THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

by James Lincoln Warren

All crime fiction depends on a central fact of human nature: people behaving badly.

Back in the 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great codified the Official Roman Catholic List of Cardinal Sins, based on earlier work by theologians and references in scripture. Dante made a couple other adjustments during his tour of Hell, and this final list is now better known as the Seven Deadly Sins.

For crime writers, they’re the gift that keeps on giving. Two of our CB regulars, John M. Floyd and Deborah Elliott-Upton, contributed to an anthology of flash stories based on them, Seven By Seven. There was the notorious 1995 film “Se7en” (which I personally found predictable and over the top). Lawrence Sanders wrote a series of novels about them, as have Robin Wasserman and Allison Brennan.

Historically, the Magnificent Seven fall into three classes: lustful appetite, irascibility, and intellect; but I think that there are essentially only two: appetite and self-obsession. In the first category I would list lust, avarice, gluttony, and envy, and in the latter pride, sloth, and wrath. All the cardinal sins feature unmitigated selfishness, but the first four are distinguished by seizing more of something than suits one’s needs, therefore engaging the world, whereas the last three disdain the world in favor of pure self-regard.

For mystery writers, the first class is the easiest to mine, because each of its constituents can easily justify crimes of seizure and possession. The second class is almost purely psychological, although certainly wrath leads to more than its proportional share of crimes.

Personally, my favorite is avarice. First Timothy in the New Testament puts it this way:

Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Almost all my stories feature crimes motivated by greed, although one (“Mother Brimstone”) is actuated by envy, another (“When the Wind Blows”) features pride (albeit a paranoid schizophrenic version thereof), and my next one (“Ten Thousand Cold Nights” upcoming in the November 2010 AHMM) is driven by wrath, or perhaps more appositely wraith, since it’s a woo-woo.

Motivation and motive are two different things in a crime story. The second subsumes the former, but behaviorally, the former is more important. The motive for a murder may be to collect on the two million dollar insurance policy, but the motivation is greed, a quality internal to the character—not everybody who’s the beneficiary of a two million dollar insurance policy will murder to collect on it, after all.

The formal classification of the Seven Deadly Sins is a particular boon to us short storyists, since it makes these particular human failings very economical to write about. There are other sins that make people behave badly, after all, but they may require more exposition: despair, vanity (not exactly the same thing as pride), extravagance, hypocrisy, cowardice, and so on.

Right now I’m working on a story centering on a species of despair, and I’m discovering that it’s taking up much more time and space to set up the justification for the crime than if my villain just wanted to knock off his wife’s lover or business rival. In a way, having an unusual motivation makes it more fun. But I’ll always be a big fan of the Seven Deadlies.