Just Blame Sonny Corinthos

In college, I watched every soap opera that was on television at the time … which I think was about 11 of them.

But the ABC soaps were always my hands down favorite. Fast forward all these years later, only one ABC soap remains: General Hospital. It’s the only one I watch now and I can’t ever imagine not watching it, even when the characters drive me crazy.

Recently, I went to my very first General Hospital fan experience and it was amazing.

The turnout was kind of small, which was great for those of us who were there since we got to spend more time with each of the actors. But … probably not so good for the pocket books of the actors that attended.

Now the curious thing was as I talked to each of them, it was crystal clear to me which of them are basically being themselves on camera (i.e., the Keanu Reeves effect) and which of them had personalities completely different from the characters they portray (i.e., wow they can act good!). Check out my photos and my assessment of them throughout this post.

As I work on the third Mena & Julian book, I got to thinking about why I like to write about the human side of criminals, striving to make readers empathetic on a certain level with the motives that drive their diabolical behavior.

Of course, I was watching General Hospital when these thoughts floated through my mind and then the answer appeared right on the television screen.

Sonny Corinthos.

I’m a long-time fan of Maurice Bernard, the actor that originated the role, following him from his role of Nico Kelly on All My Children to General Hospital for the creation of Sonny Corinthos. Unfortunately, Maurice wasn’t at the fan experience, but I’m keeping my eye out for one where he will be there.

Now, Sonny is known as the mafia boss with the heart of gold.

GH writers have forced us onto a seesaw of loving the man but hating what he does for a living. Sonny has this way of convincing us that his crimes are not as dastardly as others, which in the real world is ridiculous, but we buy into it for the sake of loving him. His loyalty to his family and friends drives us to overlook his hypocrisy. His complexity drives us to love the story lines that we find him dealing with … like the current one where he’s watching his father battle Alzheimers, dealing with the birth of an unexpected child and defending his turf all at the same time!

When I set out to write my novels, I try to give each villain an element of this same complexity.

I want to force people to empathize with them on some level while at the same time deploring the criminal actions. My villains can’t be evil for evil’s sake. There’s always a hidden justification for their actions, one that taps into a very real and understandable emotion or feeling or desire that even the rest of us have.

Take Philly Desjardins, the villain of The Hidden Threat.

First, Philly had watched his much smarter brother steal $100 million from the PC-5, leave the family behind without sharing any of the loot and continue to evade being killed by the enforcers of the gang for taking their money. Knowing that his brother was living an extravagant lifestyle with no plans of sharing it with him took its toll on Philly.

Then, there was Beaujean … a protégé that he mentored into the ways of the PC-5, who quickly became more valuable to the gang than Philly himself. He had to watch as Ephraim, the leader of the financial arm of the gang, elevated Beaujean while Philly’s own stature with the leader plummeted. I think it’s easy to understand how jealousy and envy made him “feel some kind of way” as he watched those close to him attain the success that he wanted for himself.

Would a normal, sane person create a sex trafficking side hustle in this situation? Of course not! But knowing his background can help explain why he made that bad choice.

I hope those little nuggets will help you to find the villains in my books more interesting.

You might even find yourself rooting for the bad guys, even when you know you shouldn’t! Kinda like I root for Sonny Corinthos!