Same But Different: Serial Killers

I've been perusing Save The Cat! again and was thinking about Chapter Two: Give Me The Same Thing... Only Different. To sum it up, Blake Snyder talks about how movie execs (and I'm sure publishers are the same) want to classify each script/story so they know how to market it.

As it turns out, I'm a thriller fan and I likes me a good serial killer / vigilante story. With the current popularity of Showtime's, Dexter, serial vigilantes seem to be all the rage. But Jeff Lindsay wasn't the first to cash in on this trope. From Robin Hood to Batman, authors have been handing out justice to those who escape the criminal justice system for centuries. So, in the spirit of 'Give Me The Same Thing... Only Different,' let's look at Dexter and two other serial killers / vigilantes in current 'literature' and see how I think they differ.

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Dexter Morgan
First Appearance: Darkly Dreaming Dexter, 2004
Gainfully Employed: Yes - forensic blood spatter analyst
Kept in Control By: Adoptive Father's moral code
Modus Operandi: Stalk victim for weeks to ascertain guilt, then kidnap victim and take them to prepared kill site. The kill site is prepared with plastic tarps to catch blood splatter because blood is 'dirty/disgusting.' After collecting a blood sample trophy on a microscope slide, Dexter confronts the victim with their crimes, usually including photographic or physical evidence (at one kill site, Dexter had dug up all the victims of a priest and displayed them). Once Dexter's victims know why they're going to die, he begins... cutting.
Driving Force: Dexter feels he has an entity living inside him, which he refers to as The Dark Passenger. When a 'guilty' person outside the law is found, he lets the Dark Passenger take control of the confrontation.

Movie Type: Superhero

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Serge A. Storms
First Appearance: Florida Roadkill,1999
Gainfully Employed: No - Con man
Kept in Control By: Serge has several psychological disorders and is manic and obsessive. He has drugs to keep him 'normal,' but doesn't like taking them. For the most part, he is extremely likable, only launching into a homicidal rage when his sense of justice is triggered.
Modus Operandi: Serge's victims are always guilty of hurting someone or making Florida look bad. He considers himself an expert of Floridian history and culture and despises anyone who offends his great state. When his victims are chosen, he dispatches them in a wide variety of James Bond-type death traps. Others he kills outright, although creatively. For instance, in Torpedo Juice (2005), Serge forces his first victim to swallow multiple bullets, then puts him into the magnetic field of an MRI. The police are baffled after finding a body with six exit wounds, but no entry wounds.
Driving Force: Sense of Justice

Movie Type: Buddy Love

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John Wayne Cleaver
First Appearance: I Am Not A Serial Killer, 2009
Gainfully Employed: Yes - Funeral Home Assistant / Embalmer
Kept in Control By: John is a teenager in high school and is fascinated by serial killers and corpses. Thanks to his embalming job, he has an outlet for some of his... exploration. Coupled with a series of rules meant to interrupt his compulsive urge to kill, John has been successful in restraining himself.
Modus Operandi: John spends most of his time avoiding situations that would encourage his urge to kill. Events have led him to actually kill individuals, but because his intended victims were hunting humans, he felt that the Rules could be overlooked in their case. As a result, he turns himself loose to hunt the murderers.
Driving Force: Obsessive Compulsive

Movie Type: Monster In The House

Breaking the Mold
Notice anything different? Everything! Well, okay, all three are vigilantes that only kill the deserving, but everything else about them is different. Each character would enjoy the quality of the others work, but really, each series is the same, but different. Each even has a different feel. For instance:

Dexter Morgan - Light with comedy as Dexter fails to understand humans and fights to blend in. High levels of suspense as he stalks and confronts his victims. Extreme tension when the Dark Passenger is loose.
Serge Storms - High comedy with light suspense. As a manic, Serge is incredibly upbeat and enjoys his life. He's always exploring or trying something new and dragging anyone along (even the unwilling) for the trip. His death traps are usually so fascinating it's fun to watch.
John Cleaver - Like a Young Adult (YA) version of Dexter and sold with both YA and Adult books. Some light comedy, but great tension/suspense for the YA crowd to cut their teeth on.

Anything Different Is Good
So, writers, check out the listed tropes in Chapter 2 of Save The Cat! and ask yourself how your work will be classified and how you're changing the norm. The rest of you, think about what genres you like and what authors do to frame the same theme differently.

If you're looking for more information about serial killers, I recommend:
Howdunit: How Crimes Are Committed and Solved

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Murder One: A Writer's Guide to Homicide

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Follow Your Bliss!

