Shades of Gray

I usually set out to have a "real" bad guy. I really do. The problem is that I almost always start to see things from the "bad" guy's perspective. Once you start seeing reasons for certain things, you have a hard time classifying him/her as anything worse than misguided. Nobody ever thinks they're evil; they have justifications for everything they do. I like for my villains (and heroes, come to that) to have multiple (and diverse) reasons for every action. A good guy might selfishly pursue revenge, even when that action might put innocents in danger. A bad guy might save someone for no reason at all. I don't really know where I'm going with this; I just felt like sharing between writing scenes.