Tag Archives: criminals

“Fear and Intrigue: The Perfect Marriage” by Kerry G.S. Lipp

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WHY DO CRIMINALS FASCINATE US SO MUCH?

I’ve asked a number of authors I admire to answer the same question–why do criminals fascinate us so much?–and I will be posting each response here on my blog. It’s a question all writers–especially crime writers–should consider every once in a while. In my debut novel, Toxicity, I’ve dug deep into the minds of criminals. I have written about the bad guys. The ones we love but hate at the same time. If you haven’t purchased a copy yet, I highly recommend you doing so for purely selfish reasons.

And now that you’ve done that, we will pass the time hearing what other writers in the industry have to say about the posed question.

After an unjustified delay, I bring this series of articles back with Kerry G.S. Lipp’s fantastic essay that will probably hit us all hard, considering recent events in Isla Vista.

Kerry teaches English at a community college by evening and writes horrible things by night. He hates the sun. His parents started reading his stories and now he’s out of the will.  Kerry’s work appears in several anthologies including DOA2 from Blood Bound Books and Attack of the B-Movie Monsters from Grinning Skull Press. His story “Smoke” was adapted for podcast via The Wicked Library episode 213, and pioneered TWL’s inaugural explicit content warning.  He’s pretty proud of that.  KGSL blogs at www.HorrorTree.com and will launch his own website www.newworldhorror.com sometime before he dies. Say hi on Twitter @kerrylipp or his Facebook page:  New World Horror – Kerry G.S. Lipp.

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Fear and Intrigue: The Perfect Marriage

By Kerry G.S. Lipp

 

I think I was about 13 or 14, I can’t remember my age, but I do remember walking through Waldenbooks (do they even still have those?) in a mall and seeing a display of true crime books.  One caught my eye.  A simple cover, a black background with screaming red capital letters.  The title was Helter Skelter.  The subtitle was: The True Story of the Manson Murders.

I read that book, read it twice actually, within a couple years.  As a naïve barely-teenager, I went in totally blind.  Sure, I’d heard of Charles Manson before, but like most people, or at least most uneducated in the school of serial killers, (however you choose to define the term) I assumed he was like the most brutal killer of all time or something.  I based that assumption solely on the social stigma attached to him.

What I learned was that, at least according to Helter Skelter, he wasn’t exactly a murderer.  There was a hell of a lot more to the story.  Looking back on it now, I realize that it’s all about the story.

Everything is about the story.

Which is why every time something violent or crazy happens in America there are rampant conspiracy theories and “documentaries” immediately posted to YouTube.  We love our stories.  And we love making stories even if there isn’t much of one.  Especially the violent ones.  There’s always an angle and no matter how absurd, people will be interested.

There are a million elements to the Tate/LaBianca murders.  Manson, his followers, his ties with different musicians, his theories on race, drugs, authority, Spahn Ranch, how the whole thing unraveled over the years and the list goes on and on.  It’s as complex as any fiction out there.  But this, ladies and gentlemen, ain’t no fiction. This, this is reality.

And reality is more terrifying than werewolves or swamp monsters or any other dreamy bullshit.  I often hear people argue while trying to define horror or terror.  I’ve got a solution to that.  Get a time machine and live in Los Angeles at the beginning of August in 1969.  People in that area at that time know a thing or two about terror.  A gorgeous, pregnant, young movie star and a house full of quasi-celebrities one night.  Some normal folks the next night.  Both murder scenes chock full of undeniable similarities.  Utterly chilling.

Bring it forward to the present.  If you’re anything like me, you followed the Boston Marathon bombing and the subsequent manhunt about a year ago.

More horror, more terror, but it was hard to look away from it all wasn’t it?  Everyone watched!  It was the first manhunt captured on live television.  At least I think it was, and we all ate it up.

Go look at some of the pictures of Boston, one of the busiest cities in America and then go look at pictures during the manhunt.  It’s a ghost town.  I get a sense of dread just looking at those pictures.

This is something that books and movies can’t quite recreate because as horrible and scary as books and movies might be, they are safe.  You can close them or turn them off at any moment.  I suppose you can do the same with true crime, but it’s still a part of your world, your reality, and you never really know who’s on the other side of your front door do you?   Better keep reading, keep watching, just to be sure they got the guy.

Right?

It’s manufactured entertainment.  While true crime might be entertaining, it’s also real. The stories in the here and now like Sandy Hook and Aurora, Colorado remind you that it’s real.  And it scares you and it breaks your heart and it pisses you off.  Sadly, you never know what’s coming next, at least not in America.  Just when you think you’ve seen everything, some fucking lunatic will show you something new and leave you wondering why.

