On being inside the mind of a killer

One of the major decisions I made when I started to plot this book was to write the killer’s chapters in the first person. I wanted to get inside their head as much as possible and I wanted the reader to as well. This achieves two things. One is that the reader is forced into close contact with the killer, their thoughts and motivations—a scary place to be—and the other is that the reader is therefore a step ahead of the main character, and that builds tension.

I did a lot of research into serial killers although there is much we do not know about them. I concentrated on Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein, John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy. I noted some of the similarities between them- the way these killers stalked their prey, presented different faces to people, had sometimes suffered abuse as children, and were capable of kindness as well as horrific cruelty and violence. Ed Gein for instance, nursed his mother. Ted Bundy was a social activist and even authored an anti-rape pamphlet (!), John Wayne Gacy entertained children at birthday parties…as a clown! Dahmer had good friends in high school. I really tried to understand them although that was an almost impossible task. I have to say it was a nightmarish six months. I had a very hard time keeping my happy life separate from all the awful things I was discovering; the depths that people can fall to.

I absorbed that background material and then wove my own creation. I knew I couldn’t write from that character’s POV unless I found some spark of humanity, something that allowed me and the reader to latch onto them in some way; to care if at all possible. Beginning their story in childhood let me imagine a triggering event and an evolution in their life. We were all children once. It was a tightrope walk because I also did not want the reader to forget that this was a monster I was writing.

– 2 winners will receive a Copy of BLOOD WILL OUT By Jo Treggiari.