On Being the Bad Guy

Excerpt from the writer’s journal of Karen S. Voorhees

October 30, 2016

It’s the day before Halloween. How appropriate. I’m kind of spooked. The antagonist in the novel I’m writing has come thrusting into vivid life in my mind. It’s supposed to be a good thing for a novelist when a character in her story takes on a life of his own. But really.

For the past six months I’ve been hammering away on the story’s mid-section, in which the protagonist, Embe, is chosen by her stone age people to become High Priestess. Her nemesis Batumivir, a big, strong, scary barbarian war-lord, has largely dominated these chapters. Conflict! Dramatic tension! Just what you want in a novel, right? The problem is, now he’s trying to dominate me. It’s been hard work setting boundaries and enforcing them.

This morning over breakfast at my favorite deli he took it to a new level. As soon as I’d finished placing my order, Batumivir-in-my-head picked up the ongoing inner dialog. He insisted yet again that he’s really not the bad guy of the story I’m struggling to tell. He said he was, or should have been, the romantic hero.

“Dude, that’s just not the way it happened,” I replied. I did this silently. Even here in Berkeley, the open ward, talking aloud to yourself in public minus visible devices is considered A Bit Too Much. 

Batumivir-in-my-head.

In my mind’s eye, Batumivir tilted his head up and narrowed his eyes — his usual argumentative pose. “Come on. Be fair. Out of all the possible versions of our story in all those parallel universes, you picked the one that made Embe look best and me look worst.”S

My coffee arrived. Fortunately, the server knows by now that when I roll my eyes it’s not at her; it’s at some thought process of my own. 

“I didn’t choose the plot in “Shadow of the Earth.” I replied inwardly, after the server and I had finished exchanging pleasantries and she’d walked away. “Embe did. It’s her story, and she insists it happened this way.” 

“Well, I’m insisting. And I don’t take no for an answer,” he replied as I reached for a packet of Splenda. 

Now he was wearing that toothy grin that makes Embe go weak in the knees in Chapter Six. It makes me a little wobbly too, if I’m going to be honest, and he knows it. His smile broadened.

By now I’ve learned how essential it is to enforce my boundaries with him. “No way. Embe and I already let you have that whole bonus chapter in the middle of  the story. That’s what we agreed to and that’s what you get. Period.”

He’s learned by now that when I draw a line like this, I keep it. But he still didn’t give up. He turned the full blast of his forceful charm on me as I sat there sipping. 

“Listen, honeybunch, here’s what I want from you. I get it that you’re going to tell Embe’s story her way. I just want you to tell one of the other versions as well. Write her version, then write mine. A version I get to approve, just like she’s getting with ‘Shadow of the Earth.’ Fair’s fair.”

“I can’t think about a second novel now!” I protested. “I haven’t even finished the first draft of ‘Shadow!’” 

That began a negotiation that continued all the way through my breakfast of potato latkes and a side green salad. It continues even now, an hour later, as I sit at home typing this. Batumivir drives a hard bargain and he’s a much savvier negotiator than me, but bottom line, I have the better hand going in. 

And I think I see how this can work. I could sure use his help with the later parts of ‘Shadow,’ in which he turns viciously on Embe. He earned what happened to him at the end of the story and he’s not going to like dealing with it. But he needs me, absolutely, if he wants his version of the story told at all. 

As soon as I got back home again —twenty minutes ago — I sat down here at my computer station and began this file, recording the deal Batumivir and I hammered out during my walk home. I’ve agreed that after the first novel is finished and out the door, assuming I get that far, I will tell a second, different version. It will continue the alternate-universe story that branches off briefly in the sixth chapter of “Shadow of the Earth.” In this second version Batumivir will indeed get to be the romantic hero. Sort of. But first he will have to cooperate on the rest of the version that I’m writing now, even through the gruesome parts toward the end: his narcissism, his alcoholism, his brutality, and the paranormal horror when he is possessed by that demon of cruelty. 

How very appropriate that he and I are negotiating this agreement at Halloween.

This document records our bargain. In writing this I am planting the seed for my second novel, assuming I get that far. When I save and close this file I will return to work on “Shadow of the Earth.” I will try my level best to get it written and published and distributed in the coming years, making notes for Batumivir’s version along the way as ideas for it crop up. 

