Chatty Bad Guys
Real bad guys don't talk much. They really don't. Professional killers don't feel much remorse. They don't hop on an analyst's couch and utilize talk therapy to purge their guilt.
Which brings me to one of my pet peeves in books. Chatty bad guys.
A real bad guy who is going to kill someone will simply do it. No fuss, no muss. I once chatted with a family friend who did some hard time, I think for manslaughter, though no one's quite sure. He talked about committing a murder. "We'll just pull an O.J." he told me over a beer. "Simple, in and out." I declined the offer to solve my particular problem that way, though I knew he had his heart in the right place--as odd as that sounds. But real bad guys think that way. In and out, get it done. End of story. You talk, you get caught. That's how things work.
So it always amazes me to meet bad guys in fiction who, as they hold the gun to someone's head, chat on and on in a virtual SERMON of why they are going to do what they are going to do. It's a tricky thing, in fiction, to tie up all your loose ends. But chatty bad guys are not a good way to do it, I don't think. I will sometimes give mine a paragraph to spout their motivation. The rest, frankly, has to fall into the way we react to real criminals. We don't know. Yes, there is a motive, but what really and truly propels someone to take another life falls into a category of human behavior we never can fully grasp.
Anyone else see this in fiction and be bothered by it? Any other peeves?
Which brings me to one of my pet peeves in books. Chatty bad guys.
A real bad guy who is going to kill someone will simply do it. No fuss, no muss. I once chatted with a family friend who did some hard time, I think for manslaughter, though no one's quite sure. He talked about committing a murder. "We'll just pull an O.J." he told me over a beer. "Simple, in and out." I declined the offer to solve my particular problem that way, though I knew he had his heart in the right place--as odd as that sounds. But real bad guys think that way. In and out, get it done. End of story. You talk, you get caught. That's how things work.
So it always amazes me to meet bad guys in fiction who, as they hold the gun to someone's head, chat on and on in a virtual SERMON of why they are going to do what they are going to do. It's a tricky thing, in fiction, to tie up all your loose ends. But chatty bad guys are not a good way to do it, I don't think. I will sometimes give mine a paragraph to spout their motivation. The rest, frankly, has to fall into the way we react to real criminals. We don't know. Yes, there is a motive, but what really and truly propels someone to take another life falls into a category of human behavior we never can fully grasp.
Anyone else see this in fiction and be bothered by it? Any other peeves?
posted by Erica Orloff at 8:00 AM
12 Comments:
It's been bugging me more lately, since one of my characters explained it to me, "You want to f*** off and die? You do it. I'm doing the job and taking my money off to the Caribbean."
Hi May:
Hate when those characters have their own plans.
:-)
E
Chatty bad guys, to me, is poor writing. It's very vintage James Bond.
You made me realize why Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs was so damn scary. Remember when his captive was pleading for her life? His reply, "It puts the lotion in the basket."
Shivers!
Mary C.
mary:
I hadn't thought of him, but yes. You, as reader, have no idea why he became what he did. What possessed him to do the things he did. There were vague references--but no long speeches, no back story of tortured childhood. He just "was." And that, frankly, is why I think the Hannibal books ended up falling flat. This last one . . . ridiculous. It's better that we know just enough about the bad guys.
E
As long as SOMEONE fills me in, it doesn't necessarily have to be the bad guy. And yes it does seem a bit too easy at times when it happens--funny I think I notice it more in movies than books though!
Amie:
I agree. In movies I see it, too. As an author, I do know I have to spell out some things--and sometimes, the bad guy is the only one who can do so. But sometimes it just gets so far-fetched.
Look at the Godfather movies. When they murder someone, it happens in seconds. One mob guy walks in and blows the other guy away. End of story. That's more realistic than a bad guy in a movie who stands there, waving his gun and letting us know every little thing necessary to put him in prison for the rest of his life JUST as the good guys come in and take him down.
E
Have you read Kathy Love's latest post on THe Midnight Hour?
She asks about evil in books. Me, I think Evil Is Boring, and I approach my books that way.
But she does add that "I realize that wouldn’t necessarily read well in a work of fiction."
I think that's the reason why we have chatty bad guys. Some of those scenes where people are killed by chatty bad guys are funny!
I've been guilty of this. Lucky someone caught me in time. ;)
In the book I'm reading right now, Wild Fire by Nelson DeMille, the bad guy spills his guts to a federal agent and then kills the agent. Another agent, who doesn't know anything but that his friend is dead, then investigates. Works for me. I guess that's one of the perks of writing in multiple POV--you can get inside the villain's head and still have the hero in the dark.
I know someone (I can't remember who, dangit) who calls those "Scooby Doo Moments."
It can be difficult. I mean, at the END of a book, what are the choices?
Bad Guy Explains All
Good Guy Exposits For Several Pages
Distant POV Explains What Happened
Sometimes I think the chatty bad guy can work at the end of a book if a relationship has been built between the protagonist and the villain. There's some motivation there, then, for the bad guy to get chatty.
natalie:
Great point. At the end of Trace of Innocence, the bad guy explained quite a bit to Billie--but they had a relationship for years. I didn't know any other way to avoid him explaining it. :-)
E
I think it's even worse when the bad guy lets the victim get all chatty. If you are about to off someone, you don't want their life story.
kathryn--
Good point. They don't have to be best buddies.
E
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