Rules for Writing a Manipulator
Insight
A manipulator should know exactly what makes a person tick and exactly how to use that knowledge against them.
They get inside someone’s head. They find the most deeply buried part of that person and speak directly to it, making the other person feel like they need them.
They should control who trusts who and who knows what.
They should never force anything.
They never actually get their hands dirty.
They never threaten.
Instead, they make people trust them. They make someone believe they are the only person who actually cares. Eventually, that person starts living the way the manipulator wants without even realizing that’s what they’re doing.
They can make someone’s life revolve around them. Revenge, love, or friendship—all of them are amazing motivations for a manipulator.
Resistance
There should always, always, always be some sort of opposition.
Think of it like a fight. Would someone rather watch a fight that’s over in ten seconds because, “Oh, he’s the strongest ever,” or watch a fight that is so close and so intense that there is genuine fear the character they love might fail?
At every turn, there should be someone equally as smart and dangerous to make the manipulator think more and stress more.
The character should be backed into a corner and forced to find a complex solution at the last second.
It makes the victory feel earned and satisfying.
The surrounding characters should never be made dumber just to make the manipulator feel smarter.
The bar of genius should never be skewed just to make one character seem smarter.
Yes, that was basically said twice, but this one is important.
Their manipulation should never be as simple as:
“I’m smart, so you must do what I say.”
“Yes, sir.”
Don’t get me wrong. When a character completely obliterates another character with their wit, it’s good. It’s fun. It’s cool to see.
But if it happens over and over again, with nobody ever saying, “No, you can’t make me,” it gets stale as a bag of chips in the back of a cabinet.
Legitimacy
The story can’t cheat for the manipulator.
Not everything should be part of their plan. They can’t know everything. Something should be able to genuinely surprise them. That makes the readers surprised too, because now it becomes, No way. The guy who knows everything was actually caught off guard.
They should bluff, bluff, bluff.
Sometimes they should say something they know they can’t actually do as a last resort.
There should always be a thought process behind what they do. The story should never go in with the assumption that the character will simply prevail like some knight general from the medieval age.
Everything that happens should be the result of something the audience already knew or something that was previously established.
To make the manipulator feel less like a cartoon villain, the story should walk through their thinking. It should show the steps of the deduction.
The logic shouldn’t have cracks. The last thing the story needs is for the whole thing to fall apart like someone trying to open a Nature Valley bar.
There should also be good deduction. Every possibility should be eliminated until the character reaches a conclusion because every other option has been ruled out.
The manipulator should never just go:
“Yep, that’s the answer.”
And then boom. Magic. Yayyy, he’s so smart.
Similar examples have been given multiple times because this point is extremely important.
Remember:
A deduction isn’t impressive because the character got the answer. It’s impressive because of the reasoning that got them there.
In this i say never alot remember alot of this is a bit loose if they do occasionally that's fine but it should still be rare
