what effect are you going for with that narrator? What do you want the reader to be thinking/feeling as they read that POV?
I want the readers to think about what might drive them to commit crimes against humanity, to be really uncomfortable and question how firm their morals really are.
I agree the effect won't be uniform--as I said, even the totalitarian dictator from Mad Max who spent most of the movie tracking down his escaped sex slaves has his defenders/admirers--and many will resolve their cognitive dissonance by either defending the antagonist or utterly distancing themselves from him. It's the ones in between, who will sympathize with his reasons while condemning his actions, and who at the same time realize that they are capable of the same things, that really interest me. To the extent I can with my craft I want to maximize the number of people who think in this nuanced way, who become uncomfortable with themselves as a result of reading and don't shy away from that discomfort.
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Date: 2016-09-04 02:09 pm (UTC)I want the readers to think about what might drive them to commit crimes against humanity, to be really uncomfortable and question how firm their morals really are.
I agree the effect won't be uniform--as I said, even the totalitarian dictator from Mad Max who spent most of the movie tracking down his escaped sex slaves has his defenders/admirers--and many will resolve their cognitive dissonance by either defending the antagonist or utterly distancing themselves from him. It's the ones in between, who will sympathize with his reasons while condemning his actions, and who at the same time realize that they are capable of the same things, that really interest me. To the extent I can with my craft I want to maximize the number of people who think in this nuanced way, who become uncomfortable with themselves as a result of reading and don't shy away from that discomfort.