There’s a sense of intrigue here.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we’ve probably all dreamed of shooting up a building or setting off a bomb.  You can disagree with me here, but I don’t believe most of you.  We’ve all seen how people have done it and wondered, in the safety of our own minds, just how we might do it, where we might do it, and how we might do it better.  But it’s safe because we know we’d never act on it.

Here lies the reason that we are so attracted to reading and watching stories about violence, murder, crime, terrorism and tragedy.

We’ve all THOUGHT about it, even if only for a fleeting moment.  Ever play a video game? I’ve heard games called a controlled murder fantasy, and I’m cool with that.  Fine.  I enjoy them.  The more violent the better.

Hell, like those video game designers and those moviemakers, us fiction writers have even planned it ourselves and ordered our characters to carry it out for us. But these sick, real world motherfuckers are actually following through.

Why?  What’s the difference between them and us?  What exactly have they done? How did they do it? Why did they do it? Etc. Etc.

And as soon as the first shot is fired, the hypnotic media makes it irresistible to look away.  Fear sells and so does intrigue, just go look at how movie trailers are put together, and the news has done a fantastic job of marrying fear and intrigue to the brilliant point where a simple red font on a black book cover with a catchy hook can suck the average person into devouring 800 or so pages of Helter Skelter or a million other true crime books.  And that’s just reading.  The sensational headlines of Fox or CNN or whatever require zero effort.  Murder documentaries are all over prime time television.  Lay on the couch, eat chips and try and stay awake as they interview victims and bring in “experts” to speculate motives.  It’s hard to get away from this stuff, so we find a way to enjoy it.

The news pulls us in with it every day and I guess in a way I’m glad, because I can read it and watch it and wonder how I would do it if it were me.

But it never will be.

Jesus, I’ve never even shot a gun and about shit my pants when someone let me hold an unloaded one for the first time.

So instead, I give that to my characters for an hour or two a day and pray that someday I write something good enough, scary enough, and honest enough that it can compete with the cutthroat reality constantly shoved into our faces and so hard-wired into our brains that we seek it out for pleasure.

And when it’s a slow day for news we’ve got all kinds of books, movies, and games to, as Stephen King eloquently puts it in an old essay, “keep the gators fed.”

“Why are we Creatures with Madness at the Center of our Hearts?” by Billie Sue Mosiman

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WHY DO CRIMINALS FASCINATE US SO MUCH?

I’ve asked a number of authors I admire to answer the same question–why do criminals fascinate us so much?–and I will be posting each response here on my blog. It’s a question all writers–especially crime writers–should consider every once in a while. In my debut novel, Toxicity, I’ve dug deep into the minds of criminals. I have written about the bad guys. The ones we love but hate at the same time. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, I highly recommend you doing so for purely selfish reasons.

And now that you’ve done that, we will pass the time hearing what other writers in the industry have to say about the posed question.

Today the great Billie Sue Mosiman drops by my blog. Mosiman is a published author of fifteen novels and more than 160 short stories. She is an Edgar and Stoker Nominee. Her new suspense novel, THE GREY MATTER, is due out from Post Mortem Press in April/May 2014.

What do you have for us today, Billie Sue?

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“Why do criminals fascinate us so much?”

The question might as well be, “Why are we creatures with madness at the center of our hearts?”

Humans are made of light and darkness with the potential for creating great altruistic deeds and, at the other end of the spectrum, despicable acts of pure evil. I think criminals fascinate us so much because we could be one, just as we could be a hero or a saint. We have inside of us the seeds of both destruction and elevation to the height of the best of our species. Just as a cat will purr in the arms of its owner, so will a cat slip out the open door and stalk a mouse, play with it, and in the end break its neck. Most of us do not become criminals, though nearly everyone commits lesser deeds in his life that he’d rather not confess.

Yet as we read of criminals in fiction or non-fiction, as we watch films portraying criminals, we know (if we’re honest) that there but for the grace of God we walk. I explore this dichotomy in the human soul often in my own works. Some of the more interesting and entertaining pieces of art show us just how dark the heart can beat. As we consider criminal activity we are able to ask ourselves, “Would I do that?”

