I'm writing a short with a truly horrid and despicable main character. He'll get his comeuppance, no worries there. But what I would like to know is:

How many of you would be utterly turned off by following an evil character, one with almost no redeeming qualities, as he blithely tortures helpless kitties? Would you be willing to trust me, the author, to deliver a satisfactory ending, thus making it worthwhile once you got to the end? Or would you be so sickened by the man's depraved acts that you'd put the story down, not caring to know?

Just curious. I would like to find the right balance -- I feel if I push it too far over the top, I will lose readers, and more importantly, the chance of an editor accepting it for publication. But, I also feel that I need to make this man as horrible as I possibly can, so that the reader absolutely loathes him, despises him, and cheers at the ending when he gets what he deserves.

That's my intent, anyway. Any thoughts?

but as a general rule of thumb, yeah, the torturing kitties thing would probably make me put it down, especially if he's blithe about it. if, say, he was tormented about it, you could maybe be painting a compelling portrait a messed-up person - but if he's just blithe about it, I'm probably not reading any further.

First a clarification: I said that he has ALMOST no redeeming qualities. He does have some. He works hard, he cares about children and is a scoutmaster in his free time; he likes birds and dogs. He takes care not to step on a spider... He's more or less like anyone else except...

He just hates cats. Always has since he was a child (his mother was a cat lover). Cats to him are like mosquitoes or cockroaches to others. That's how he sees the four-legged furry things.

He likes birds so chances are he is part of a larger group but has gone over the edge. Look at the Audubon Society website for their take on cats then imagine what would happen if one of their members sees just one too many kitties eat one too many baby bluebirds.

My 2 cents is to go ahead and write it without the graphic nasty scenes and save it in your spare parts file. Then when you need a sub plot for a bigger story you'll have it. One of my own stories has a sub plot about the quiet battle between people who feed feral cats and the ones who set up bird sanctuaries and remove the cats.

Please, folks. Not even I, with my twisted mind that is capable of thinking up such horrors (and this is a horror story), would have a character torture a young, cute, fluffy ball of fur -- a kitten.

But I see what you're all saying. I do. Can't say I'm surprised. People can easily deal with evil characters that kill other people, but put animals into the mix (even animals that themselves blithely kill things, just because they feel like it -- maybe it's instinct, I don't want to argue, so let's not, please), and people will baulk and cry foul. Fair enough. I don't fault anyone... I don't want to see any cats get hurt either.

but also, really, as jstegg said, it'll take art to make it work. go ahead and try it - just realize that it'll be really tough to pull off.

For me, there HAS to be a redeeming character in there somewhere. Perhaps you could have your POV character be that redeeming person who is observing the sickness and depravity of the villain. For some reason, Edward Norton and Robin Williams in "Death To Smoochie" comes to mind. The characters balanced each other out... one too saccharin sweet, the other too obnoxious to want to be around, but with them playing off each other the mixture was perfect. (Ah loved that movie!)

Of course, one must keep in mind that I have a low threshold for violence. It's a bias of mine and I confess it straight up. I don't care to immerse myself in horror or crime stories for that reason. I tend more toward complex character studies, humor, drama and action, but without grizzly detail.

Just like I can put-up with an old friend that has slowly become an ass. (Reference to Elan's post)

If he has a brighter past, even if he hates that old self, you set up the question 'will he change or will he not?'

A past also serves to heighten the contrast with the present, it will make him seem MORE fallen and depraved.
A story like that includes the possibility of writing some very tense scenes where this character is confronted by people, places, objects etc that remind him of that old life. (Particularly people).

Sometimes the best stories are about the most awful people, those stories that gesture toward the 'why and how' they became that way.

Whether all that serves your purpose is another question.

I say go for it. But figure out what price you will have to pay in other areas of the story to achieve a really good read using this character as the lead.

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Sometimes the best stories are about the most awful people...

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I think in modern literature one cannot easily write a totally bad character unless they make them a person with an antisocial personality disorder. Otherwise the character must have something within them which is (or was) good or rationalizes good or is ignorant.

OSC's Ender did incredible evil because he was fated to do; I would think that ignorance might be most successful of the three factors. Stowe's Simon Legree was antisocial, the weakest characterization. Even so, rationalization was the key of King's Roland and Mellville's Captain Ahab and both of these were strongly written.

I'd have a hard time with too much time spent with this guy.

I already had a hard time considering the evil of the antagonist in The Lost Boys (OSC), and the reader never really completely puts together who he was and what he had done until the end of the book. In fact OSC never wrote a scene in which this guy actually did anything. He NEVER described it. But, MAN! Did I ever want to see him FRY!

