Anyway, the point of this post is not to plug my book (have you bought it yet?). It is to talk about how I create my characters and how that reflects my views on people in general. My book is filled with heroes and villains, right and wrong...there are no anti-heroes and very little moral ambiguity. The temptation when writing the villain characters is to describe them as "Evil" or "Stupid" and move on from there. Why are they persecuting the heroes? Simply because they are evil. Why did the leader make such a bad decision? He is a moron. End of story!
I did not take this approach...partly because I needed to add to my word count and simple characters use few words. Mostly I did not write out stupid or evil characters is because I do not think that is how people are shaped. Now I have worked for most of my adult life around teenagers so I am aware that people have a mean streak in them and I am also aware that some people (I am looking at you, teenage boys) will shut off their brains for long portions of their days. But most people are not driven by a desire to be evil or a desire to be stupid. Their motivations tend to all be about the same: how can I make my life better? The answers can be wildly different, but that is mostly influenced by their past experiences and what kind of power they are able to exert on their environment.
For example, my book's primary villain is King Ahab. By the middle of the narrative he is hunting down Seers and killing the entire Order. He is organizing manhunts and ordering the kidnapping of children and performing pagan sacrifices...leading his people to ruin. No one is born that way. No one is a child who says, "I want to be the most evil king ever!" People are hungry to be loved, hungry to be accepted, hungry to be successful, hungry to feel at peace with themselves. What they learn as children, what they have reinforced as they grow older, is that they have to fight for those things...they have to strive for those things...the world is constantly trying to take those things away and leave them alone and battered. So they develop coping strategies. Some cope through humor. Some cope through apathy. Some cope through overpowering others before they can be overpowered. Some cope through work or relationships or food or drugs. Ahab came to a position of power and wanted to go down in the history books as the greatest king ever. So he entered into political alliances that required certain compromises. He created enemies of those who would question his choices, tarnishing his legacy. His goal remained the same but it kept slipping further and further away. Every action, every choice dictated his next bad idea as his actions becoming increasingly violent and despicable.
I watch the kids who come through Joel's Place. I watch the kids who attend school with my children. I don't see evil. I don't see stupid. I see desperate to be loved. I see terrified to be abandoned. I see lashing out from insecurity. I see degrading others in a vain attempt to finally belong. I see wild eyes, looking for somewhere that is safe.
I see Joel's Place offering these young people a different alternative. You need not be an outcast here. You need not squash others in order to be respected here. You need not be afraid to fall and fail here. This facility was designed to be kid proof. We can fix whatever they can break. Similarly, we are helping our youth to be world-proof. Whatever the world tries to take or crush, we reinforce within them the truth:
You are not evil
You are not stupid
You are loved and accepted
You can be successful and you can find peace
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