Writing villains is hard for me. In fact, you could argue the story Choirboy Caffrey doesn’t have a villain at all, and the bad guys in By the Book are just case-of-week variety criminals. However, I knew that White Collar has a tradition of recurring villains we loved to hate, like Fowler, Adler, Keller and Kramer. How could I live up to that? It was a particularly difficult challenge for me.
Warning: Spoilers for Caffrey Conversation AU stories.
When White Collar was still on the air I read an episode review that stuck with me. The reviewer pointed out that many White Collar villains are fixated on Neal.
That leads us to Robert Winslow. Robert is Neal’s uncle and the father of Neal’s best friend. At first, I thought Robert would simply be an annoyance. He had gone too far by tricking and blackmailing Neal, but he was trying to protect his son from what he believed was a criminal influence. In the back of my mind, I thought Henry could confront his father with what he’d done, and Robert could begrudgingly apologize once he sees all that Neal has accomplished for good.
In fact, initially I modeled Robert after the father on the USA Network’s Psych. That father had pushed his son too far and had a lot to answer for, but at heart he was a good guy. I’d been fascinated by the fact that Psych and White Collar were so different, while having similar backstories for their main characters: both have cops for fathers and have contentious relationships with those fathers, both ran away from home at the age of 18, both have been in trouble with the law but are recruited to work with the law in the series pilot episodes. So naturally Psych’s father character inspired me. Robert was a darker version, but I still thought I could bring him around to Neal’s side in the end.
Robert didn’t seem to be interested in that path. Instead, he continued causing worse trouble, until even optimistic me had to admit that he was much more than an annoyance. He was a dangerous criminal whose obsession with Neal had taken him too far. Instead of rehabilitating him, I needed to let him be a villain.
We don’t get many scenes with Robert. Mostly he’s discussed as the characters discover what he’s done and try to track him down. The stakes are high because of the emotional turmoil he causes. He’s tearing Henry apart, and Henry has been Neal’s rock and best friend for years. Seeing Henry crumble makes Neal desperate to stop Robert. And seeing Neal desperate worries Peter.
Writing the final showdown with Robert was tough. Actually, all scenes with Robert were challenging because he was so full of hate and anger by the time he finally appears that it was draining to pour that onto the page. But it was also satisfying to realize that I could write a believable bad guy, someone that worried the readers about what he would do next.
Now we have a new villain. Silbrith’s Azathoth is a fascinating creation. In much the same way Robert twisted into someone more evil than I expected, Azathoth has evolved from her original concept into someone increasingly menacing. It was fascinating when she first created the character to discuss motives and possible plotlines, and it’s even more fascinating to see what has developed.
On an unrelated note, we hit a big milestone with Silbrith’s latest chapter of The Mirror. The AO3 total word count for the Caffrey Conversation AU went over one million! I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished, and looking forward to what comes next.
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