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What to do if you can’t create a lovely villain?
<< I think it is also possible to make a hero-psychopath one hundred percent sick and revolting, and still make him fascinating for his very blackness and all-round depravity. I very nearly did this with Bruno in Strangers on a Train , for even Bruno’s generosity is neither consistent nor well-placed, and there is nothing else to be said in his favor. But in that story, Bruno’s evil was offset by Guy’s “goodness,” which considerably simplified the problem I had of providing a likable hero, as Guy became the likable hero. It depends on the writer’s skill, whether he can have a frolic with the evil in his hero-psychopath. If…
