Into the Fire

. . . is where you have to go whether you want to or not. After all, you’ve given them life, right? These characters who occupy much of the mental free-for-all in the creative wing of your brain must live and breathe on the page or the story dies from lack of oxygen and blood supply.

You can’t help but wonder how a lovely lady like Brandilyn Collins manufactures these creepy criminal, sometimes serial killer types, but she does. Looks deep into their psyches and creates some monster murderers. Skin crawling examples of human depravity. And she does it well.

Steven James’ villains are off the chart wicked. And his approach to them with Patrick Bowers is to not only contrast his hero’s desire to see them stopped, incarcerated for the rest of their lives–or even more preferable: dead—but to subtly imply there are similarities to these wicked whackos in each of us.

Let’s move another direction. How about someone like the lovely 30-something nearly reclusive murder mystery author who writes under a pseudonym and has never been with a man? What kind of woman in today’s world could occupy that moral position looking like she does?

What about the lonely boy who absorbs the dysfunction from his quarreling parents and his only ambition in this life is to experience love and a family that doesn’t fight? When superstardom ambushes him as a young man, he still looks for deep love and it eludes him until his mid-30s. Then when happiness surrounds him, he discovers he’s still that empty, lonely little boy . . .

What about the guy who accidentally kills his estranged wife’s boyfriend in a bedroom brawl? He’s just an ordinary guy who ends up in jail with a minimum sentence and must start over as a felon.

I know the darkness I can conjure up in my mind. How ‘bout you? I also know I long for redemption in stories of all kinds. Hope. For more than humanity has to offer. More than humanity can ever hope to attain alone. I also want to see evil get its due. To be addressed for what it is. To experience some justice—even if it’s just one instance.

What do you want to gain after peering inside their heads?

Lord, you give us insight and revelation into ourselves and others. Apart from you, we can do nothing. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.