Let’s say there is a bag left on the park bench where we go to have a sack lunch. We notice the bag, we look around for the bag’s owner, wondering if someone accidentally left it behind. What might be in it? What if we open the bag and inside are dozens of packets of hundred dollar bills? There’s no name, no address, no indication who this bag might belong to. We might take that bag and turn it into a police station so it can be returned to the rightful owner. Or…we might simply pick up the bag and walk away. In a split second many people who have never attempted a criminal act might decide to commit one at that moment. Would you do that? What if you needed the money, needed it so desperately you can’t help stealing it? What if your loved one is dying without health coverage and isn’t getting treatment that might save his life because of a lack of money? What if your child is in danger in some way and a great deal of money will save him? Would you take the money then?

I submit we are weak creatures with wayward hearts and we don’t always know what we might do under pressure or during devastating periods of our lives. We too might become criminals. I think that’s why they fascinate us. Because we know that person and that person could be us. We might attend church, we might worship devotedly our God, we might never have done a wrong thing in our lives until one day…we do.

Yes, I think criminals fascinate us because even if we aren’t criminal and never intend to be, there are circumstances in life that could turn us as quickly as a cloud scuttling across a thunderous sky. Most of all we ask ourselves, as we read about criminals or watch criminals in dramas, “Could that be me, would I ever do that? Surely, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I am a good person, a law-abiding person.”

We are, of course, law-abiding.

Until we aren’t.

“A Crippling Case of the Fuckits” by Patrick Freivald

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WHY DO CRIMINALS FASCINATE US SO MUCH?

I’ve asked a number of authors I admire to answer the same question–why do criminals fascinate us so much?–and I will be posting each response here on my blog. It’s a question all writers–especially crime writers–should consider every once in a while. In my debut novel, Toxicity, I’ve dug deep into the minds of criminals. I have written about the bad guys. The ones we love but hate at the same time. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, I highly recommend you doing so for purely selfish reasons.

And now that you’ve done that, we will pass the time hearing what other writers in the industry have to say about the posed question.

Today Patrick Freivald drops by my blog with a crippling case of the fuckits.

Patrick Freivald is an author, high school teacher (physics, robotics, American Sign Language), and beekeeper. He lives in Western New York with his beautiful wife, two birds, three dogs, too many cats, and several million stinging insects. A book reviewer for BuyZombie.com and a member of the HWA and ITW, he’s always had a soft spot for slavering monsters of all kinds.

He is the author of Twice Shy, Special Dead, Blood List (with his twin brother Phil), and the forthcoming Jade Sky, as well as the novella Love Bites, a growing legion of short stories, and an as-yet untitled graphic novella (with Joe McKinney) for Dark Discoveries magazine. There will be more.

What do you have to say today, Patrick?

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Why do criminals fascinate us so much?

Let’s approach this not only from the most jaded position in existence, but the most jaded principle possible: that of a high school teacher.

Have you ever actually listened to “Hot for Teacher”? As in, like, actually listened to the lyrics with an ear for understanding where the (ahem) artists are coming from, man? Because if you have, you don’t need a lesson on the fascination of criminal behavior, your apotheosis is already complete.

Novelty feeds the brain seratonin and dopamine—the only two things you’ve ever enjoyed—and nothing is less novel than staying within the lines. Those who do as they should, stay within the law, and comport themselves as upstanding citizens are wonderful and vital to society, but they’re also dull. There’s never been a newsworthy story about a person who effectively managed their time to maximize their efficiency at work, and thus truly earned their paycheck.

And there won’t be.

Criminals buck the system, and as much as we hate to admit it, back-talk and spitballs and flouting your homework is “cool”. Getting thrown out of class is cool. Cherry bombs in the toilet are cool. They’re not cool because you’ll end up an uneducated loser who hates his job and life up until it ends in poverty and misfortune, it’s cool because you’re giving a double-middle-finger to the man. It’s cool because it doesn’t take too much imagination to rob a liquor store or sell meth.

Anybody can do it; but not anybody dares.

Criminality takes a certain combination of chutzpah and stupidity that we can’t help but admire. The phrase, “I’d rather be bad than dumb” comes up a lot in teaching circles, and as a truism it hits the mark rather too well. If you’re not good at something productive, constructive, interesting, and intelligent, you can always be good at being bad. Chick’s will dig it—not all chicks (like maybe not the ones who don’t want to be called “chicks”)—but the ones willing to be bad with you will.

We like criminals even though we go apoplectic when they exercise their criminality on our persons or property, or on our loved ones. (Or on the chairs/tables/lab equipment in our classrooms.) We like them because sometimes we’d like to flip that double-middle-finger. Sometimes we’d like to develop a crippling case of the fuckits and just go do whatever we want and damn the consequences. But most of us don’t, because we have some capacity to think long-term, and long-term we recognize the value of playing by the rules, not just out of self-interest, but because of those emotions and notions all-too-human: duty, honor, respect, loyalty, friendship.

