Writing a convincing hate scene

Well, I'm not sure most "hate crimes" are based on hate. I think a lot of them are simply the actions of mean people who tend to direct their nastiness at people whom it is considered "okay" to victimize.

I have a gay friend who was the guy who got called when gay men got beat up or tortured. A lot of the perpetrators were men--young enlisted men in particular--who went looking for gay sex; had sex; and then, in the aftermath, were overtaken with a fit of self-loathing and dealt with it by beating the hell out of the person they'd just had sex with.

An awful lot of how you write such a scene, though, has to do with whose POV the scene is told from: the victim, or the perpetrator, or an observer. The perpetrator is without a doubt the most interesting problem for a writer.

i've never thought about the elements of a hate scene before, but i'll try to think of some things that might help. i'm assuming here that there's a real hatred, not just a spoiled kid's 'i hate you!' for their parents not letting her go out with the local college football team.

you're halfway there when you say 'convincing.' the hatred has to be plausible to the reader and justified in the character's mind. a character just doesn't hate for no reason, they've got a reason based in experience or have been taught that way. you've got a lot of archetypes, such as the southern/redneck bigot and the angry urban militant hating 'the man.' if there's something there to exploit, it should lessen your writing load. it's instantly believable because it's real. racial tensions are pretty easy fodder, though.

between two characters, i'd say a hate scene probably would, on average, start off with a dialogue and often ending in action. situations will vary, of course, but this seems to me that it would be the most natural way to escalate the scene because it's probably the course that happens in real life. for example, if you and your buddies were out gay-bashing, you probably wouldn't just jump out of your car and start the beating before saying, 'you gaddamn faggot!' first. granted, not much of a conversation there, but still i'd think there would be some vocalization first. i mention this because i think it's important in terms of realism.

the tricky part: you want your reader to feel that hatred, too, right? in effect, you're teaching them, or at least offering up a reason, for one person to hate another. since you want your reader to identify and relate to a character, hm, there's an interesting moral dilimma, eh? lol. here i have to agree with david, the POV is important. the cowardly thing to do is switch to the 'bad guy's' POV to avoid teaching the reader why they should hate this other character. but, hey, we're not writing a sequel to the bible here, and hate is a powerful aspect of a character most wussy writers are afraid to go to. sure, it's easy for frodo to hate orcs ~ he's got damn good reason! it's harder for other MCs to hate someone in less dire circumstances and still make that character someone the reader *wants* to identify with.

there's the rub, i think: a reader wants to identify with a character... up til that character says or does something that makes the reader realize they personally have that negative aspect. in other words, exposing the reader's foibles may risk the reader's love for the character and ultimately the story. 'oh, *I* would *never* act like that!' truth is that people only *think* they'd act/react a certain in a given situation, whether it's true or not, and that way is always the most virtuous, heroic and reasonable way possible. in real life, given the exact same situation, people may act/react much worse. but they'd never admit that, and if you show them how they possibly might, they'll disagree with it.

with that in mind, i say do it. i could be wrong. if not, you've accomplished an artistic goal if nothing else. so many stories are based on or involves a hatred that's never discussed. the hero is always justified in killing nazis. hell, they shot first! then again, the hero tends to put himself into those situations where his killing them is justified. he really wants to kill them as much a find the sceptre of destiny. indiana jones admitted it, 'nazis. i hate these guys.' great line, perfectly justifiable. so what does he do? he has a long conversation with dad, waiting for nazis to show up. he *knows* he's going to kill bad guys. he can hardly wait. and he's justified for doing it, just as i'd feel justified in the same situation.

in every scene, do you have a beginning, middle and end? do you have conflict and emotional response in all of them? i think you have to put a lot of your reader's mentality into building a hate scene. what key words would the reader have to see to get his blood pressure going? it's a conflict, so one character has to do and say what the other character doesn't want to see happen or said to him. especially when the hatred is vocalized, what gets people the most upset is where there's truth involved.

sorry, i've run out of time, i'll try to get back to this later.

For white-hot hate, I conjure up the last time some flake in front of me in the ten-items-only line had 11.

