It's actually not day 5 at all. I've been ill for a few days and unable to write anything meaningful but here I go again, picking up the baton and carrying on.
The story so far...
I'm up to 7300 words, have sorted out some plot problems and have a clearer sense of direction. Problems to solve today - my inability to write an 'evil' murderer. I have a problem with the word as either a noun or adjective and don't believe in it as a personality trait. I think it's an abstract concept that people buy into because it represents power and permission to perform acts that most of us find heinous, an irredeemable force that exists to lure us to our damnation and makes no apology for itself. It's a word that the media and church use to describe abominable acts perpetrated by people they set apart from the rest of us. Demonizing them makes us feel comfortable and safe because if we thought that someone we knew, or worse, someone like us could do that, where would that leave us?
I'm a baby boomer and growing up in the 50s and 60s was subjected to all the media manipulation of what 'good' and 'bad', 'attractive' and 'unattractive' was meant to be at that time. Women were meant to be good home makers, slim, always looking nice for their man when he came home. Men were supposed to be rugged, provide for their families and if they strayed from home then the 'little woman' was obviously to blame. She would alter her ways to make herself more acceptable to him, he'd forgive her and so harmony would be restored. We had cinema images that told us what to aspire towards and rarely did the whore with a golden heart win the man, or the hunchback get the girl. These were the 'good guys' and people who indulged in criminal activities were 'dirty rats', those who murdered were 'evil'. Sorted.
Unfortunately I had a problem with this script for life. I always sided with the underdog, brought home all sorts of strays and runaways and joined 'causes'. But it was during my literature degree I really started questioning what, exactly, 'evil' was. To me it was the politicians and war-mongerers, (I was into CND and anti-Vietnam marches) the scientists who'd developed the atom bomb, the KKK, or the police who attacked peaceful protesters on civil rights marches. It's easy to slap a label like that on something or someone you see as committing unconscionable acts, less comfortable to try to go below the surface and understand who these people were, why they did or believed in those things.
Stephen King wrote:
''Fiction is a lie, good fiction is the truth inside the lie''
Macbeth is a good example of this. At the beginning he's a well-respected warrior who goes on to murder his king, a man who loves him and has heaped honours on him. He then, to cover up the murder, has his best friend assassinated, then the whole family of his rival. Each act he commits is more heinous than the next, but what Shakespeare does is to show us a glimpse of the great man he used to be, right at the end. When there's no way out and he becomes aware the witches have tricked him, instead of running away he stays and fights. He doesn't beg or surrender, he fights to his last breath, like the great warrior he used to be. And even Lady Macbeth is shown to have redeeming traits when in her sleepwalking scene she shows her love and worry about her husband when she tries to lead him to bed. The truth within the lie is that there are always redeeming features - even Hitler loved.
My current problem with my murderer is that in providing him with a 'reason' for him to start committing the murders I have too much sympathy for him. I want my readers to understand his initial motivation but to be glad when he's caught and gets what he deserves. However, having too much sympathy for him is interfering with the plot. I have to be able to show how that man is capable of committing the acts he does and at the moment it's not realistic. So that's the problem for today. Now I've just got to find a way of sorting it out.
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