But even so, we always admire those who do what we can’t or won’t. Even when we shouldn’t.

“Anyone Can Commit a Crime” by Marshall Stein

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WHY DO CRIMINALS FASCINATE US SO MUCH?

I’ve asked a number of authors I admire to answer the same question–why do criminals fascinate us so much?–and I will be posting each response here on my blog. It’s a question all writers–especially crime writers–should consider every once in a while. In my debut novel, Toxicity, I’ve dug deep into the minds of criminals. I have written about the bad guys. The ones we love but hate at the same time. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, I highly recommend you doing so for purely selfish reasons.

And now that you’ve done that, we will pass the time hearing what other writers in the industry have to say about the posed question.

Today Mr. Marshall Stein drops by my blog with his take on the subject. Stein is a retired lawyer. Early in his career he was an Assistant United States Attorney in Boston, and later served as the Chief Staff Attorney for the First Circuit Court of Appeals. During 28 years in private practice Marshall has tried both civil and criminal cases and argued appeals in state and federal courts on every level. Since retiring from his law practice Marshall has been selected for master level fiction workshops at Grub Street Writers in Boston, Massachusetts. He currently lives in suburban Boston with his wife. His novel, Rage Begets Murder, is currently available from Post Mortem Press.

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“Anyone Can Commit a Crime”

by Marshall Stein

There are many kinds of criminals: some are losers, ending up dead or in jail; some are wealthy, escaping punishment for years or forever; others commit unforgivable acts, and we struggle with what is the appropriate punishment; others we know only through their crimes, like following footprints in the snow where we never catch up with who made them. Some hold themselves out as Robin Hoods or Freedom Fighters, committing crimes in the name of the common good. The one thing they all share is the commission of a crime. That’s where the fascination begins.

To commit a crime is to exercise power over others in an act of destruction, leaving aside for the moment that it is also likely to destroy the criminal. The power of harm fascinates us. While some have power other than through crime, very few do. There are only so many Bill Gates or Warren Buffets, only one sitting U.S. President, only a handful of Nobel laureates, etc. But anyone can commit a crime. The weakest, the poorest, the least gifted, anyone has the capacity to destroy something: to take a life, to set fire to a building, to rob, to do something that creates harm. That is what draws our attention, makes our palms itch. Each of the different criminals fascinates in different ways. Professor Moriarty by his intellect; the Butcher Boy by his unlimited violence; the Boston Marathon terrorists by the unforeseeability of turning a festive sports event into pools of blood and body parts. But all of them fascinate by their power to harm.

Once focused on this power to harm, it becomes irresistible to try to figure out why a particular criminal acted as she/he did: for money, for anger, to follow what the voices in his head commanded; to try to sooth an unhealable pain, to have a moment of control in a life without control. The need to figure out what caused the criminal to act provides us with the illusion that there is reason and order in the world. Sometimes it is the mirror of what motivated the criminal’s need to be seen in a world in which he is otherwise invisible.

It is no accident that there are so many crimes, often murder, described in the canonical books of Western civilization, whether it is Cain and Abel or Clytemnestra and Agamemnon.

“Writing about Criminals” by T. Fox Dunham

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WHY DO CRIMINALS FASCINATE US SO MUCH?

I’ve asked a number of authors I admire to answer the same question–why do criminals fascinate us so much?–and I will be posting each response here on my blog. It’s a question all writers–especially crime writers–should consider every once in a while. In my debut novel, Toxicity, I’ve dug deep into the minds of criminals. I have written about the bad guys. The ones we love but hate at the same time. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, I highly recommend you doing so for purely selfish reasons.

And now that you’ve done that, we will pass the time hearing what other writers in the industry have to say about the posed question.

Today some bastard named T. Fox Dunham takes over my blog. Fox resides outside of Philadelphia PA. His first novel The Street Martyr was published by Gutter Books this October, followed Professional Detachment, a literary erotica from Bitten Press. He’s a cancer survivor. His friends call him fox, being his totem animal, and his motto is: Wrecking civilization one story at a time. Site: www.tfoxdunham.com.  Twitter: @TFoxDunham

What the hell did you have to say then, Fox?

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“Writing about Criminals”

T. Fox Dunham

(With Louie Fedder –Imagined Criminal Pug-Asshole)

I selected a crime story as my first novel, The Street Martyr, because I needed characters that would act outside of the law, the social compact that we all sign when we are born into a civilization: Respect each other’s shit. Don’t stab someone in the heart. Pay taxes. We all spin round the merry-go-round together with shit-eating-grins. I was doing quite well as a horror author before I turned to crime writing, and I made this change because I had a philosophical requirement to employ literary devices that represented the themes and causes I needed to represent in my art. I’m a Bard. Writing is a spiritual mission for me, one to aid and heal and help. Horror couldn’t do this for me as well as literary-crime writing.

