offender.

*Alert - this next bit is downright gross! Skip this paragraph if you need to.* Douglas says that "79 percent of the men in our study reported what they described as compulsive masturbation, 72 percent said they were active Peeping Toms (or voyeurs), and 81 percent described active and regular involvement with pornography." Cause and effect can't be proven with pornography, but the statistic is what it is. Bad guys like porn. But even if they didn't have access to it, they'd still be violent offenders. Fetishism is another way offenders act out their obsessions. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) defines fetishism as involving, "the arousal of fantasies, sexual urges, or other behaviors from nonliving or nonhuman objects." Womens underwear is a classic example of a fetish. 72% of the men interviewed by Douglas admitted to having a preoccupation with some fetish during their formative years.

I feel the need to wash my hands now. But back to the point. "What is important to keep in mind in our examination of criminal motivation is the emphasis, preoccupation, and overall pattern of the sexual thinking or behavior." If it controls the offenders life, it's important to his profile because it will define how he handles his stressors. Use this when creating your antagonist. What are his fantasies? Are they merely for dominance over others, or are they sexual? Does he have control over them, or do they rule his life? Your antagonist will most likely have a background full of the distasteful stuff I put in the alert paragraph, but they don't have to come out in your book. If you're writing a cozy, you definitely want to keep that bit as pure reference for yourself. But it will be present in his background, dictating his actions, his thoughts, and his motivations. Don't skip this background just because it's distasteful. Unless it doesn't fit, of course. If your antagonist is a female, her fantasies will be completely different from those discussed in this post. But she will have them. 

I need to go hug my kids now. That was a rough one. Dare I ask for comments or questions?

-Sonja 

Superiority & Inadequacy

Welcome back to my series based on the book The Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. Douglas was a profiler for the FBI and used his vast experience with violent offenders to create profiles for use in law enforcement. I'm using the information from the book to create believable antagonists. Today I want to look at two warring factors found within most violent offenders: superiority and inadequacy.

(photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)

Douglas says most violent offenders possess a feeling of superiority, grandiosity. "Societal mores were not meant for them; they were too smart or too clever to have to start at the bottom and work their way up, or to live by the normal rules that govern a relationship." The other feeling is inadequacy, "of not being able to measure up, of knowing they were losers no matter what they did. And since the first feeling generally made them unwilling to study, work, pay their dues… they often were inadequately prepared for a job or a relationship that would give a normal person genuine satisfaction. This just reinforced their outsider status."

What motivates these guys is a desire for control and power that will help them overcome their feelings of powerlessness. "Being able to manipulate, dominate, and control a victim, to decide whether that victim lives or dies, or how that victim dies, temporarily counteracts, for some, their feelings of inadequacy and… makes them feel grandiose and superior as they believe they are entitled to feel. In other words, raping and murdering sets the world right with them."

When creating your antagonist, keep these character traits in mind. Your bad guy will possess these same feelings of superiority and inadequacy. How he deals with them will help make him an individual (as opposed to a cardboard, two-dimensional bad guy). How does he manipulate and dominate those in his life? Is he passive-aggressive? Does he intimidate with his size? Does he use his vast intelligence to make others feel like idiots? Does his sense of entitlement mean he's a loner with no one close to him? Does he use physical violence or psychological abuse to get what he wants? Does he play the "loser" card and try to invoke pity from others? Answering these questions about your antagonist, then showing him acting this way in the story, will make for an exciting, unpredictable antagonist readers will love to hate.

-Sonja

Homicidal Triad

Welcome to the second post of this series based on the book The Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. Today's topic is the Homicidal Triad, or the three youthful behaviors that generally mark the background of a violent offender. I'm going to preface this post with a bit of personal commentary. There's a lot of "ick" factor coming up because, quite frankly, the whole idea of delving into the mind of a violent offender is going to be icky. So if you have a weak stomach or get creeped out easily, you might want to sit out this series. I hate to drive away readers, but this is going to be a yucky ride, my friends. However, there's a lot of excellent information in the book that writers can use to create awesome antagonists, so if you can hang onto your stomach, come along.

(Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)

Now back to the nasty stuff. "There are three youthful behaviors that together make up what has come to be known as the homicidal triad: enuresis (bed-wetting) beyond an appropriate age, fire starting, and cruelty to animals and/or smaller children." The authors are very clear to point out that not every boy who displays these traits will grow up to be a murderer or rapist, but the combination of those three traits was extremely prominent in their studies and suggested a pattern too likely to ignore. If you've got a boy who kills ants with a magnifying glass on the sidewalk, wets his bed frequently, and harasses his younger brothers and sisters, you've got the makings of a violent offender.

The authors go on to say that "serial killers are made rather than born… it is unquestionably true that some kids, from as early as you can observe them, are far more aggressive than others, have far poorer impulse control, are noticeably antisocial. That doesn't mean they're doomed to become criminals. But our studies…show that if you start out with a kid predisposed like this, throw him into a severely dysfunctional environment, and then don't do anything to intervene, you are pretty likely to come up with a violence-prone adult."

(On a side note, the author also says that while he can explain that type of violent behavior, he in no way excuses it. He's a big proponent of personal responsibility, and later in the book he discusses the choices that violent people make and their inability to take responsibility for their actions. It's always the fault of someone else. I will definitely cover this in a later post.)

Writers can use this homicidal triad to create a believable background for an antagonist--or just hint at one. Remember, the presence of these three traits suggests violent behavior to come, but doesn't necessary have to lead there. Feel free to play with that little tidbit if you've got a younger male character in your book, or a set of brothers. But back to the point. Odds are, your antagonist (if he's male) displayed these three traits in his youth. That would all be backstory, and would have to be delivered to the reader in a non-information-dump method, but you're clever enough to pull that off. 

