Tag Archives: Hannibal Lecter

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Writing Tip #98

Because I’m bad, I’m bad… Or am I? I just watched the first four episodes of Season 1 of Breaking Bad, the critically acclaimed AMC program starring Bryan Cranston who plays science teacher turned meth maker Walter White. I know I’m late to the party, about 40 or so episodes behind the rest of the world, but I’d heard so many good things about this program that my husband and I decided to watch it from the beginning.

Just a few minutes into the first episode, I knew the show was for me. I’m a sucker for good characters who do bad things and, conversely, bad characters who do good things, characters who make you feel ambivalent, who make you question why you’re rooting for them or why you’re making excuses for them like a mother who pleads with the authorities that her murderous son is really “a good boy.” Tony Soprano was one of those characters. Hannibal Lecter also comes to mind. And this was the kind of bad guy I was trying to create with Don Bailino, who is the villain of my debut novel Baby Grand — one that kept readers on their toes, hating him in one chapter, liking him the next and, perhaps, not liking themselves just a tiny bit for liking for him. I find these kind of characters to be compelling, human, relatable, perhaps even sympathetic.

“You can see why he became a meth dealer,” my husband said about Walter White. “Because now that he knows he has lung cancer and only a year or so to live he needs to provide for his family.”

“I get it,” I said. “But that still doesn’t excuse him from what he’s done. He just choked a man to death and told his sidekick how to use chemicals to get rid of the body of the other guy he killed in the trailer explosion. He chose this road. Nobody chose it for him.”

“So you’re not rooting for him, I guess?” he said.

“No, I am,” I said with a smile.

What on earth would make him think I wasn’t? :)

Who is your favorite bad guy of literature, television or film?

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The Not So Silence of the Lambs

So I’m reading a thriller titled Fallen by Karin Slaughter…

And there’s a scene where a FBI-type must go to a prison and visit a particularly heinous guy who is in isolation — a gloomy little section of the prison that the author calls, and what many other books/television shows call, “the hole.” The warden of the hospital is giving the guy a rundown of what to do and not to do during his visit — don’t get too close, keep your back to the wall, duck if something is thrown at you, do this, don’t do that, blah, blah.

As I’m reading, the scene is blatantly familiar. I mean, smack-in-the-face familiar. The feel of the prison. The detailed instructions. The maniacal inmate. I thought to myself, “This is practically The Silence of the Lambs.” I kept reading and wondered if the author even realized the obvious similarities. I mean, if she had, then that’s a problem, no? And if she hadn’t, wasn’t that too a problem?

And then just as I was about to throw my hands up in frustration, another detective said to the first detective in jest, “Quid pro quo, Clarice.”

“Aha” was my first thought! I wasn’t crazy after all. There was a similarity. And the author is totally aware. Whew.

And then I thought about how interesting a technique that was for her to use. A moment of levity that acknowledged, Yes, I know what this sounds like… I wondered at what point she realized that what she was writing resembled the famous Thomas Harris novel. Had she known it all along? Midway? Had she intended it that way? Or at what point did she decide to pay homage to The Silence of the Lambs rather than scrap that portion of the chapter or rewrite it in a way that wasn’t a near-replication.

These are the kinds of choices writers make. And I think in this case, it worked. Still, I wondered if I would have made the same choice. Would you have?

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Villains: Likable or Hateable?

@smitheclaire asked an interesting question on Twitter yesterday: Is it better to have a likable or hateable villain in your story?

The question made me think, of course, of Hannibal Lecter, Thomas Harris’ cannibalistic bad guy who somehow gets us to not only like him but root for him. That’s quite an achievement for a writer, creating a sympathetic and relatable villain. But there’s also something to be said for those villains who are bad through and through — I can think of several James Patterson bad guys who still give me the creeps after 20 years. That’s quite an achievement as well.

Likable or hateable? What do you think?