“Won’t you shut the fuck up?” Louie just said to me, clutching his metal bar in the pocket of his green Eagle’s hoodie. “Always fucking talking, but you don’t say shit.”

I look at him and ask him: “All right asshole. Why am I always writing about you two jerk-offs?”

“Because we’re rebels, heroes. Robin ‘Fucking’ Hood.”

“Robin ‘Fucking Hood,’” I asked. “When the hell did you ever give something back?”

“We’re the assholes doing the stuff everyone wishes they could. We break society’s rules. We fuck up the system. Working stiffs have protect the shit they got. But we stick a cactus up the government’s ass. People love to read about us. They want to be us, but they’ve got families and cars and shit.”

“I don’t want to be you,” I said.

“And you need us to do the necessary evil against evil. Like you did in that shitty book you wrote about us.”

“I did need you. There is evil in the world that is protected by a fair and balanced system. Our law and order paradigm punishes, but it’s often too late. People are hurt. The damage is done. And often the offender is free to wound again. We don’t live in a perfect world, and at least in our stories we control the villains. You possess a freedom most of us do not possess, and you risk your own freedom for it. You have torn up the social compact . . .”

“And wiped our asses with it.”

“High Pay Out, Low Risk, and Rules Are Stupid” by Jay Wilburn

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WHY DO CRIMINALS FASCINATE US SO MUCH?

I’ve asked a number of authors I admire to answer the same question–why do criminals fascinate us so much?–and I will be posting each response here on my blog. It’s a question all writers–especially crime writers–should consider every once in a while. In my debut novel, Toxicity, I’ve dug deep into the minds of criminals. I have written about the bad guys. The ones we love but hate at the same time. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, I highly recommend you doing so for purely selfish reasons.

And now that you’ve done that, we will pass the time hearing what other writers in the industry have to say about the posed question.

Today Jay Wilburn stopped by to talk about this subject. To be honest, I didn’t ask him for his opinion. I just woke up today with an email from him that said “Post the attached document on your blog or I’ll blow up your house”. So I guess that’s what I’m doing. He also wrote, in the email: “If 50,000 people don’t buy my new horror novel, Time Eaters, I will blow up the planet. They have until tomorrow morning.”

Uh, um, well…

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“High Pay Out, Low Risk, And Rules Are Stupid”

by Jay Wilburn

I’m a fairly ethical person by nature or by repeated choice. I appear to be so on the surface by most people that pass through my life. I’m even Biblically sound by a surface evaluation. I h

ave never drunk alcohol, smoked, or used illicit drugs ever in my life. That’s impressive even to other Baptists. The Internet porn and dirty horror stories probably cancel it out, but who knows?

After a few traumatic incidents peppered throughout my life, I spent a little time in therapy. Without going into too much detail, my therapist proposed the theory that I had a highly functioning borderline personality disorder. He even went so far as to say that the terms psychopath and sociopath are not really used that often anymore. I score borderline on all those quick evaluations for those personality issues.

I apparently have used my personal fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible as a code of rules and ethics to keep myself out of trouble. It turns out this is more of an intellectual practice for me than it is a feeling of doing what is right or wrong. If my former therapist was right, it would be very easy for me to flip a switch and do wrong. I suppose that is true of everyone in degrees.

I think about turning criminal a lot. I’m no great fan of authority or government involvement. I have heavy libertarian tendencies, but I also have a darkness in me that wants to see the system collapse. I’m too lazy to turn anarchist or revolutionary, but I have an intellectual curiosity about disorder.

I spend a lot of time thinking about getting away with crimes and these thought experiments lead to stories. Part of it is just the thrill of living outside of rules that bind others. Some of it comes from the possibility of getting money that will provide the lifestyle we want or dream of having.

The trick is having a crime that provides high pay out for low risk. The truth is that most criminals are willing to take higher risk and sometimes for lower pay out than many would risk from the world of rule followers. If we look on criminal achievement with disdain or even jealousy, we must remember that we don’t do what they do so we don’t get what they get.

When we read about a Mexican drug lord conquering Chicago and the entire Midwest, a part of us wants to twist the storyline into an antihero that beat the system. We despise the man and everything he stands for, of course, but we picture ourselves being part of a world that far outside the rules with everything that might come with those possibilities.