1) Will readers put up with a character they really loathe?

2) Will readers put up with descriptions of torture or sick violence?

If you tell me that the guy tortures cats (or anything else), I'll despise him. If you show me that torture explicitly, I'll despise the author. Now, I could come up with exceptions to both of these statements, but by and large they hold.

So the thing is, if you're writing a horror story and want to appeal to the people who enjoy being grossed out, then go ahead and gross them out. If you want to develop an unsympathetic character by this method, however, all you have to do is let us know. This is one case where telling is definitely better than showing.

And a sicko of this sort could, for me, very easily be sympathetic in other ways. I mean, he's sick. He needs help, not punishment. Of course, that doesn't mean that I wouldn't be happy to shoot him if it was the only way I could get him to stop. But if you really want me to hate a character, don't make him sick. Make him fully responsible and still morally bankrupt.

There is a really great story, I forget what it is called, by Shirley Jackson in which you read about one day in the life of two characters: one character is very good and kind and goes about doing random acts of kindness and general good deeds, while the other character is nasty and evil and cruel to children and animals. At the end of the day the two go home, and you find out they are a husband and wife who take turns being benevolent and malevolent; the next day they switch roles.

I loved that story (along with pretty much all of Shirley Jackson's stuff) because of the twistedness of it.

If you show a contrast in the character: ie, he tortures cats but treasures wounded birds, for example, the dichotomy would definitely interest me and I would probably enjoy the story.

About halfway through the posts I started thinking of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau, a story that deals with vivesection. The doctor honestly believes he isn't doing anything wrong but it is revealed through the story that he has a "god complex". But the entire story is told from an outside POV so it probably isn't the best template for how to handle a story about a monster who tortures animals and feels no remorse what so ever.

I also thought about Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. The count goes out of his way to ruin people and destroy their lives, and I personally can't help but cheer for him all the way through. Why? Because Dumas took the time to show what happened to make the count so vengeful. He also adds little tidbits along the way where the count feels mild remorse and re-evaluates why he is doing what he is doing. These evaluations usually lead to the count determining that he is still within his rights to exact vengence. He is not truly dispicable, but when you stop and think about it, he is rather sadistic.

If your character has some redeeming/likeable qualities, it might even provoke more of a sense of horror, if you entice your readers to like him at first.

As for whether or not I would read it? I honestly don't know, a lot would depend on how graphic you are. I'm not a huge fan of gore for gore's sake, but there are people who do. Sometimes though you can create a much darker effect (like Dakaota alluded to) by not showing the actual depraved acts, but letting your readers create their own images.

It's hard to explain it without actually saying what the POV does. The "torture" comes from trapping cats in his back yard, taunting them a bit while they are in the cage, and then preparing the cat for its inevitable demise. It would likely the be that part and the way the cat meets its end that offends everyone. Heck, if offends me, too.

Anyway, I've considered everything in this topic, slept on it, thought more about it after waking, and so on. I have come up with an idea or two that, if needed, I hope will be palatable for general consumption. We'll see.

Thanks.

EDIT: It's dreadfully important that the character feels no remorse for killing cats, by the way. It's a major plot point. He kills cats because he has to kill cats.

Are we discussing an evil point of view character or an evil protagonist?

There is a difference. In my nearly finished (hopeing for the end of the month) suspense novel, I have several chapters told from the POV of an insane killer to provide dramatic irony and create some suspense. It is not intended that the reader sympathize with her. In fact, you may feel uncomfortable in her POV, but it doesn't last all that long and you're back in the hero's head.

On the other hand, there are some stories/novels/movies told from the POV of an evil protagonist. (Protagonist not meaning good guy, despite popular connocation.) I almost never like these stories. I hate just about every Quentin Tarantino movie I've ever seen for this reason.

BUT....it's obvious that there is a market for these stories or Quentin Tarantino would not be so popular and make so much money. I mean, Pulp Fiction (Bleh Bleh Bleh) made tons of money and I feel like the only person on earth who hated it.

I'm not sure what the trick to an evil protgaonist is. You don't want him to succeed, you want him to fail. I make the following propositions:

1. An evil character will not work as the main POV character throughout an entire NOVEL length story. For a short story that keeps us engaged for other reasons, though, it may work.

2. We need firm motivation and good characterization. Not because we want to sympathize with him, but because we need to at least understand him. Those who will enjoy this story will want the element of realism.

