OK, to answer the first part of this.
I am a single mother of two amazing kids, a pet owner (2 dogs and 2 bossy cats), a vegetarian since the age of 12 (an incentive to stop eating animals was that my grandmother lived next door to a slaughterhouse), a pacifist, and a person with an active social life and many longtime and dear friends. I like to think of myself as compassionate and caring, dare I even say it? Empathetic!
Here’s a pic of me, the kids, and one of my dogs. Her name is Princess Deli Ancho and she is a marshmallow.
I am also a novelist. A writer of fiction. Even though my books are made up I am still responsible for telling the truth as much as I possibly can. Of getting as close to real- real everything: emotions, actions, motivations- as I can.
Believe me, it was a scary day when I realized that I was going to try and write a fledgling serial killer from a first person POV. I knew that meant I was going to have to delve deep, and frankly murder, violence, and blood all disturb me greatly. I was in a nightmarish kind of a fog for weeks while I was writing the first draft and I jumped at shadows almost constantly.
The research was long and arduous and awful.
I want to be clear here. This was not about turning a psychopath into a good person, or a highly intelligent, urbane, witty, sophisticated person you’d love to invite to a dinner party (hello Hannibal Lecter. I mean, really??!!) I hasten to say I love those books but please remember to suspend your disbelief.
Make no mistake about it my killer is a monster and my empathy lies solely with the victims but first person POV demands that I try as much as I can to understand the motivation there. What made this person the way they are? As a writer of fiction, that’s the kind of thorny problem that appeals to me. Why do people do the things they do? What drives them? Can I (and the reader) come to some kind of (any?) understanding of such a person?
I had to be true to what criminal psychologists have discovered about serial killers and their evolution, certain behaviours many of them share. That meant overcoming(or at least ignoring) many of my own fears.
As well as not glamourizing my serial killer, it was also important to me that I address the erasure of the victims and survivors from the public eye. Serial Killers attain a kind of celebrity status, their victims are quickly forgotten. Can any of us name any of the children Jeffrey Dahmer killed?
It was a fine line to walk. I had to write viscerally(sorry!) so that Ari’s mental and emotional experiences really resonated with the reader. I didn’t want her to be forgotten, even for an instant.
I also chose to write implicitly rather than explicitly. I relied on the reader to fill in the gaps. Someone once said that a writer writes the book and the reader finishes it; meaning ‘puts the finishing touches’ on the work bringing all their own life experience, biases, fears, etc… to it.
I will say that recently I read the first two chapters at an event and although the scenes are atmospheric and dark, they skip over the truly awful bit in the action, resuming again once it is all over, and one woman still had to leave the room. I suggested terrible things and she filled them in herself. Which is both wonderful and horrible because I really don’t want to traumatize anyone but at the same time, this is a psychological horror and it has to be scary.
I believe the only reason I can travel to these dark places is because my life is so filled with love and light. I write from a safe place. I suggest you read from a similar place.