One has to wonder. But when you are done wondering, remember to behave yourself.

Talking Crime with Jonathan Maberry

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WHY DO CRIMINALS FASCINATE US SO MUCH?

I’ve asked a number of authors I admire to answer the same question–why do criminals fascinate us so much?–and I will be posting each response here on my blog. It’s a question all writers–especially crime writers–should consider every once in a while. In my debut novel, Toxicity, I’ve dug deep into the minds of criminals. I have written about the bad guys. The ones we love but hate at the same time. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, I highly recommend you doing so for purely selfish reasons.

And now that you’ve done that, we will pass the time hearing what other writers in the industry have to say about the posed question.

Today I am honored to have Mr. Jonathan Maberry himself stop by with his thoughts on the subject. For those who aren’t aware of Maberry’s work, shame on you. Maberry is a New York Times bestselling author of too many books to name here. Just go over to his Amazon page and buy everything.

All right, Jonathan. Take it away.

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Why do criminals fascinate us so much?

We are not naturally moral beings. Morality is something we’ve acquired in order to live together in meaningful and productive groups. Society and civilization are byproducts of our desire to overcome our natural predatory and inherently selfish emotions. Laws were created to enforce these ‘agreements’. Over the centuries we’ve come to value those rules and laws, and we view adherence to ethical codes as proof of an evolved and civilized mind.

That said, many people wonder what it would be like to live outside of those laws. We imagine it as being something liberating and empowering. Those fantasies often omit the elements of guilt, shame, compassion for victims, and so on.

Other folks are fascinated by those things they don’t understand. If they are staunchly moral people they may view lawbreakers and villains as totally alien. It’s as interesting as reading about life on an distant world or in another age of our own world. When folks like this read fiction, often they are disturbed by what these criminals do (even while being fascinated) but instead of secretly wanting to be a criminal, they want to see those criminals get their comeuppance.

People who have been victimized, or who have felt deep emotional connections to victims, often want to see harsh justice in popular fiction. The real world doesn’t often provide satisfying conclusions. Fiction does.

“I Think I’m Trying to Say Something About the Duality of Man, SIR!” by Kit Power

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WHY DO CRIMINALS FASCINATE US SO MUCH?

I’ve asked a number of authors I admire to answer the same question–why do criminals fascinate us so much?–and I will be posting each response here on my blog. It’s a question all writers–especially crime writers–should consider every once in a while. In my debut novel, Toxicity, I’ve dug deep into the minds of criminals. I have written about the bad guys. The ones we love but hate at the same time. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, I highly recommend you doing so for purely selfish reasons.

And now that you’ve done that, we will pass the time hearing what other writers in the industry have to say about the posed question.

Today we have Kit Power. Mr. Power lives in the UK and writes fiction that lurks at the boundaries of the horror, fantasy, and thriller genres, trying to bum a smoke or hitch a ride from the unwary. His debut e-novellla ‘The Loving Husband and the Faithful Wife’ (plus short story ‘The Debt’) contains copious criminal activities, and is now available. His short stories also appear in anthologies published by MonkeyKettle Books and Burnt Offering Books – the latter tale is also non-supernatural horror featuring a criminal act.

He can be found on Facebook and blogs weekly at http://kitpowerwriter.blogspot.co.uk/.

In his secret alter ego of Kit Gonzo, he also performs as front man (and occasionally blogs) for death cult and popular beat combo The Disciples Of Gonzo, www.disciplesofgonzo.com.

Watcha got for us today, Kit?

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“I Think I’m Trying to Say Something About the Duality of Man, SIR!”

by Kit Power

why do criminals fascinate us so much?

Such a great question! I’m going to rephrase it – why do criminals fascinate me so much?

Let’s back up one more step – do criminals fascinate me?

Of the twenty five stories I’ve written in the last eighteen months, eighteen contain criminals or criminal activity, often pretty serious crimes of violence and/or murder.

I’d say that’s a yes. Okay, so what the hell?

I think of myself as a non-supernatural horror writer, in that I tend to write about what scares me, and most of what scares me exists in the real world in one form or another. I’m not against the genre of supernatural horror at all, I read there widely and even visit on occasion – it’s just not where my muse seems to spend a lot of time.

Given that, the attraction of crime seems obvious. Crime is dangerous, inherently transgressive in nature, a breaking of the societal covenant. We make things criminal, in large part, because we don’t want them to happen to us. We don’t want to be beaten, or stabbed, or robbed or locked into the trunk of a car and driven into a lake (say), so we make those things illegal.

It follows pretty logically then that those same transgressions are ripe and fertile grounds for drama.

