Hello! I’m about to start my second ever novel and need some help. My second book is about a police sergeant in a sleepy northeastern town on the hunt of a serial killer. My antagonist (obviously the serial killer)’s motive is slowly disclosed throughout the novel through journal entries he leaves at each murder scene. He kills child predators/killers using very sadistic methods. At the end, it’s discovered that his sister was sexually abused by their father and killed herself after years of abuse. I want my antagonist to be antisocial, but able to harness it in “productive” ways. Anyway, I need a way to make it believable that he doesn’t start killing until he turns 32 or so, despite having the urge for many years (soon after his sister dies when he was 8). Can someone help? Thanks
First of all, study up on sociopathy. That's a personality disorder your antagonist could likely to have. He/she/whomever you decide the antagonist will be can easily have a deep seeded hatred for sex offenders stemming from the sibling's abuse. But if you want to wait till the age of 30 or so, you'll need a stressor of some sort for that final push over the edge into insanity. The planned sibling suicide is ideal, if you can move that off till later. That mental and emotional anguish would be enough to drive anyone into a very dark place.
Your antagonist reminds me of Jigsaw, he only started playing his games after being told when his cancer would kill him. His thoughts on the matter were that people were wasting their lives because they never knew their deadline and he was greatly angered by this and decided to choose people to rehabilitate them, so to speak, to return to them the will and want to live life to the fullest. The anger of your antagonist can stay latent for years before being acted upon, but you need a catalyst for him to act. Maybe he sees a case of a rapist going free and the victim kills themselves as his sister did. Maybe he saves a victim whilst the act is taking place, then he can convince himself he's saving all the other victims past and present from living in the world of their former or future attacker.
Thank you for your input! I will definitely look more into it. I'm a therapist by trade, but I don't get many antisocial clients, so having extra self-guided training on this would only help my cause. Thanks again.
I think you hit the jackpot I was looking for. I love the person getting out of prison early, and the victim kills themselves, or even the second scenario where he stumbles upon something happening, and takes the predator out. Thank you so much more this. It helped me out tremendously.
