If you had to write a novel with the narrator/anti hero being a serial killer...

The very nature of a serial killer makes them very unrelatable. How retarded are you?

The Sopranos and The Wire already exist move on

>be creative for me
You're missing the entire point

Not true. I wager there are many who fantasize about violence, hence why it sells.

Make him a revolutionary. You'll have to abandon the sane people in favor of evil and otherwise leftist ones.

They gradually lead up to it.

First its thoughts about murder and its disturbing.
Then it turns into a somewhat resistable urge.
Then they begin to think they'll feel clean of this urge if they kill somebody just once.

Think of it like doing drugs or jacking off to weird porn. You have an urge to try it. Then you start doing it more and more but keep it secret. Its your own source of guilty pleasure, and depravity.

The murderer kills a man. And they feel terrified and evil. But it satisfied their curiosity a little too well. So they do it again for the hell of it. And again. And again.

Soon its like drinking coffee in the morning. Its routine. No shakey hands anymore. No rush. Just a little bit of a feel good feeling, and the need for more.

Thay's atleast how I imagine a serial killer becomes a serial killer.

Sure it is, whatever you say pal.

Lolita

Like an average person, but without the moral brake.
99,9 percent of the people have extremely sadistic and perverse thoughts and desires; the only things that stop them are fear of punishment and an indoctrinated moral sense. Give some group a moral justification to kill and rape, and the whole group, without even a single inkling of conscience or suspicion that what they're doing is wrong, will destroy the targeted population.
He's a normal person who at times, when he sees a woman, snaps, gets angry, gets sexual, attacks her, kills her, then goes on with his life, justifying his behaviour that the "she was a slut", "she was looking at him wrong", "she giggled at him."
In short, average person who bring to life his inner sexual fantasies.

>daddy beat me
Works every time.

I'm not a psychologist but this is realistic to me. In my opinion, people do drugs because they don't have access to neurochemicals which they should have developed naturally during childhood. I assume serial killers do the same thing, but to compensate for more extreme trauma. Drugs, violence, sexual deviation, sociopathy, psychopathy etc. are all attempts to immediately repair trauma. These things have to be repeated because the don't work

I like the way American Psycho, the book not the movie, did it. For the first half of the book the part of his day where he murders people is simply left out. So you're reading the thoughts of a murderer while not knowing it. You connect with him before it's revealed that all the while you were connecting with a murderer. Worked for me, but then again I'm a pleb.

show him doing something good for the victim, IDK make him marry one at the end after desperate battle survivor

Characterize him as an untamed wild animal in a contemptible zoo of selfish, thoroughly wasteful and unhealthy domestic beasts.

They need something to lose. Make them human: give them a puppy or a loved one or a relatable family. Give them a purpose and get the percentages right - too psychopathic and they become a cartoon.

Describe the trauma that caused their psychopathy. Anything more than that is probably going to be unrealistic and morally nonsensical. Nobody is going to relate to a serial killer, and they shouldn't. Personally I think it's more important to empathise with the nature of psychopathy than to empathise with a psychopath. I'm not interested in insane people, I'm interested in why people are insane.

make him go to zoo and empathise his friends in cage

You can make him a family man like in Spoorloos.

Give the serial killer purpose. Just like in Dexter and heroes, you want to try and define a clear goal for a killer. Naturally any events getting in the way of the goal should lead to emotional response (frustration, sadness, etc.).

Describe a past that would lead up to him being a serial killer. Make him a serial killer a quarter of the way in rather than right off the bat.

Exactly my question. The protagonist is a 17-18 year old who is disgusted by the morals of our community and the justice system and starts to hunt down pedophiles and other criminals. He slowly starts getting twisted and his view of degeneracy takes a turn and just uses his newfound powers to get everyone he doesn't like out of his way

Read the memoirs from soldiers, most of them serial killers but it works because it doesn't focus on that.

Also don't write a fucking serial killer. It's juvenile shit.

Make him kill Nazis.

>He is known for his roles as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs and as Captain Leland Stottlemeyer in the television series Monk.
Mind=Blown

>people do drugs because they don't have access to neurochemicals they should have developed naturally during childhood
nonsense

This. Maybe Lolita too.

He needs to have some kind of principles or moral code. Remember an anti hero is best when the audience cant find a fault in his actions

Already been done. Go read Dexter and do something else with your life.

Aw jeez man, coulda spoiler'd that at least.

I'd go the other way around it. No matter how you try to humanize a serial killer, personally I find any attempt at attempting justification disgusting and the character even more so afterwards.

Going for fascination would be my pick, instead of "muh sad backstory" or going for easy targets like nazis or rapists, the character should be so over the top, and so removed from humanity, that judging them by our values barely makes any sense. Someone like Alex or Joker are barely human and so over the top and stylish and serious about their business, that it's too cartoonish to be disgusting. Or someone who doesn't think about it any more than you think about brushing your teeth.

He was a murderer, not a serial killer tho. He had a good reason to kill the old bitch from his own perspective too, it's not like he killed her for pleasure like all those sick serial killers do

You shouldn't. Why would you want to?

American Psycho accomplishes a similar goal to what you want, but the key to notice is that it actually relates a facet of society to psychopathy and not the other way around.

The defining element of a psychopath is lack of empathy so attempting to get people to empathise with a lack of empathy is functionally retarded.

The idea to empathise with people who have no empathy isn't that stupid. Their lack of empathy takes a lot colour away from their lives, which seems pretty sad from an outlooker's perspective, and if they still attempt to accomplish something good, it should be somewhat interesting.

>lit, write my story for me
pseud

They're nice to kids or dogs or some shit.

Ever watched Dexter?

/thread

Is it really necessary to humanize them? So long you make their thoughts and experiences interesting, and you manage to give them their own voice, I don't care if there's a reason why they're insane.

Make him/her kill against his/her will.

underrated post

I wouldn't.

Let him target people that he deems immoral

Have an MC who kills for a god that demands blood sacrifice.

Skulls for the skull throne. Blood for the blood god.

You think a serial killer wouldn't justify it to themselves too?