Preface Introduction: Primal Fears Chapter 1: Unforgettable Chapter 2: The Case of the Unlikeable Protagonist Chapter 3: Bastards: Anti-Heroes Chapter 4: Dark Heroes and Bad Boys Chapter 5: Antagonists: Bullies and Mischief Makers Chapter 6: Bad to the Bone: Villains Chapter 7: Sociopaths: Ice in Their Veins Chapter 8: Matching Wits: Heroes vs. Villains Chapter 9: Sympathy for the Devil Chapter 10: Bitches: Dangerous Women Chapter 11: Monsters, Creatures, and Lost Souls Chapter 12: Bad Guys for Younger Readers Appendix: Questions for Bad Guys Index Between October 2004 and mid-March 2006, I wrote about 350,000 words to complete three nonfiction books. By the time I was finished, I felt anemic and wrung dry, so I began reading to replenish the words, concepts, and images I needed to write this book. Besides Timothy Egan's amazing account of the Dust Bowl days, The Worst-Hard Times, and Erik Larson's The De vil in the White City, I read mostly fiction as a steady diet. I read like I was a lonely recluse while Oregon's spring rains wept down my windows and my flower beds began blooming. I read in the middle of the night, while I should have been editing or writing, in trains and planes and waiting rooms, and most often sprawled on my comfortable, overstuffed sofa. I traveled far in my literary wanderings, and somewhere in the midst of this reading, a sort of triage for the writer's soul, my weariness subsided. The ragged edges of my brain started mending and were replaced by a galaxy of characters, plots, scenes, and bits that all added up to the particular alchemy that is fiction. And I fell back in love with this part of my life. And then in June 2006, I started writing this book; the ideas I wanted to bring forth, along with the characters who had been occupying my imagination, became my companions during these months of writing. While I indulged in my reading spree, an important realization was taking shape. I realized that I was going to center this book on the fact that fictional characters are vulnerable. While musing about this, I went walking in the gala that is Portland's springtime. We're a city of gardeners; everywhere, flowers, ferns, trees, and bushes were awash with color and new life. The air was perfumed and made sweet by blossoms. As sunsets took on a rosy afterglow, I kept walking and teasing at this idea of vulnerability and thinking about how it applied to my life, my relationships, and my sorrows. I cannot speak for your