No, just kidding. I'm used to waiting. Any line I get into has an immediate shift change and the till is short. Or the roll of tape runs out and the first-day clerk hasn't a clue how to put in a new one, or the clerk's ex-husband chooses just that moment to settle their child-custody dispute.

This segues into my more serious response. Like you, the best I can channel up for most outrageous behavior is pity and the desire to be elsewhere. So I have to watch others, record the body language and facial expressions of those arguing lose-lose topics dear to them, like politics, patriotism, religion (or the lack of it), abortion, you know.

When little flecks of white fly from their lips, I'm getting good stuff.

Quietly very quietly-if I feel the necessity to get into something hateful-quietly very quietly.

I would imagine that hatred expressed with a smile can be as devastatingly powerful as the more conventional type of nazis-gaybashers etc. I think hate is more powerful and immobilising when its practitioners dress it up as "what's done"/"What goes without saying".

Remember Nurse Ratched. Now that was one hate-filled lady who never lost her composure and put the fear of God into you.

Most hate, I believe is based on fear - of the unknown, of difference, or the perception of being denied by the "other" (the classic "us" and "them" mentality). Hate then becomes the manifestation of that fear and resentment. People who hate refuse to acknowledge what's really going on inside them and, instead, choose to lash out, rationalizing their actions as just and warranted, a way of "setting things right". If you can express your character's hate in such a way, it should work. You don't have to believe it yourself, but you do need to understand what's inside your character's head.

Anyone who wants to hurt another person, regardless of whether it would be considered a "hate crime" by our standards, has hate on their heart.

An example in my latest completed WIP is when the main character's friend is murdered, and he wants revenge on the person who did it.

If it bothers you to think of hurting another person, perhaps you should consider a person you most despise...a child molester, for example.

I think hatred is vital and not so scary as that--much better to be faced than hidden or swept under a rug. Hate crimes are scary, but there's plenty of hatred that never erupts into violence or criminal acts. You could, for the sake of argument, say that hate is the flip side of love. Would we know what love was--the greatest, surpassing love--if we didn't also know hate? Terrible things are done in its name, but it's human, after all, and I suppose the only way to deal with it is to confront it, head on.

I think about hatred a great deal, because I'm writing a novel about the German occupation of Belgium during the First World War. Most Belgians probably hated the Germans, and with good reason, but the feelings on both sides were psychologically complicated. My MC is American, a neutral, working for a humanitarian organization, and because of what he sees and experiences, he comes to hate and loses his neutrality.

Consequently, I look at hatred as a deep feeling that demands exploration, and that the more it's explored, the less toxic it becomes.

I think you really have to feel it yourself for your scene to ring true. Hate is an ugly emotion, yes, but when I feel it, I try to explore it as much as possible, and always I store that emotion away, because I can use it.

It sounds like a self-destructive suggestion, but next time you feel anger at someone, you might try to explore it, as objectively as possible.

When I started writing, I was pretty young. I didn't have a very large range of emotion, either happiness or sadness or anger. As I've grown, I've expanded that range...quite a bit. And that as much as anything has improved my writing greatly. I don't know that great writers must suffer, exactly, but having a wide emotional range to draw from helps. Part of that is suffering, but part of it is happiness. Feel something, store it.

Then when you write, take a moment to put yourself into that emotion for the scene. When I do this, I take careful note of how I feel physically, because that adds to the realism of the scene.

(This is how I write. It probably isn't for everyone, but since I figured it out, it's worked wonders on my writing.)

I was a victim of such a crime in my teens. In my opinion hate crimes are about keeping the victim "in their place." Thats what I felt from that night. I wasn't hated ... I just didn't feel ashamed for who I was and thats why I got the shit kicked out of me. I was being 'taught a lesson.' Hate crimes go up when the victimizer feels the people they hate are feeling too hopeful, such as the civil rights era. And in Mass when they decriminalized gay marriage my friends reported to me that more gays and lesbians were being targeted by bigots.

Who would want or need to 'put someone in their place'? And what would it feel like to have that need?

I think you should ask yourself those questions.

Have you tried using music to put yourself in an angry mood? Whenever I need to really feel something for a scene, I put my headphones on and it works beautifully. You might try listening to some really heavy industrial or punk or whatever. Just a thought.

Metallica and Megadeth work for me, whether it's a hate scene or not...