Mean People Suck, Unless I'm Writing Them

It's hard for me to be around mean people. It drains my energy down to zero point zero trying to navigate the interaction. I'm usually trying to figure them out, the why of their meanness. Or my even more exhausting habit: trying to change their attitude.

My mom taught me to lead by example, to always try and open hearts and minds. Especially the meanies. Ha. After years of working with my brilliant therapist, I learned another important lesson.

Boundaries.

With years of practice under my belt, now, if someone repeatedly drains me with their meanness and also refuses to consider my advice...hello, Ms. Boundary. So glad you're here.

But guess where I love a mean ol' sack of misery? When I'm writing. Yes, mean people in real life suck but...their actions and characteristics do make captivating characters. We humans sure love drama and tension in our novels & movies. Without the mean, jerky characters we'd be left with Barney and rainbows.

Yawn.

Imagine a world that cruelly hawked Star Wars without Darth, or Black Panther without Killmonger, or Avengers without Thanos, or One Battle After Another without Steven J. Lockjaw, or Everything Everywhere All At Once without Jobu Tupaki?

I don't want to live in that world. No way.

How boring. How plain. How un-interesting.

As a writer, I think mean characters in novels are even more crucial. We'd have another sunshine and rainbows situation without a well-developed antagonist. When I craft an awful character, I like to focus on their motivation. Why are they so terrible? As with Bull from my first novel Cracked, I wanted the reader to see why my bully was so angry and miserable. There are always reasons for a bully's rage. Not excuses, reasons. That's quite compelling to me.

If anyone reading this happens to be writing, challenge yourself to do a deep character dive on your antagonist(s). Get to know them as intimately as your MC. Your story will be richer for it.

But, real mean people still totally and completely suck, rotten eggs.