Quick Tips for Writing Manipulative Characters
To convincingly write a character who is being manipulated, you must first understand how to write a believable manipulator. Often hidden in plain sight, manipulative characters pull the strings, guiding the actions of those who are often unaware that they’re dancing to someone else’s tune.
Let’s consider manipulative characters as puppet masters, exploring how they function and how their actions echo throughout your story. By understanding the manipulator, you’ll better equip yourself to create realistic characters who are unwittingly under their sway.
How do they behave?
- Play the victim to garner sympathy
- Charming and persuasive
- Twist and distort the truth to suit their agenda
- Play mind games
- Are silver-tongued
- Passive-aggressive when confronted
- Use guilt to control others
- Don’t hesitate to lie or deceive
- Demonstrate a sense of entitlement.
- Project their feelings onto others
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How do they interact?
- Play different roles with different people
- Prefer indirect communication to direct confrontation
- Gaslight others, making them doubt their own perceptions
- Shift the blame onto others
- Exploit others’ vulnerabilities
- Use people’s secrets against them
- Make others feel obligated or in debt to them
- Use flattery to get their way
- Create conflict between other characters
- Deliberately create confusion and chaos
Describe their body language
- Maintain intense eye contact
- Use touch to seem friendly and intimate
- Facial expressions often don’t match their words
- Use large, expressive gestures to dramatise
- Have a confident and exaggerated posture
- Soften expression to look more trustworthy
- Smile artificially or excessively
- Lean in close, invading personal space
- Mirror others’ behaviours to seem more likeable
- Mimic emotions they may not feel
Describe their attitudes
- Believe they are always right
- Feel entitled and superior
- Lack empathy
- Highly competitive
- Often impatient and intolerant
- Controlling and like to be in charge
- Rarely apologize sincerely
- Often play the martyr, acting self-sacrificing
- Can be sceptical of others’ intentions
- Kindness is often an act
Positive narrative effects
Paradoxically, manipulative characters can have a positive narrative effect on those they manipulate. These characters can act as a catalyst for change, pushing others to unlock hidden potential and indirectly teaching them to be more cautious. In the face of manipulation, characters can mature and grow resilience.
Manipulative characters can also reveal people’s true natures by tricking them into revelations or by fostering unity as others band together against them. Furthermore, their actions can create dramatic plot twists, make people question their own perceptions and realities, and add intrigue.
Negative narrative effects
Manipulators can cause emotional and psychological distress, breed distrust and insecurity, and disrupt relationships and friendships. These characters often lead others to make damaging decisions, creating a toxic environment.
By exploiting and exposing others’ vulnerabilities, manipulators make individuals question their self-worth. The extent of their manipulation can even cause physical harm and lead to the downfall of other characters. Their lasting legacy? Emotional scars that define their victims long after the manipulator has exited the narrative.