Overbury Ink

The Brothers of the Silence, Don Richmond and Ian LeWinter are the minds behind Blank Death, the first part of the Blank Must Die trilogy. Check it out at Blank Must Die

…Or, at least until we’re satisfied that you completely understand what we are trying to tell you. And here is a cool bit of truth: not only are the victim-related narratives slanted by psychological imperatives, but when we get our hands on ‘em and run ‘em through our filters, they are changed once again.

Robert Bloch, Thomas Harris, Tobe Hooper, and Kim Henkel did just that with the narratives surrounding the Edward Theodore Gein case. I first came across Gein in my search to learn more about serial-killers as the basis of a story I’m working on. I’d never read of his murders or even heard his name before, and I was surprised to find that his true life crimes were the inspiration for the books Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs, and later the movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

“How could I have missed this guy?” I thought. So I read what I could find about him.

As serial killers go, Gein was an example of quality over quantity. He was only found responsible for killing two people (though he was only tried and convicted for one). And in the years after his apprehension, further investigations only pointed to the possibility that he may have killed two or three more. In serial-killer terms a death count of four is barely worth honorable mention. What made Gein’s crimes so memorable, even if he wasn’t, was not his level of productivity — it was what he did with skin and body parts of his victims and the 40 or so corpses he disinterred (I leave the research details to you).

Here is a man whose name no one wants to remember, yet his legacy lives on in the twisted works of modern fiction writers. And those works don’t recount the real events or give notice to the real man — and yet, they do. Even Robert Bloch was surprised years later when he “discovered how closely the imaginary character [he'd] created resembled the real Ed Gein, both in overt act and apparent motivation.” He conceded that “the notion that the man next door may be a monster” was the genesis for his most famous work.

Again, I want to stress that none of the writers who drew from the Gein murders wrote about them faithfully. No one exactly described Gein’s methods. No one carefully detailed Gein’s madness the way a biographer would. And that’s perfectly okay, for as you well know, it is not always important to get the specific data right, but it is supremely important to get the motivations spot on. It is not the realm of logical reason that binds us; it is the realm of emotional reason to which we are beholden.

Goethe observed, “Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.” He knew our identities must give way to our work. We are the becoming ones. We aren’t encouraged, we are required to feel what’s happening in what we are going to write about. We might not have to live through the original experience, but we must imagine it. Not casually. We have to deeply explore how someone could hate so much or be so afraid. We can’t just chalk it up to madness. That’s the door out that others are allowed to use.

Instead, we are the killer, the victim, the police officer, and the neighbor. We are obliged to dwell on what it feels like, what it sounds like, what it smells like. We are forced to go inside, to seek out our own terrors, to connect with the things that revolt us. We see the horrific fear of the victim and taste the orgasmic delight of the killer at the same moment of death, and we feel the nausea when the neighbor finds the body. Within only ourselves we are compelled to find the unique and individual voices of everyone affected. However twisted, however distorted our accounts become, their underpinnings cannot ring untrue. Only then will our characters’ motivations appear plausible.

Which is one of the reasons we write: to discover the inner machinery of human behavior. That’s why the Gein case was such a gem: his unique story required a daunting level of psychological and emotional research. Unearthing the motivations of a madman like Gein is like excavating the remains of a newfound Egyptian tomb — it can make you wealthy, but there’s a curse attached. His was a twisted tale. Paydirt for the emotionally courageous.

But the willingness to excavate the deepest and darkest aspects of humanity regardless of outcome does not extend to your readers. When a reader picks up your words, they make some kind of agreement to read them. Their contract with your work is different than your own. While they may have a willingness to be moved, to be entertained, they aren’t compelled and their appreciation is far from a lock. (to be continued).

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