SHOTSMAG CONFIDENTIAL: The importance of empathy when writing thrillers

Thursday 4 July 2024

The importance of empathy when writing thrillers

It’s the 4^th of July today, and of course apart from America’s Independence Day and Election Day in the United Kingdom – it’s also the release day for Peter Swanson’s latest thriller, A TALENT FOR MURDER.

We reviewed it last month, noting that “…….Told in a beguiling style, alternating between third person as well as first person point of views, we get a literary thriller that will make you shiver next time you think about reading a collection of short stories of John Cheever…….Though a warning – this novel is beguiling because under the cheerfully evocative and engaging narrative, lurks a much darker truth about concealed psychopaths and how banal evil can be……”

Read the Full Review HERE

Following our reading of A TALENT FOR MURDER, Peter kindly supplied our readers with a little context on the writing of this engaging [but very dark] narrative >

I write a lot of bad people. I write some good ones, too, and quite a few that fall somewhere in between. What I try to remember with all of these made-up humans is that they have something in common; they are the center of their own story. And they all think they’re the good guy, more or less.

My job, as I see it, is to write these characters as though they are morally equal. That doesn’t mean I don’t somewhat judge them, myself, but I need to let their actions speak louder than my words. Nothing is worse than a writer telling their reader straight out who the good people are and who are the bad. Most readers can figure this out for themselves.

Also, there is not much worse than a one-note villain. That’s why I think empathy is so important to a writer. Whenever I create the antagonist of the story, I remind myself that this particular character was a child once upon a time. That they were more than likely treated poorly by someone along the way. Just as in real life, this is not an excuse for truly heinous actions, but it does help us to understand why they happen. It helps us to feel as though this bad person has complexity.

And that makes for a better book. Once upon a time I wrote a novel called The Kind Worth Killing. There was a murderer in it named Lily Kintner, and somewhere along the way she became the protagonist of the story, and now she’s the protagonist of my latest book, A Talent for Murder. And, yes, she still kills people. But she has her reasons. I suppose all killers do. Anyway, as a writer I just put her on the page and let her do her thing. It’s not for me to judge if she’s a good person or a bad person. That’s up to the reader.

The importance of empathy when writing thrillers

Shots Magazine would like to pass our thanks to Tara McEvoy and Angus Cargill of Publishers Faber and Faber [London] for their help in getting this essay from Peter Swanson for Shots Readers.