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Are we discussing an evil point of view character or an evil protagonist?

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That's a good question, and I'm unclear as to how to define him. My gut feel is "evil POV character" -- the protagonist in my mind is the ailurophile (cat lover) who exacts her revenge.

But it's complex. The POV doesn't think he's evil. Cats are vermin. They have to be exterminated. It's literally in his blood, this thing (giving away plot stuff here). However, the complexity lies in his method of extermination, which is sadistic and unnecessary. Thus, in my mind, he's evil in that way. Yet he's kind in other ways. Very complex -- hard for me to come to grips with personally. I have a clear vision of how to write this story, and yet... this topic.

The title of the story clearly implicates something is going to happen to the POV... the title is "An Ailurophile's Revenge"

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He works hard, he cares about children and is a scoutmaster in his free time; he likes birds and dogs. He takes care not to step on a spider... He's more or less like anyone else except...

He just hates cats. Always has since he was a child (his mother was a cat lover). Cats to him are like mosquitoes or cockroaches to others. That's how he sees the four-legged furry things.

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You said, "The POV doesn't think he's evil. Cats are vermin. They have to be exterminated."

But you explained earlier that he spends a lot of time torturing and then killing just one cat. Seems to me like an exterminator would just find a way that is very quick and efficient, so he can kill as many as possible as efficiently as possible. The goal being to kill the most cats, not to kill one in the most creative fashion.
This seems to indicate that your character has other motives for putting such care and effort into killing the cats.

Someone mentioned Apt Pupil by Stephen King. I think it was in the Different Seasons collection. That story could be a good read for you for this topic. Both of the main POV characters were evil, really evil. Read the story, don’t just watch the movie. The story was fascinating and nauseating at the same time. One thing I couldn’t do was stop reading it.

That's all I'm willing to divulge. If I said how he does the killing, I'd likely be strung up -- from reading the above anyway, I'm not willing to risk it.

I've read Apt Pupil. It was at least 12 years ago, but I did read it. Thanks, I will read it again. I have the book here somewhere.... ...

The idea actually reminds me of a Star Wars novel that I read a couple years ago, "Shadow Hunter"... there was a lot of it were the POV was following along with Darth Maul... for a lot of the book, that was actually the more interesting part, since it was actually intended to draw out his character a little more, since it didn't really have much chance in the movie...

I've found another way to tell this tale, which I like better. It is now truer to spirit of the original story, borrowing heavily from H.P. Lovecraft's "The Cats of Ulthar". Instead of using Thom (the cat killer) as the POV, I've decided that an impartial narrator -- New Ulthar's historian -- will tell the story. While this isn't F&F, here's how I've started it (first draft, please don't crit):

After years of painstaking research, I believe that I have finally learned the truth about Thom Cotter. While I make no attempt to defend his horrible deeds, it is my sincerest hope that this document will shed much needed light as to why he cruelly trapped and slaughtered hundreds of cats sixty years ago.

I contend--controversial as it may be--that he had no other choice; much like a singer must sing, or a painter must paint, or a writer must write, Thom Cotter had to kill our most sacred felines. We must not fault his motivation, for this, like any disease, was something he could not control, nor was he even aware of his condition until last moments of his life.

Dueling religions!

I like the new direction this is going.

Two people have read it. My wife, and someone from these here boards; both completely uninterested. I didn't realize how dull this piece was until this morning. I should have listened to our fellow hatracker two days ago.

Yet what I should do now is post it up in its entirety as a lesson of "how not to write engaging fiction". I'm tempted to do so, along with the original piece (with the despicable POV) for comparison.

Please, HSO, don't throw the story away or put it online in its entirety. Unless you really can't stand the concept, keep the story.

That said, I'd recommend putting it up on F&F so you can get more opinions on why it didn't work than just that one Hatracker.

The reason I say this is because the early crits I got (three or four) for my Headless Horseman re-write all said to cut out the beginning section entirely. I didn't think that was right because I didn't want the action portion cluttered by backstory.

Then, I got a single critique that gave me the opposite advice; expand the beginning. And it fit. I got so excited about the story that I've been creating an entire novel based on that re-write.

So, please don't give up on this idea yet. I'd hate to see an interesting villain die before he's even born.

Metaphorically speaking.

Although... my wife and I were discussing trying to incorporate the two together: an alternation between Thom's character and the historian. This might be do-able, but at the moment, I can't think of how to make it work without jarring the reader or turning out a prolix manuscript.

Some stories just take a while to find the right POV, the right tone. This is one of them.