: Re: I want to explore the psychology of a ruthless, macho killer. What mistakes should I avoid? This is a follow-up to another question. I asked "Should my readers be able to identify with the

@Debbie451

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Absolutely not a mistake to explore his psychology. GRRMartin is a great example; by the end of book 4 I really felt for the Lannisters, and they have done some evil things. You don't have to make Pio so sympathetic that we're necessarily rooting for him to kill Sal, but we should understand Pio's motivations. His motives should make sense to the reader given what we know of Pio.

So: Why is he ruthless, macho, and brutal? Was Pio's father Raimundo heavy-handed? Did he smack Pio's sisters and mother around and turn a blind eye to Pio's misdeeds? Did Pio run with a group of similar thugs as a teenager? Or was he a homeless orphan who had to steal and rob to feed those sisters after his mother died in childbirth and his father was killed in the war? Maybe he has a touch of the bi and he acts "macho" to overcompensate? (there's your potential to fall in love; he dimly realizes his feelings for Mario are not just for a paisano, but something stronger, and he feels like he has to strangle that impulse in himself because it's a sin, or because it makes him weak, etc.)

What I wouldn't do is "excuse" your killer. If Pio is the bad guy, he shouldn't be killing Sal because, say, Sal killed Pio's mother. He shouldn't be killing Sal because Sal is his best friend from the cradle and is now dying of Alzheimer's, or cancer, and death is a release. Pio shouldn't have a mental disorder which absolves him of responsibility for his actions.

We can understand that Pio feels like he has to kill Sal to keep Sal from spilling the beans, and that Pio might even regret having to kill him at a family wedding because it's rude or unprofessional. We should not think that Pio is "right" and Sal really does have to die.

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