I want to write a novel about a serial killer but I want to do it mostly from the killers pov...Any advice or thoughts are welcomed.
Well, if you could not write in bold, that'd be appreciated. First of, you need to understand the thriller/criminal genre rather well to pull of anything good and then you need to do some research into criminal minds (not the show although it's a tad educational). Best bet, buy a book or three on the minds of criminals and help books pertaining to writing thrillers. This isn't a genre where you can just wing it as it requires actual knowledge and understanding of a very real thing.
Practice justifying the unjust. Morality is a funny concept, its definition changes from person to person. Our code of laws are a physical manifestation of an agreed upon morality. Don't steal, don't kill, that kind of crap- it's illegal and wrong now, but just a few generations ago it was fine. Nobody who does wrong believes themselves to be the villain. Read Mein Kampf- Hitler's circuitous book of hate can be a frighteningly persuasive look into his psyche. He believed himself in the right, murdering the Jews was his way of creating an immortal Aryan empire. He split the world into culture creators (Aryans) and culture destroyers (Jews). An intermixing between races would lead to a stagnant and decadent empire that would fall (think the Spanish Empire in the Americas), and an empire that clung true to its white roots would maintain their position of dominance (Think Anglo-Saxon America). Therefore, to create something great he had to remove the corrupting influences. Every race or cultural group that might have threatened his perfect empire was rounded up and summarily executed to remove their influence from the gene pool. Long story short, Hitler was a psychopath, but he justified every action he took. He never performed an evil act because he never believed himself to be evil. We view Hitler as a monster, but Hitler thought himself a saint.
You'll have a really hard sell unless there's something to offset the negative. Dexter, for example, has two. First, is that he applies morality to his murders and only kills people who absolutely deserve execution, thus using his penchant for murder for good. Take that away and you remove reason for empathy on the reader's part. Remember, we don't tell the story. We make the reader live it as the protagonist. And who wants to live the life of a serial killer?
Have you ever lynched a slave for escaping? Placed a nobles head beneath the national razor? Pointed a gun at the enemy? "Practice justifying the unjustifiable," I believe I said that earlier. It's o.k. for me to murder this person because the state condones it. It's o.k. to murder this person because they threaten my life. It's o.k. to murder this person because they have more money than I do and I'm hungry. I'm not calling them evil, evil is action taken in the deliberate face of established morality. Evil is knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway. Nobody is evil. You might steal that loaf of bread, but you justify it because you're hungry. Dexter (for example) justifies murder by killing those that have already killed. What he's doing is still murder, that hasn't changed, he's only changed the narrative for himself.
Rafiki, this is puerile philosophizing. Your thoughts aren't being transcribed in a consistent, coherent manner (though they may be perfectly so in your mind). All you've really said--at bottom, and in a generally muddled way--is that your definition of "an evil person" is "one that actively believes [or, to use your word, knows] that one is breaking a social rule [I'm supposing this is what you mean by "established morality"--this, by the way, is much too vague, especially given your disjointed examples]." Ok, so that's fair enough; but what about gradations of wrongness? Is someone who knowingly sticks a used piece of gum under his desk evil in the same way that a very self-aware, remorseful murderer is? You could say those questions don't matter, because you do go on to claim that "nobody is evil." Does this mean that no one anywhere ever thinks, or thought, that he/she is, or was, doing something that they aren't, or weren't, supposed to? I really don't think that this can be said with any confidence... Rafiki: Forgive my annoying attitude...I'm a nerd and I like these kinds of conversations. This is in no way a personal thing; it is a purely intellectual exercise. Feel free to ignore it.
I'm sorry, but this is really poor thinking. I will assume--because you did not at all make it clear--that you're speaking only about the US. You certainly can't be speaking about the world at large, given that slavery still exists; that civil unrest in even recent years has been responsible for more regime changes and "nobility" assassinations than I even care to remember; and that someone somewhere is at war, pointing a gun at an enemy, this very moment. There are many people who support these things, and believe them morally justifiable...just like many people supported slavery, beheadings, and pointing "a gun at the enemy." I really no see no fundamental difference between the epochs... Oh, and if want proof that killing and whatnot is tolerated even in the US, you need look no further than the plethora of mob movies (and "The Sopranos") that glorify sociopathic a-holes. Then you might want to move into an inner city ghetto and observe the American peoples' fascination with violence and crime.
