Tony DuShane, Writer/Podcaster/Teacher: I hate that person I hate what they did to me
I'm gonna write a character about them and I'm gonna show everybody
Film Courage: How do you write evil?
Tony: Easily enough unfortunately I think we got a lot of evil in all of us so it's okay
to just dive into the part of us that's dark if I'm you know it's I think writing evil is
to write evil you have to almost pretend like no one's going to read it because you don't want you
don't want anyone to think you're evil oh my god I would never be that evil well there's just a
beauty to knowing we all have an evil inside of us and we can go there we just choose not to sure so
there's there's just a beauty of just really letting it go on the page
and not and and some people read it and be like oh you know I mean I you know I can't write serial
killers like that that narrative just that scares me I don't like even I can never watch a serial
killer film those things just don't make sense to me but you know we we can find we we can embrace
the our tendencies because we all have bad in us it's you know and we're not
we're not politicians well well politicians are more bad than people than normal but but we're not
trying I don't think we need to present ourselves as beautiful flowers we're all a little corrupt
and especially in the film industry you see a lot more corruption but under the guise of like
oh this is virtue and you get behind the curtain a little bit and you're like ooh so it's
kind of easy to write evil it's almost easier to write evil than it is to write a
you know evil's interesting it is and do you think it's more interesting to write a virtuous
character who secretly has evil or an evil character that you know
you see it and you go okay this is definitely evil and then you're seeing sort of what that person's
life is like are we more intrigued by what's not shown and what we're discovering as the audience
as well I'll first answer that as the writer so what I try to do is when I find I go back into
my life and I go you know what I hate that I hate that person I hate what they did to me I'm gonna
write a character about them and I'm gonna show everybody just what a piece of crap human being
this person is and when this person watches the movie they're gonna go oh my goodness that's me
I need to change my life so that's the original intent and then I start working on the character
and I start massaging the character and then I start to realize oh crap I have empathy for the
character and then I develop more and more empathy and I'm like oh crap that character is part of
me the character may never really grow in the story may still be a piece of crap in the story
but I develop empathy for why they're not good people but as far as the layers of an evil person
having virtue and a virtuous person having evil I think it's about I want to tackle both of those
both of those intrigue me to no end because there is a flip side to everything there's
and I don't think I would actually the virtuous person who has who's not getting in touch with
the evil would intrigue me more than working with on an evil person that's has virtue because
because there's there with with a virtuous person they're they're actively pushing down
that evil where with with an evil person they're actively going I'm virtuous no really I'm virtuous
can you think of any characters that bring to mind that are evil that you actually
have empathy for I know a lot of people have talked about the joker but that
you go you know what maybe this person there's there's you have some soft spot for that person
yeah and well the evil characters I mean for the most part the antagonist
if it's a like like a superhero movie or a James Bond or a mission impossible the the antagonist
has to be more interesting than the hero I think that the layers got to be there and then then
we're like how is the hero going to get through this so I find the do I have empathy for the
for the hero for the antagonist and those kind of hero type movies I think I just get a kick out of
how evil they are and I'm like happy they're evil because I'm sitting there enjoying their evilness
and how how is tom cruise going to get through blank blank blank you know in the in those in
those total formula movies that I just adore beyond belief I know they're not going to die
at the end that's not the question the question is how are they not going to die that's what that's
what keeps us watching why is evil important in storytelling I think we're intrigued with eagle
evil I think if we I mean you know I grew up in a very religious household so there's the bible
the bible is just all evil this is bad this is bad this is bad don't do this and there's there's
a lot of and then they go through this there's so many evil stories in the old testament you're like
wait god's telling you to kill your own son you know there's there's I think
our collective mythology has just a ton of evil in it and we may try to paint it as like oh no
no we're all good we're all good but you think about you know how we got here and what's going on
and evil is the theme you know Genghis Khan man you know that guy's a hero of his narrative but
what did he do actually I can't remember what did he do he pillaged he pillaged and you know
it's like the Norwegians the Vikings you know what did they do you know they were they're heroes of
their own stories but they're decimating cultures so I think I think it's a general narrative of
what what we should explore and that's and then how and then how are we coping with
the evil around us and then how are we coping how are we coping with
empathizing with evil things you know and there's times when there's beautiful times when I have
evil thoughts even if I'm just driving around Los Angeles and I'm like that person who cut me off
probably shouldn't exist on this earth there's a little joy to having that fantasy even though
we don't act out the fantasy but we do get to write down the fantasy so
I ithink I don't think you know we don't go through the whole day with all virtuous thoughts
I was I was just at starbucks getting a cup of coffee and this idiot in front of me is like had
this huge two different credit cards you know all these all these stipulations to his order
all he got was one drink and one thing I thought he was an Uber Eats guy and this guy is just
and I'm sitting there going that guy might be you know it's part of the human collective
he may be dispensable and then it's just you know it's it's a fun thought to think
about but in real life we never do it and then if I followed him home I would see that he's
a good father to his kids and he was just having a rough day so that's you know there's where there's
evil and there's empathy we need we need the whole we I guess we need the whole story and that's why
we tell the story we need the whole story to map out the the whys of he was the antagonist in my
life for five minutes because my venti coffee was late okay no I talk about going way out no I saw
someone at a store the other day trying to return something but quote didn't have the credit card
