A Quote by Sophie Hannah
I want my books to explore motives which make people think, 'Wow! Imagine the psychological state you'd have to be in for that to be your motive!' Whereas things like blackmail, jealousy - they're rational reasons for committing murder.
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Falling in love and having a relationship are two different things but yeah I can imagine that you can kind of - I think it depends on one's psychological state. I think there are some people who are on the internet and can fall in love and seem to be in a certain psychological state and other people who are - who couldn't quite do that.
For me, a big part of writing psychological thrillers is choosing crimes committed for motives which would only apply to a particular person in a particular situation; a unique, one-off motive that is born out of someone's particular range of psychological afflictions.
Like, in general I think people have very complicated reasons for wanting things, and we often have no idea whether we’re actually motivated by altruism or a desire to hook up or a search for answers or what. I always get annoyed when in books or movies characters want clear things for clear reasons, because my experience of humanness is that I always want messy things for messy reasons.
Suicide is a form of murder - premeditated murder. It isn't something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.
I can't imagine what it would be like to write in a relaxed state. I'm going to be writing some stories for my own interest. I want to experiment with different things and see if I can approach writing with much less control and in a better psychological state. It will be like breaking out of a straitjacket.
As is the case with most people in this game, I am driven by financial motives and creative motives; the question I had to answer is which motive I will give priority to?
If I make a stupid decision but don't execute it because I'm, say, lazy, then I'm lucky, not rational. However, at other times a person acts for good reasons just as she does what she thinks she shouldn't do, not knowing that they are good reasons. Just like sometimes we are a lot less rational than we think we are, it is also true that sometimes we are a lot more rational than we think we are.
I think that where you go wrong is that you imagine that your reasons for living ought to fall on you, ready-made from heaven, whereas we have to find them for ourselves.
I do think that sometimes you can invent more palatable or digestible reasons versions or reasons, when perhaps you don't want to admit the truth to yourself, and sometimes we deceive ourselves - along with others - about our reasons and motives.
We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.
I talk to groups studying the most advanced spiritual teachings and sometimes these people wonder why nothing is happening in their lives. Their motive is the attainment of inner peace for themselves - which of course is a selfish motive. You will not find it with this motive. The motive, if you are to find inner peace, must be an outgoing motive. Service, of course, service. Giving, not getting. Your motive must be good if your work is to have good effect. The secret of life is being of service.
When we think of a criminal, we imagine someone with criminal motives. And when we look at Eichmann, he doesn't actually have any criminal motives. Not what is usually understood by "criminal motives." He wanted to go along with the rest. He wanted to say "we," and going-along-with-the-rest and wanting-to-say-we like this were quite enough to make the greatest of all crimes possible. The Hitlers, after all, really aren't the ones who are typical in this kind of situation--they'd be powerless without the support of others.
Using words to make other people less big made me feel bigger, though the psychological dimension to that... well, I don't want to explore it.
Jealousy is a terrible thing. I know all the psychological triggers. The fear of losing control, the fear of loss, the fear of abandonment, neglect and loneliness... But the most destructive thing about jealousy is that it kills what it values - the love you want to save won't survive the constraints of jealousy. There is no entitlement. Love is either equal or a tragedy.
I don't like books that seem to want to teach me things. Which is not to say that one doesn't learn from books - but you do your own learning in your own way.
To kill someone for committing murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands.
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