I'm actually pretty bummed I won't be doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I want to encourage all of you who ever wanted to write a novel, to jump in and do it. Last year at this time, I was seriously taking my writing into a higher gear. I signed up for NaNoWriMo and David Farland's Writer's Death Camp. But the most important thing I did was recognize that, if I was going to be serious about my writing, I needed to start investing in myself and do it NOW.

Life has a way of throwing a million things at you. All of them important. But if you feel you have something you desperately want to do... something that your life feels empty without... then you have to find a way to make it fit in with everything else.

Dan Wells, bestselling author of the John Cleaver series, is famous for saying he knew he had to give up gaming if he wanted to be a successful author. Now, is Dan still a gamer? Sure! But gaming isn't his passion now. It's writing.

I'm a recovering World of Warcraft player. I spent 2+ hours everyday on the computer playing that game. Well... Let's be honest. It was more like 4+ a day. Two hours would have been on a busy day. This made me realize how many other things I could be doing (And Warcraft was starting to get boring anyway).

So, taking inspiration from Dan, I killed my gaming time and started focusing on my writing. I signed up for NaNoWriMo and the Death Camp. These little steps led to many other things including my AWESOME writing group, listening to a host of writing related podcasts every week, and attending workshops and conferences for writing. But most important, it brought me to where I am now. Finishing my first novel.

Am I still a gamer? DUH! But I play little games on Facebook. Nothing that takes too long to play. And when I finish my rough draft, I have Homefront and Skyrim waiting for a try before I rush off into the revision process. Gaming is my reward system. It has become my chocolate ice cream after a days hard work.

So, back to NaNoWriMo. If you have ever thought you wanted to write a book, start now. You have the drive to do anything you set your mind to. You know where to fit in the time. One author interviewed, said she wrote in her laundry room because she knew her family avoided work. Another said she would tell her family she was running to the supermarket, but would spend and hour in her car, at the park, writing. She finished almost her entire novel in the car.

It doesn't matter if you make your goal. Sure it's awesome if you do, but how much closer will you be than if you do nothing now? Sign up for NaNoWriMo and get going! And if what makes your motor purr isn't writing, well, get going on what does! Sign up for a class. Check out a book from the library on something you've always wanted to learn. Just do it so that one year from today, you can say you've done something you've always wanted to! And when it comes right down to it, you're worth investing your time in.

All That Swag

The Iron Throne Desk Chair

Any pirate loves his booty, so believe me, when I went to the Angry Robot panel at Worldcon and Lee Harris offered a pile of books up to the combined geek horde, I squealed like a little girl and hustled to the front of the room. I managed to snag one the copies of 'Slights' by Kaaron Warren based on the fact that it's suppose to be super scarey.

Thus started the geek in me looking for all that fan boy stuff.
Damn you, Lee Harris. (Call me!)

In addition to the initial Angry Robot swag, I managed to pick up three more books (one of them the Hugo nominated Feed, put out by Orbit Books), a bumper sticker, a t-shirt, a handout on blood splatter, publisher buttons and buttons from Game of Thrones on HBO. And don't even get me started on all the free munchies in the con suite.

Now, I really went to Worldcon to work. Wanting to be a published author, I needed to network with editors and agents who could help me learn how to get published. I had a stack of business cards and a limited time to meet everyone I could, so I really couldn't spend a lot of time dilly-dallying on the fun stuff. But the people and things I did get to see, really made me geek out.

For instance, when we first walked in to register for the convention, we passed the food court. Sitting at one of the tables, right out in the open, was George R.R. Martin. Currently the most popular Fantasy writer in the market, I've read most of his stuff and find his work and career fascinating. Needless to say I was poking my friend and saying, "Dude! George Martin!"

There were other authors there whose work I enjoy, such as Dan Wells, Larry Correia and Howard Taylor. I even got to see Brandon Sanderson for the first time in the flesh (I was beginning to think he was the great white buffalo).

And lets not forget the man who shaped my sense of humor, Dr. Demento. Who would I be as an adult if I hadn't grow up with the Monster Mash or They're Coming To Take Me Away? Would I even have been nominated for class clown in high school if I hadn't heard Fish Heads or Dead Puppies?

So what I learned was that sometimes, even when you're crazy-busy with work, you have to take a moment and enjoy the things that make you who you are. That little burst of joy often may be the only thing that helps you get through another day.

And as Jimmy Durante sang,
"Don't you know that it's worth
Every treasure on earth
To be young at heart?
For, as rich as you are,
It's much better by far
To be young at heart
And, if you should survive
To a hundred and five,
Look at all you'll derive
Just by being alive!
Now, here is the best part:
You have a head start
If you are amongst the very young...
At heart"

Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash. Wherever you are.