What about you?

     So I'm writing a short story about a serial killer.  Namely, a crazy serial killer.  But Chris, aren't all serial killers crazy?  Only as much so as you and me.  Let me explain:
     By 'crazy' I mean someone who is disillusioned.  Who believes something that isn't true, that doesn't mesh with reality.  In this way, we're all mostly crazy.  Everyone who's ever lied to you, no matter how small, has contributed to that.  This includes the coworker who called in sick yesterday, the author who wrote your favorite novel, the preacher who explained faith to you.
     Hell, it includes me.  Because here I am, telling you my views.  Are these views real?  Maybe, maybe not.  They're real to me, sure.  But everyone who's crazy thinks that way.  These are the things I believe.  If you don't believe them, then that means you're sitting there saying, 'oh, he's crazy, listen to this guy' and that's totally fine by me.  Read someone else's blog, if you don't like craziness.  To quote Stephen King (something I do far too much of), "the tale of the irrational is the sanest way I know of expressing the world in which I live."  Because we're all crazy.  The craziness is not important.  In the end, what really matters is what we believe, versus what others believe.  If everyone believed Obama was the antichrist, would he be in office?  But not everyone does.  Some people do, but they are a minority.  So we turn around and call them crazy, and go back to our own crazy beliefs.
     So someone believes that someone else should die.  They truly believe it, and when they're caught, they don't understand how nobody agrees with them.  This is the crazy serial killer.  As scary as he/she is, we see something in that.  We believe the sane killers because, well, they're sane, and we rejoice for the men that killed Bin Laden and Hitler and Stalin and hold feasts and celebrations and then in the dark of night we turn on our flashlights and read with breathless anticipation about the people who killed Kennedy, or Lincoln.  Because we see the craziness in ourselves.  When you meet someone who disagrees with your religious of political beliefs, there is a brief moment in which you could empathize with Charles Manson.  The only difference is your differing beliefs are about politics, and Manson's are about life and death.
   Insanity in fiction draws us.  It always has, and I think it's because it's the one way we can let our own 'crazy' beliefs loose, if just for a while.  Those little bits of our beliefs that chafe against society are hungry animals, and fiction feeds them, keeps them in check.  Characters like Andrew Scott's Moriarty, or Heath Ledger's Joker allow us to remain calm.  To roam the dark and shadowy realms of unchecked possibility, where the trees have ears and the hills whisper softly.  And when you come back to the real world, the one that's 'sane', well, maybe you don't have to take it so seriously.  You can let your grip loosen a little, because when you come to discover that the entire world is crazy, then you might as well just go ahead and call it sane, instead.


     The story should be out soon.  I'm finishing up the first draft and hopefully you'll have it within the month, likely in installments as it's rather long.