There’s something else though, and that’s the inherent tension between our desires to be governed by laws on a societal basis (and for other people to obey them) and for our own desires to act on… well, our desires – to exact ‘justice’ (or as it’s more commonly known, revenge). Jodie Foster in The Brave One and Charles Bronson in Deathwish are both clearly engaged in criminal activities (for that matter, so is Dirty Harry and Mel Gibson’s Riggs in Lethal Weapon – two vigilantes with badges), yet we by and large cheer them, because in transgressing the law, they give is what we think we want – primal revenge on those that wronged us. And let’s not forget that even the great Sherlock Holmes managed on at least one occasion to allow an avowed murderer to go unpunished – with the stated approval of the archetypal Victorian gentleman Dr. Watson.

So criminals are fascinating for two reasons – we ‘like’ the vigilante who takes justice into their own hands (especially when said vigilante is perceived to have been failed by a corrupt or ineffective system) and we love to hate Hannibal Lecter, Mickey and Mallory, and the whole colourful cast of psychos, villains and gangsters.

There’s a third type of crime story, of course, and for my money the most interesting type, and that’s the Deadwood kind, the Godfather kind. The Sopranos kind.

These crime dramas are fascinating because the criminals themselves are complex and rounded characters. Tony Soprano is trying to be a loving family man, mostly, but he can’t keep his dick in his pants, and he sure can’t control that lethally violent temper. He has panic attacks over the loss of animals, but is quite calm in his execution-by-garrotte of an ex-friend turned informant. And his family, both biological and criminal, are as complex and contradictory as him.

In this kind of crime story, the criminal becomes one lens through which we view the world – one more element to traverse. As noted above, it provides particularly fertile ground for drama. The Sopranos has a considerably lower body-count across its seven seasons than a comparable run of, say, CSI, or some similar police procedural, but The Sopranos is intensely unsettling viewing, especially first time through, precisely because we know these (mostly) men are capable of anything – that any joke could turn serious, any slight could create or leave mortal offense. That any conversation could suddenly, horrifyingly, turn violent, even lethal.

As in TV crime drama, so in literature. For my money the master of crime fiction is James Ellroy, and this same fascination with transgression, violence, and morally complex and compromised characters with conflicting value systems and loyalties absolutely drives the drama, turning almost every scene into a dry-mouthed exercise in tension.

Now, tell me – why on earth wouldn’t you want to write things like that?

So yes, we’re obsessed with criminals because we fear them (Charles Manson) and admire them (Robin Hood), sometimes both at once. But more, I think, we’re obsessed with criminals because we are them. In the banal sense that most people have broken some law at some point in their lives, but in a more fundamental way too, in that we are all morally compromised characters, feeling our way through life. We are all, or almost all, prone to fits of temper, dislike of and also craving for authority, and selfish desire is always butting against the better angels of our natures and what we understand to be acceptable behaviour. Am I less morally conflicted because my selfish desire leads me to eating that second Mc’D’s double cheeseburger (or not), or staying up late playing Minecraft (or going to bed and having a better day at work the next day), rather than robbing or beating a man? I am not. I’m just much less interesting to write and read about.

Criminals, and stories about criminals, therefore become effectively the Spinal Tap of human nature in literary form – that nature turned up to eleven, engaging in the most primal fears and desires of the species, where the fear is not of a loss of self esteem or job opportunity, but of prison, or violence, or death.

Criminals are scary. Crime is scary. Committing crime is scary.

I don’t know about you, but that’s why criminals fascinate me.

KP

25/2/14

“Outlaw Hearts” by Josef Matulich

Blog, Guest Authors, Toxicity, , , , ,

WHY DO CRIMINALS FASCINATE US SO MUCH?

I’ve asked a number of authors I admire to answer the same question–why do criminals fascinate us so much?–and I will be posting each response here on my blog. It’s a question all writers–especially crime writers–should consider every once in a while. In my debut novel, Toxicity, I’ve dug deep into the minds of criminals. I have written about the bad guys. The ones we love but hate at the same time. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, I highly recommend you doing so for purely selfish reasons.

And now that you’ve done that, we will pass the time hearing what other writers in the industry have to say about the posed question.

Today we have Josef Matulich joining us. Josef is a writer, special effects artist and costumer who once, long ago, was shanghaied into being a Landsknecht commandant. In his copious free time, he operates a vintage and costume store with his wife Kit and son Aidan. They all live in a suburb of Columbus Ohio infested with deer, hawks, and foxes, none of which seem to be reanimated. His novel, Camp Arcanum, was recently published by the same publisher of Toxicity: Post Mortem Press.

