Guest post written by Imperfect Lives author C.J. Washington
C.J. Washington is a data scientist and writer. He has a master’s degree in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife and daughter. Releasing on September 5th, Imperfect Lives is a powerful story of double lives, hidden truths, and the desire to have the perfect life, no matter the price.
I enjoy watching true crime documentaries, but I honestly can’t say why. They don’t lift my spirit the way underdog stories do or provide the rush of a good thriller. My desire to binge true crime is a mystery to me, but I don’t appreciate them all equally, and there may be a hint in that. I require a formula, and if it’s violated, I turn off my television with disgust, vowing to never watch another. The formula carries me from sincere sympathy for the victim through anger at the perpetrator to bitter-sweet satisfaction at the delivery of justice. I was so entranced by a documentary on the Chicago Tylenol murders that, when I was called away in the middle, I recorded the end. I waited until late that night when the house was quiet to watch the conclusion only to be left vexed and unable to sleep. I hadn’t known the murders were unsolved! Where was my bitter-sweet satisfaction? What kind of world would allow evil to escape unpunished? I seethed without outlet for my anger at the unknown perpetrator. Worst is when a documentary convinces me of a perpetrator’s guilt only to show him acquitted in court or convicted and handed an infuriatingly light sentence. I require clear-cut guilt and swift justice from true crime documentaries.
I am not fully at ease with my viewership of true crime or my desire to see the world in black and white. Firstly, I have qualms over the transformation of real-life tragedy into entertainment (something that feels more palatable when it’s journalistic in nature), and second, intellectually, I’m fully aware that the world isn’t black and white. True crime may retell true events, but, still, it often requires a suspension of disbelief, a willingness to ignore the possibility of biases in the criminal investigation. I’m all too good at that, eagerly swallowing the one-sided story crafted by writers. I tell myself there is no harm in this. True crime, when done well, is informative, and my naïve consumption has no real-world consequences. I may want to see the documentary’s bad guy punished, but I have no power to make that happen.
As a novelist, I’ve written about legal misdeeds, but I’ve yet to base a story on real events. And I seem incapable of remaining faithful to the formula I demand from true crime. I forgive myself the offense of nuance, but it raises its own challenges. This is what happens to me. My novels are typically borne of an idea. My second novel Imperfect Lives grew out of the question: What would happen if a killer for hire, diagnosed with a terminal illness, decided to save his soul by confessing his crimes to authorities? The novel follows the contract killer and two strangers whose lives are upended by his confessions. Given the presence of crime, it’s natural that some characters begin in my mind as “good” and others “bad.” The violation comes as the characters stretch in my imagination, expanding in depth and width, and, suddenly, somehow, I feel sympathy for a “bad” character. Maybe they’re not so bad after all, I reason. Or maybe they are bad but take a gander at those redeeming qualities! I want to explore them fully and move beyond the one-dimensional portrayal I look for in true crime villains.
I appreciate that all people, violent offenders included, are three-dimensional. This doesn’t mean evil doesn’t exist. I would submit that some acts are so heinous as to define their perpetrator. All of us in the U.S. are burdened by mass shootings, and I never look for redemption in these indiscriminate killers. The act, in my mind, negates any good that might be found in the murderer and nullifies any extenuating circumstances surrounding their crimes, though psychosis and brain damage are special cases deserving of studied consideration.
How then am I capable of falling in love with my own fictional characters after they commit murder?
I don’t know. It just happens.
And when it does, I feel compelled to explore them wholly.
Fiction can be a mirror of real life, but it can be so many other things. It can afford us the opportunity to safely explore what might be dangerous in real life. We should make an effort to understand the motivations and psyches of real-world killers, but it should be done clinically for the purpose of preventing future atrocities. Movie theaters, television specials, and popular books, i.e. entertainment, might not be the best place for it. For one, it’s insensitive to the victim’s families. The parents of a child killed in a grocery store shooting shouldn’t have to hear that the perpetrator was a great dad. Second, public sympathy for murderers may do more to perpetuate copycats than publicity already does. How many angry and damaged boys and men would relish the thought of their pain displayed on the big screen all to better understand them?
Even without the threat of these real-word harms, I still feel the occasional unease at my authorial sympathy for characters who commit misdeeds. The obvious problem is a question: Can I take the reader on this journey with me? Understandably, many readers want heroes and villains and unambiguous objectives to root for. I certainly do when I consume true crime. And then, there are the personal moments. I thoroughly enjoyed the process of writing Imperfect Lives. But there was the morning when I stumbled across a murder-for-hire plot in the news that resulted in the death of a young man. I felt a little sick, and it created a temporary distance between my character and me.
These are the issues I grapple with, the cost of submitting to my impulse to explore villainous characters. I’m proud of Imperfect Lives. It doesn’t glorify violence. And it doesn’t shy away from exploring the consequences for bad choices. The consequences may or may not be conventional, but they’re always there, often spreading to ensnare the people the evildoer cares most about. And isn’t that what we all ask from the world, that good actions are repaid with good and bad actions are met with consequences?
