“James, in reluctantly enjoying your rather dark offbeat fiction in which perfectly good poetic nuances are tragically submerged in the violent plot, I have noticed a reoccurring character type, ‘the meathead womanizer’ represented by the James Langford character in Easy Chair, who was so obviously based on yourself. What is the significance of this character type in your fiction? Is it a way to connect with your boxing readers? Also, how do you write such characters, disregarding female sensibilities as they do, when, through your nonfiction writing it is clear that you hold an empathetic view of women and their plight?

“Additionally, I, as an educated woman, am interested in how a writer achieves an empathetic link between the cerebral reader, and such dynamic and insensitive characters. Also, where does the lawyer type of personality fit into character exposition? As surprised as I am to be able to enjoy a story written from the point of view of IED Davon—who was nothing but a life support system for a ready penis—I am equally puzzled by my inability to tolerate the womanizing lawyers I have found myself dating on a few occasions, although the worst man I have know was a salesman.”

Since Ann Sterzinger wrote a profile of my work for Takimag a number of really smart folks have been emailing me directly and leaving comments for articles that require an article to answer. Celine here is part of that readership.

Celine, I first want to separate womanizers from man whores and misogynists. These three Character types are:

1. The Direct Action Protagonist ‘Meathead’

2. The Receptive Character

3. The Manipulative Character

They are all human and are all sensitive. When written as a supporting character the Direct Action ‘meathead’ seems insensitive but is not. Indeed he is the most sensitive in terms of needing approval. Rather, it would be accurate to say in terms of these male archetypes, as with comparisons of men to women, that they have differing sensitivities, not more or less.

This type of man is often a man whore.

IED Davon, Jay Bracken [the main action character in the Sunset Saga] and a number of fighters I have trained—as well as myself from 2004-2009—are or where man whores; simply guys who have a hard time saying no to women and end up in relationships with more than one woman. And, being meatheads, these types usually fail to manage these diverse commitments without disaster striking. These men are really the targets of women aggressively recruiting athletic sex partners without the apparent wits to resist the woman’s management of the relationship. In my case I had a female roommate who managed my workload by reminding me to schedule buffer times, to only ‘see the psychobitch at her place,’ only ‘one screamer a day please,’ etc.

This type of character—the meathead—is not manipulative, which accounts for his appeal to woman, as well as his appeal to manipulative men. He is the prizefighter type—the action addicted plot driver in a story. As a writer I use this type of character, The Direct Action Protagonist, as a plot driver. The introspective characters are left cleaning up his mess and looking for the meaning of life while he accidentally does something important or tragic. No civilization, no society, no nation or religious order rises or falls without the intercession of a Direct Action Protagonist. The Direct Action Protagonist is also useless in the maintenance of that civilization as other than a diversionary athlete or empire sustaining war fighter. In a decaying society such as ours he serves as entertainment for the masses, a dupe or fall guy for the manipulative ruling class, or as a lover for women who have a natural yearning for the attention of such a man.

The receptive character is insightful, and is a storehouse for plot information, context and nuance. He is sometimes a misogynistic type like James Langford; perhaps a lapsed man whore or a reformed manipulative womanizer type who decided not to be a womanizer and becomes a curmudgeon instead. This is a secondary character who would be played in a good Hollywood movie by a seasoned character actor. My religious visionary characters such as Abd al-Latiff, Three-Rivers and Doctor Charles Robinson are of this receptive type. Crude as James Langford was he was an observant, questioning character, albeit on the dark side. Justin’s horrific dream experience was caused by an experiment in which their dreaming minds were linked.

It is difficult to write an entire story from the receptive perspective. This is what I did with Easy Chair though, because Justin is also a receptive character. Indeed all writers probably fall into this category. Notably, when I was a man whore I did not produce much writing as that was a dissipating life style—giving my energy to needy women a bit at a time instead of storing it up in written form.

The classic womanizer may have—and is most effective when he appears to have—the characteristics of the man whore; the physicality and risk taking personality that attracts women as he is their opposite. He is, however, aggressively deceitful. In the prize fighting world this is the promoter—almost always a scumbag figure—who provides the fighter with opponents to fight and women to distract him while his pay is being unfairly dispersed. Eventually the promoter engineers the fighter’s downfall—that is what he does; brings primal men down through his machinations. The promoter uses his meal ticket fighter to destroy other overmatched direct action types, and then eventually turns on his own man when he either becomes unmanageable, comes under the influence of a single woman, or begins to lose his powers.

This happened to Mike Tyson. Promoter Don King had fed Tyson’s crude sense of intimacy by sending ready whores to his room. When a woman came into Iron Mike’s room it was for one thing only. This was the understanding. Then, after Mike got out of hand with questions as to where his millions had gone, Don King sent an innocent naïve beauty queen into the lion’s den and the predictable happened. She was ruined. Mike was ruined. The villain kept his money.

You see, in fiction, the lawyer salesman type is the villain. My villains such as Hyman Maxim, Jeannot, Emeralda Ire, Tina Hesperia and The Man in the Gray Suit, vary greatly in form and type. They are all, however, manipulative, that is the characteristic of the villain.

In terms of ancient literature Achilles and Hector are the primary Direct Action Protagonists in the Iliad, Nestor and Priam receptive characters, and Agamemnon the classic manipulative character. The five of them make the story, with Helen and Paris essentially being objectified.

As an amateur journalist interviewing violence survivors—among them murderers and lesser violent criminals—I attained the skills of the villain by learning to hide my distaste for the subject and be as every man’s friend, as I wanted only their information and needed to convince them to speak with me. This disingenuous skill set has helped me survive harrowing situations, but has also led me to see how I could—in a few steps of the mind—become a manipulative villain type. I tap into that when writing villains. Most fictional villains are overwritten. The typical real villain is likable, because he needs to be liked to achieve his ends, not because he likes you.

So Celine, my fictional characters have no purpose other than to realistically—if outrageously or in a statistically improbable manner—engage each other along the threads that make up the story cord, which is how I envision the tales I write, not as a story line, but as a twisted cord of story threads.

As far as figuring out the men in your life here is a good guide.

Direct Action Men will be found among the working lower class and athletes.

Receptive men are typically conflicted and can be found most reliably in the middle social tier among those who earn with their mind but have shied from the lucrative earning step of becoming a manipulator.

Manipulative Men are found at all social levels in equal numbers from lowly panhandlers to fast food shift managers to CEOs and heads of state. The legal profession—and hence politics—as well as sales and management, are naturally their strongholds. And, remarkably, not all of them are evil, not even most. You will notice the none-evil manipulators dying of strokes and heart attacks, self medicating or paying a dominatrix to punish them, in order to deal with the evolving monstrous nature of their necessary social role.

Look out for the ones who enjoy their role. They are the monsters.