There’s a problem with Callis. The problem is that, on a fundamental level, he is a truly awful person. He after all kills people for money, and he rather enjoys his work. This in of itself would not inherently be a problem if he was a supporting character or a bit part, but I had to go and make him the eponymous star of a series of short stories which I’ve been writing for the last two years. This means that I have to undertake the arduous task of some how making the reader connect with him. How you get a complete stranger to related to a cold-blooded murderer is not something easily done. I don’t even know if I’ve been successful in achieving this. I’d like to think that I have. I like Callis as a character, but that might just be speaking to the state of my diseased brain-meats.

One idea which occurred to me was that he have his own set of “rules,” not an entirely original idea I’ll admit. The way I see it, even bad people need to have rules they abide by. If they don’t then they’re hardly going to be able to function even on the fringes of society.

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