Quick Tips For Writing Manipulative Characters

Do you have any tips on how to write a character who’s being manipulated?

Your blog has been very helpful to me! :) thanks a lot

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, manipulators pull the strings, guiding the actions of those who are often unaware that they're dancing to someone else's tune.

Let’s look at manipulators 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

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.

More Posts from Fallencrow333 and Others

fallencrow333

1 year ago

FLOWERS

also yes

I can

Even through death, and seemingly impossible life, they are amplified in their beauty, and all that is believed and thought into them. They are frozen in the moment of life, and in death, show the meaning of love.

Though the ice has a deathly touch, it’s sweet caress petrified, and preserved it.

The love and life the flowers were given by, forever trapped in grateful departure.

Someone, whoever it was, brought withe those flowers love and bittersweet memories within them. And those offerings to the departed, confined in the glittering storm.

Withe what destroys, a storm of tears and sorrow. But even through the darkness comes a gleaming life. A preserved moment. Forever against the odds.

And through the storm, you see light. You see love and hate and happiness and sorrow. And throughout all of that, is the moment of the past, meeting withe the present, and turning into the future.

And withe what moment passes, and withe what storm may happen, comes forth the moments given and the love preserved in an endless embrace.

An embrace, that supposedly has the claws of deaths, sweetly reminds you.

Reminds you of what is to come, and what has come, meeting in impossible odds, to become the present.

@fandomawesomeness there ya go!

Cemetery Flowers After The Ice Storm Photography: Peter Fricke

cemetery flowers after the ice storm photography: Peter Fricke

49K notes View Post

fallencrow333

1 year ago

Crochet pattern for spider body

0 notes View Post

fallencrow333

1 year ago

Mysterious Cosmic ‘Keyhole’: a reflection nebula in the constellation Orion is a relic of recent star formation – it is composed of debris left over from the formation of a newborn star and it's around 1,350 light-years from Earth. {image credit: Nasa}

1K notes View Post

fallencrow333

1 year ago

@fandomawesomeness

Point Bonita lighthouse, oil on canvas. — Frederick Ferdinand Schafer (American/German, 1839-1927)

13K notes View Post

fallencrow333

1 year ago

the fellowship at the beach:

aragorn: knows exactly where to go for peak waves and sun. it’s not crowded and quite frankly the fellowship is unsure if they’re technically trespassing but it’s a good enough time for them not to care. likes to set up canopies and umbrellas for everyone then disappears for like 2 hours on a walk/hike.

boromir: likes to grill/camp out. he enjoys large bond fires and roasting marshmellows. during the day he likes to do beach volleyball or swim in the ocean, a very physical dude. enjoys activities,,, has to be doing something.

merry: likes to fly kites with boromir on the dunes. not a huge fan of water, enjoys playing games and building large sandcastles. he and pippin like to turn gandalf into a sand mermaid when the can, as well as dig a giant moat with gimli.

pippin: gets sunburnt everytime. has so much sand in his hair. gets it everywhere. is a walking disaster- has lost several hats, sunglasses, beach toys, wallets, keys, phones,,,, everything pippin has in his possession when he comes to the beach he will no longer have when he leaves. this also includes the many stickers, magnets and keychains he swipes from nearby shops for keepsakes. wants to rent a jetski but no one will go with him.

frodo: likes to wade in the water and collect pretty seashells. brings them back to his friends to show them off. finds rocks in all shades and sizes, brings samwell heart shaped rocks as well as any cool colored ones that remind him of sam. gandalf once asked why frodo never brought him any rocks, in which frodo started collecting all grey rocks and bringing them to gandalf. funnily enough, most rocks are some shade of grey, and gandalf got rather sick of pebbles being chucked at him.

sam: has many towels and lots of sunscreen. very prepared with the snacks, brings sandwiches and drinks for everyone! likes to hang out in the shade and walk along the shore. enjoys the touristy shops along the coast, especially likes the salt water taffy and keychains. laughs loudly at all the gimmicky tourist traps,,,, always goes in/falls victim to them.

legolas: is weird about sand,,,,, cannot have it between him and something else. ex: between the shoes, clothing, hair. has to be directly on him or nothing at all (walking barefoot) once they are even within proximity the beach he jumps out immediately charges towards the water. likes to push people in/splash them.

gimli: no shoes no shirt no problem,,, immediately in just swim trunks as soon as they pull up to the parking lot. enjoys building massive sand castles with the hobbits as well as digging deep trenches to trap their compatriots in. they cover it with a towel, someone falls in and nearly breaks their neck- good times.

gandalf: brings a book to read, likes to chill in the shade and listen to the waves. falls asleep more often then not, wakes up barricaded in sand or made into a sand sculpture. will disappear suddenly and come back with ice cream. no one knows where he got it. he does not share or tell anyone where he gets this mysterious ice cream either.

bilbo: is reading with gandalf. he brings some iced tea and good sunglasses and just relaxes. he is a active people watcher, likes to eavesdrop as well as note and speculate on interesting figures. likes to do some light journaling/writing as well.

gollum: is fishing. lurks in the bay and attempts to catch fish with his bare hands, then proceeds to immediately eat them raw. also chases seagulls- will chath and eat those as well. he is, unfortunately, quite successful in this. he is also no longer allowed in or around several public beaches.

477 notes View Post

fallencrow333

1 year ago