and was arguing and the workers were very nice and they said I'm really sorry sir if you come back
with the credit card you'll be fine no no I need service and and wouldn't take no for an answer
and in that moment I'm looking at the person like okay this is weird and doesn't seem right
but who knows maybe legitimately it didn't have the credit card and it just he had the receipt
or they shouldn't be on this earth anymore they had all this stuff but my point is I mean we
we see we used to see tabloids and we would see evil there and now we can go on social media and
now we're all judges of what's evil even if it's one video of somebody pushing someone in
a convenience store yeah and we don't know what happened on the other end to prom we don't know
we just see that one snippet you know and so now we're watching evil played out in in real life
quote unquote but we don't know who really was the offending party who was the first one to sort of
prompt something so and that's just that's that's really intriguing because that's all point of view
so we're getting we're getting everyone tells their own truth and i'd rather ha i'd rather
have that in fiction and on the page and be able to work it than to try to understand the real
social media conflicts that we get you know that's where I'm just like I I'm skeptical of all of them
is it healthy for writers to go to dark places I used to think that it was important to
liv I one of my favorite writers is William T Vollmann and he's a guy that would go to the would
stay in the tenderloin [San Francisco] and stay at a house to the you know and do crack and he
and he's actively said these things so I'm not hit but I even interviewed him it's it's published but
he would actively go to these places and and I thought you know what I need to do what he
does not not to the crack end but I needed I want needed to be around certain elements
that were dark in order to get inspiration and i've I realized I don't I really don't
it's there there's dark everywhere I tell you we don't need to seek it out there's there's there's
dark amongst us and you know it's and maybe that's why Vollmann's written so many more great books
than i've ever written maybe maybe maybe I'm doing it wrong and he's doing it right when he goes
I mean he's he embeds himself in war and does a lot of he's he's what he does is gets there and
feels it and needs to know the whole story but that's what he's writing I'm not writing that
and I don't need to I don't need to essentially try to lose my mind
if I'm working on a character that's trying to lose their mind that's losing their mind and
then go wait a second I need therapy three times a week now it's just I think what I need to do
is to and what all writers need to do is just go what's my personality who am I don't need to
try to be someone else I you know I would love to be a woman but I'm not a Vollmann so it's
within my parameters in my daily life the dark doesn't the dark comes to us no matter what I
don't it's anyone who seems as privileged and you know wealthy and think and it seems like they have
it all together no there's dark there they don't need to go move into a dark area they they have a
wealth of they have a wealth of material that they can build from from their own experience and yeah
sure so the sort of gonzo journalism Hunter S. Thompson approach you don't have to necessarily
take that but what about recounting dark stories do you find sometimes with your students that
they have a tough time or there's others that they can't turn it off that it's like flows like
a a bad faucet well the the problem with the true stories that come in with my students is they say
oh no this really happened and this is true and I'm like but it's not interesting enough you're
not you're not putting enough conflict in there so it's usually this happened and this made me really
upset and I'm like okay yeah but make me care so you can it could be based on something true
but to make that particular event that was true to you and dark to you to to make it universal
you're going to have to really kind of dissect it you're going to have to maneuver it around
you're going to have to play with it and massage it to get the essence of what happened we need the
emotional essence of what happened we don't need the play-by-play so when it comes to
true things that happen I think a lot of the times when I'm dealing with students is
get out of the play by play what's the what's the what's the emotional effect that you're trying to
get through because that's more there's more truth to conveying the emotion than just showing the
play-by-play because we want to get to the hearts of our of our readers and audience do you think
that sometimes we think a story is interesting and it's not it's not really that or that any
any story can be interesting even if it's just someone waiting in line for coffee and there's
a person who's paying with two credit cards and needing special attention yeah it's I think um
i think every story is interesting but it has that's when the idea that's when the idea comes up
this idea sounds good but it has to be put on the page the the idea that's not put on the page is
not a fleshed-out idea so there yeah who wrote that book it was the whole book is the timeline
of the book is a guy on an escalator going down or up the escalator I think it's called mezzanine
and I can't remember the author's name right now and that sounds like a very boring book if
you were to pitch that oh yeah this whole book is based on a guy going down an escalator in a mall
that's like well that doesn't sound interesting put it on the page though craft it and it becomes
something that people are engaged with so I think we can knock out our you know we
I find joy and fun in the most mundane things and then I'll write them down and then
as I keep writing them and massaging them then I'll be like oh wait there is something in there
there's something in the mundane oh that's cool but it ha I mean it has to be written
for for anything to happen that's so you know if I were to write that story about the guy at
Starbucks probably most the story would be based on what a terrible I what person I am but from
but not you know I that's how I would approach it but I wouldn't approach it from that point of view
I would approach it as the hero of the story but it would be dissecting everything that's
terrible about my thought process while as I'm writing the protagonist that's me
that protagonist is not going to know that their thought process is terrible and then that's where
comedy will probably come in because the the or you know the urge to do all these certain things
I'll look back at it and I'll be like that's when I find the empathy in other people and I
know and I realize the stupidity of myself and the stupidity is glorious and just like this
this pretty presumption this presumptuous you know who am I to judge and it's just
like that's that's I think that's the juice that's a lot of fun for me.
Question For The Viewers: How do you write evil?