Have at it, Josef.

josef matulich

In our hearts and souls, through miscalculations and depraved inaction, we are all criminals. Workaday life has us crossing moral codes, city, state, and federal codes, even God’s Law, and there isn’t a day we don’t come up short. Our society surrounds us with other weak fallible beings that cry out for justice when we cross their boundaries and step on toes. Because we are all good people at heart, we feel bad for it. We’re a guilt-ridden lot and we provide our own tack and saddle.

Things are not the same for the true rogues. They rob banks, eliminate competitors and forget birthdays with an insouciant sneer upon their lips. They are the heroes of their own stories and perform titanic deeds. Though life in the shadows is necessary for any kind of longevity, their deeds are whispered of in small groups and trumpeted on paparazzi TV when the outlaws are put on trial. We follow the exploits of the great criminals because they are both theater and cautionary tale. Though they may disgust us in their depravity, we cannot look away. They think big, push hard and live large.

We want to swagger as they do. We want to push until our dreams come true. We want to not care. We just don’t want anybody to think that we’re mean people.

That is why we love the great criminals: they display a joy and freedom that we everyday petty grifters envy even as we do our best to snuff them out.

“Criminals Are Us” by Jonny Gibbings

Blog, Guest Authors, Toxicity, , , , , , , ,

WHY DO CRIMINALS FASCINATE US SO MUCH?

I’ve asked a number of authors I admire to answer the same question–why do criminals fascinate us so much?–and I will be posting each response here on my blog. It’s a question all writers–especially crime writers–should consider every once in a while. In my debut novel, Toxicity, I’ve dug deep into the minds of criminals. I have written about the bad guys. The ones we love but hate at the same time. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, I highly recommend you doing so for purely selfish reasons.

And now that you’ve done that, we will pass the time hearing what other writers in the industry have to say about the posed question.

Today I’ve given Jonny Gibbings control of the wheel. Homeless at fourteen, prison by eighteen, Jonny Gibbings endured a violent and difficult start to life, resulting in being illiterate until late teens. With a distorted world view, his first book, the shock-comedy Malice in Blunderland, was well received. However, it was his mini-memoir that received critical acclaim and a ‘Pushcart’ nomination. Lyrical and thought provoking pieces for Thunderdome and Revolt illustrate a deep and thought provoking side that can only be the product of painful experience. Jonny Gibbings was described as ‘schizophrenic’ by film and television producer Kieron Hawkes, due to his extremes of comedy and sensitive writing. He lives in Billingshurst, UK. His newest book is Remember to Forget.

Have at it, Jonny.

3184

We are all criminals.

We like to think we are not, but we are.

All of us speed in cars, have stolen stuff from work or used the automatic check-out in the supermarket and when an item hasn’t scanned we’ve slipped it into the bag anyway. There are some laws such as these that we can ignore, or bend or pretend we didn’t know. If we are honest with ourselves, we got a little kick out of it. When slipping that un-scanned item into your shopping bag, you got a little buzz. You pretend to do it by accident, wonder if you were noticed, nonchalantly looking about with pseudo-boredom as you try to see where the checkout assistant is, rehearsing the ‘Oh my, I’m so sorry I didn’t know, I’m in such a hurry’ excuses in your head.

We all have the darkness in us, the ability to be bad. And that is what makes criminals so fascinating. Most of us don’t plan to break the law, we don’t jump in the car and plan to speed or to steal the tube of toothpaste, but when the opportunity presents, we take it.

And each of us have also thought about how to kill someone, I don’t mean sat down to plan a murder, but when in the shower or driving, our subconscious brain wanders and we have considered how to get away with murder.

We are all darker than we’d care to admit. I think criminals fascinate us, because as criminals ourselves we recognise quickly what we wouldn’t do, but understand the risk and how attractive it would be to get away with a perfect crime. We’ve all asked ourselves what wouldn’t we do and in doing so acknowledge there are those who are all darkness, thy have no scale and will do anything to achieve their aim, even kill.

Then there are those who kill for fun, just as kleptomaniacs steal for fun, there are some that killing is just entertainment.

Then those who kill for money. These people exist, as an adult we don’t need the sandman or the bogeyman, because we have burglars and murderers and they are real.

Just as seals follow great white sharks as if taunting them, they do it so that they know where the sharks are, I thing our fascination with criminals is the same. Kids read about monsters and demons, the books don’t try to convince them the monsters are real, only that they can be beat. I think we read crime for the same reason, acknowledging there are bad people out there, and they can be caught.