Will there be a market for this second novel? Batumivir-in-my-head is sure that’s a yes. He takes it as given that all the women who read “Shadow” will fall in love with him, in spite of what he does in its later chapters. 

“Your bloody arrogance takes my breath away,” I tell him. 

He’s laughing at me. Ye gods, he’s going to be a bear to work with. And there’s something else coming up around this too. We’d better tackle it now, as I sit here typing this, because it’s going to make or break the deal. 

“Batumivir, if this is going to work, you will have to take responsibility for the things you did in Embe’s version of the story,” I warn him.

That wipes the smirk off his face. Now he’s glaring at me. 

I take a deep breath and continue. “Your narcissism was the main reason things got so ugly on most of the life tracks you shared with Embe across all those parallel universes. Whenever things didn’t go your way, you blamed someone else. You never acknowledged responsibility for the consequences of your own deeds. That has to change. Are you willing to work on it?”

“Don’t throw that psycho-babble at me!” he snarls. Then he surprises me. “I’ve spent eleven thousand years in karmic counselling, working on this shit. Don’t rub it in my face, all right?”

“Um, all right,” I say cautiously. “How do you want to deal with it?”

Potato latkes at Saul’s Deli

“I’ll tell you as we go along,” he throws at me.

“Um. All right. But I will be straight with you if something isn’t working for me. I’ll expect you to listen when I tell you why. Then we’ll figure out a way forward together. Deal?”

In my mind’s eye he’s trying to stare me down. I stare back. He can’t do this without me and he knows it.

“Deal,” he finally says. 

OMG. What have I gotten myself into?

November 1, 2016

It the Dia de los Muertos, the day after Halloween. Ay, carramba. The situation with Batumivir has evolved, big time, since I made the previous entry in this journal two days ago. Both Embe and I are now in love with him outright. He knows it and he’s gloating, the cocky bastard.

And he was in love with Embe all along! She/I have finally seen that. Some things about the plot of “Shadow” that were puzzling me have now snapped into place. This is why Batumivir was so obnoxious during those early years. He was like a seven-year-old boy who keeps pestering a girl in his class. He’s smitten and this is the only way he has to show it. She just thinks he’s being an insufferable jerk. I’m going to have to revise the second half of Chapter Six accordingly. Come to think of it, this insight is going to affect the entire novel.

At the same time, it’s still as true as ever that Batumivir was a primitive and highly predatory guy, set on dominating everything around him. Especially any woman he considered “his.”

And I now understand more clearly why Batumivir turned on Embe so horribly toward the end of the story. Her final rejection was a catastrophe, triggering his abandonment issues from early childhood. 

Yes, Batumivir, I’m throwing more psycho-babble at you. But be honest. Doesn’t it fill a deep, aching need in you to be seen and accepted at this level? Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?

Okay, big guy, I get it that this is scary for you. It’s scary for me too. Remember, I’ve come a long way myself. When Embe first shared her story with me twenty-five years ago, I hated you. I mean hated. Now I’m in love with you too. I can see how the second novel, the one where you get to be the good guy instead of the bad guy, could turn into a compelling love story, if rough and over-the-top. 

November 3, 2016

Seems like there’s another tectonic shift every second day.

Today, for the first time ever, I tried seeing my world from Batumivir’s point of view during my walk down Shattuck Avenue. Unlike Embe-in-my-head, who is exuberant and garrulous when I ask her what she thinks of our contemporary world, he didn’t have anything to say. Mostly he just seemed stunned.

Apparently Batumivir-in-my-deep-psyche has spent the last two days looking squarely at what he did to the woman he loved above all others on earth. He’s gotten it that facing this, and working it through, is the price he will have to pay if he wants me to write “his” version of the story, in which he and Embe end up mated happily if tempestuously, and rule their region together as its lord and lady. 

No wonder he’s stunned. Big gulp for me too. I’m going to have to be him in my head and heart and imagination, from time to time, in order to write both my first and my second novels. This is going to be way intense.

OMG. What have I gotten myself into?