One last note on this triad: it applies to MALES. The vast majority of violent offenders are males. When a female kills, it's usually for very different reasons, and the triad does not apply. Maybe I'll cover this in a later post, too. 

-Sonja

Behavior Reflects Personality

I'm reading an awesome book called The Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker.

The tag line on the front says, "The FBI's legendary Mindhunter explores the key to understanding and catching violent criminals." This book belongs to my husband (he's a professional crime analyst and studies criminology in his spare time), so I don't have to worry about returning it to the library any time soon. The thing I love about this book is the potential wealth of information for writers of all genres. Suspense, Mystery, Fantasy, even Amish Historical writers could find something fascinating in this book to help create realistic, believable antagonists. I think I'll take my time studying the book and passing along some of the information I find.

One of the first things that stuck out in the prologue was this brief but powerful statement: "Behavior reflects personality." This sums up why men like Douglas and Olshaker can use their vast experience in dealing with predators/violent offenders to come up with incredibly accurate profiles. "Even though every crime is unique, behavior fits into certain patterns." Picking out the significant pieces of those patterns leads to knowledge about what's going on with a crime scene and answers question of WHY did they do this unspeakable thing. Knowing WHY and HOW leads to WHO. 

Writers can and should use this information when creating antagonists. While it's true that some people are just down-right evil and don't need any other motive beyond "I wanted to," most readers will demand a motive behind an act of violence.

When creating my antagonists, I work backward from the crime, which usually flows from the theme. For instance, one of my mysteries dealt with revenge as an act of love. It was basically the whole, "If I can't have you, no one can."  I didn't want to stick too close to that stereotype, so I had to add a twist or two, but that's a topic for another post. Back to the point. In my story, creating an arsonist for the antagonist wouldn't work. Nor would a rapist, or a spree killer, or a serial killer. My bad girl wasn't a sociopath. Immediately, the parameters of my story dictated what kind of person she wasn't, letting me fill in the interesting parts about who she was. There's a lot more to it than that (her background, her mental health, her relationship with friends/family, her choice of weapon, her choice of dump site, her personality traits, etc.), but her personality was reflected in the crime scenes, which led my detective back to her.

This stuff is fascinating to me. I have a feeling I'll be posting good stuff from this book for quite a while. Any comments? Questions? Examples to share?

-Sonja

 

Break-Taking

Most of my favorite writers hand out this free advice: "Write every day." Sometimes it's worded slightly differently, as in, "Set a word count goal for the week and make sure you hit it." The basic idea is called BIC: Butt in Chair. It's good advice. I try to make it happen every week. Like this:

 (This BIC photo courtesy of freedigitalphoto.net)

 

But sometimes it doesn't happen. I'm in the midst of a massive problem with my WIP (Work in Progress), and I haven't been able to think it through completely. I've got a handle on the problem, and know what needs to be done, but I'm not there yet. And today, instead of writing, I pulled up HULU and watched last night's episode of Dancing with the Stars. Do I feel guilty? No way! I have a sinking feeling if I'd sat down today to work on my story without knowing the direction I'm supposed to be going, I'd have gone in the wrong direction and written a bunch of words that I'd later have to delete. That wouldn't have been a bad thing either.

The point is, I made my decision and I'm not ashamed of it. However, if I make the same decision tomorrow, I'll probably regret it. That'd make Friday's word count goal pretty unobtainable. So I'll obey the BIC mandate tomorrow and get my problem fixed so I can continue writing. But when you need a break, don't feel guilty about taking it. Just don't take a really long one. 

-Sonja

A Peril of Plotting

I've admitted it before: I'm a plotter. I can't begin writing a story without knowing all the major pieces, especially the ending. In fact, knowing the ending helps me create the right character to play the part of hero.

But today I ran into a problem, and I'm fairly certain it has more to do with my linear thought process and elaborate plot than anything else. I got so excited about the ending, so in a hurry to get to that fabulous climatic scene, that I resolved too many issues too quickly. Now I'm sitting at 60,000 words and the climatic sequence has begun.

It's too soon. I didn't let the tension stew long enough, didn't let the hero suffer long enough in the trials and tribulations of Part 3 (The Attack), before moving into Part 4 (The Resolution).

So how do I fix it? I've got to back up and prolong the tension. I've got to let the hero suffer some more and delay his deliverance before he goes after the bad guy. There are plenty of ways to prolong suspense and tension in a story. I could...

1. Insert a ticking clock: something bad will happen by this time, and my hero is in a race against that clock.

2 Increase the stakes: now it's not just the hero who's in danger, but so is his lover, or partner, or best friend, or pet iguana. 

3. Insert an inability to take action: my hero knows what has to happen but is physically or psychologically incapable of doing what needs to be done.

4. Insert a new mystery: the hero knows what must happen, and knows he is capable of doing so, but then new information comes to him that negates all that positive "I can do it" stuff.

Is this problem unique to me, or have you ever run into this sort of difficulty while working on your first draft? I doubt I'm alone. Share your horror story in the comments section and tell me how you fixed it. 

-Sonja

Character Decisions

Writer Unboxed had an awesome blog post yesterday by Lisa Cron called "Does Your Protagonist Have Amnesia?" Check it out! It's about how your protagonist makes decisions based on his past and his motivations. It's a Must Read. Go now. Then come back when you're done and leave a comment.

 

-Sonja