Creating a bad guy is good fun. It’s often said that the antagonists in novels are the most enjoyable to write and often the readers’ favourite characters, and maybe that’s because it’s a matter of extremes. A good guy can have hidden depths and troubles, but he/she/they are almost always fighting these troubles and ensuring the depths don’t turn too cool and dark. A bad guy, on the other hand, will often plumb these darknesses for new depths of depravity and nastiness. Their extremes aren’t guidelines for them, but boundaries beyond which they’re eager and keen to push. On the page at least, embracing the dark rather than turning it away is fun.
In my new novel Secret Lives of the Dead I had so much fun creating my bad guy Lem that he became a main character in the novel. I was keen to give him a backstory that in part explains all the terrible things he does, and has done in his past, and to make this effective I wanted the reader to really empathise with him. Not to excuse what he does—I mean, he is a mean bastard—but perhaps to understand what drives him, whether it’s madness or fear, terror of the supernatural or the way his mind’s been corrupted and twisted from a young age.
And I think in Lem I’ve created one of my best antagonists, because despite all his heinous acts, he’s just so human.
Here are a few of the good bad guys I’ve enjoyed reading about in the past. I can’t say whether or not these influenced my creation of Lem directly, but we’re all a product of our experiences, and I’m sure these characters have homes in my brain, and sometimes I knock on their doors.
One of my favourites of all time is Randall Flagg, otherwise known as the Walking Dude, Stephen King’s main bad guy from his epic novel The Stand (this being Flagg’s first appearance, though he also features in other works of King’s, in his recognisable garb of worn cowboy boots, jeans and denim jacket, or otherwise). Flagg is all-out evil incarnate, the human form of something very inhuman. His aim is chaos. Charming, charismatic, magnetic, a voice in the night for those struggling with darkness, he displays some very human characteristics before occasionally revealing his true, dreadful face. It’s this faux humanity that makes him so compelling, and when I re-read the novel and know what’s coming (I reckon I’ve read The Stand five or six times), Flagg is even more chilling. It’s the little details that really work for me… the button badges, the pockets full of flyers from theatre groups. His presence haunts every chapter of that novel, and many stories that King told afterwards. Sometimes when I close my eyes at night, I heard the click of worn bootheels…
From an evil that gives itself a human manifestation, to an entity that is much more ambiguous, and utterly terrifying because of that. It’s not often that I actually get scared reading a novel, but Incidents Around the House by the brilliant Josh Malerman gave me the genuine heebie-jeebies, and Other Mommy has taken up permanent residence in my brain. Even as I was typing that last sentence I glanced at my word count and it was, of course, 666. Was that Other Mommy I heard chuckling over my shoulder? Perhaps. I sure as hell don’t want to look. A tease, a deceiver, she preys on poor Bela’s fears, both ephemeral and physical, and asks ‘Can I go inside your heart?’, and in doing so becomes one of the most terrifying antagonists in horror literature. The cliché of ‘don’t under the bed or in that half-open wardrobe’ has been shaken apart by Malerman and reassembled into a modern and dread-inducing horror. Other Mommy will appear on a screen near you sometime soon… and I’m not sure I can bear it.
Someone more distinctly human next, and I give no apology for revisiting the master. Annie Wilkes from Stephen King’s Misery (still one of his most harrowing novels), is a nurse with obsessive tendencies. Specifically, she’s obsessed with Misery Chastain, a character created by writer Paul Sheldon. Indeed, she’s his number one fan. When she rescues a badly-wounded Sheldon from a car wreck and starts to nurse him back to health, he comes to discover how deranged she is. Behind her cheery facade she’s devious and cruel, quickly resorting to violence if she thinks Paul is offending her or complaining too much about how she’s treating him. He builds a portrait of her madness, and quickly realises that this madness goes beyond conflating the real world with the world within his books. When he finds her scrapbook and learns about her murderous past, he knows he has to escape, whatever the cost. And the cost is some of his body parts. Wilkes is horrifying because of her own beliefs that she’s normal, or even good. In her world it’s Paul Sheldon who’s the ‘dirty bird’. The book’s chilling, but Kathy Bates’ performance in the film version haunts my nightmares. Especially every time I finish a new novel.
I’m vegetarian now, and maybe Hannibal Lecter is partly responsible. We all know him… hyper-intelligent, erudite, extremely well-read, cultured and refined, and a man who values good manners, he also murders people and eats them. Often with a fine wine. Perhaps inspired by real life serial killers, Lecter is fascinating because he seems so sure of himself and in control. A childhood trauma is alluded to, but in reality he’s simply a man born wrong, with no guilt or compassion for his victims. For me, it’s his refinement that makes him so terrifying. He shouldn’t be like he is. He’s too intelligent for that. But he’s a serial killer unlike most others in literature, treating his murders as emotionless processes. I’d bet his heart-rate rarely raises when he kills (and upon typing this line, I realise that’s one thing he has in common with my antagonist Lem). Upon first meeting Lecter you might be impressed by his mind and the way he presents himself, but never consider yourself an old friend of his, or he’ll have you for dinner.
These are just a handful of my favourite bad guys. I’m sure some of you have met one or all of them, and now I hope you’ll be ready to make Lem’s acquaintance in Secret Lives of the Dead. He might not smile very much, and those tattoos he wears hide past deeds that you’re best not knowing about. My best advice if you do meet Lem in a pub… walk the other way. Otherwise once he’s whispered his secrets to you, there’s a good chance he’ll never let you go.
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