Manipulative to survive

[NuclearFairy]

So I'm trying to look up how to write a manipulative character, and all I'm getting is guides for villains and anti-heroes with very negative reasons to manipulate.

But what about a character that has learned to manipulate to survive? That is their sole ulterior motive.

How do I write that without all the "They do not care about others" thing that these guides all seem obsessed with.

 

[spiderboi]

It might be helpful to look at the psychology of adult children who have been abused or have reactive parents. They can learn to be manipulative to avoid abusive situations. The first person that comes to mind for me as an example is someone like Gypsy Rose.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

What environment are they trying to survive in? How is the manipulation a survival tactic for them?

Those questions are going to drive a lot of what makes the character tick, and how their manipulation plays out.

 

[old_prof]

I was going to suggest reading The Prince (Machiavelli), but that seems overkill.

 

[dirk2024]

So I'm trying to look up how to write a manipulative character, and all I'm getting is guides for villains and anti-heroes with very negative reasons to manipulate.

But what about a character that has learned to manipulate to survive? That is their sole ulterior motive.

How do I write that without all the "They do not care about others" thing that these guides all seem obsessed with.

They can pick and choose their 'marks' based on some sort of ethics they have buried inside.

A true evil villian may not choose to attack/kill a potential victim because for whatever reason, that victim doesn't check their boxes. "doesn't remind me of mom/dad/ex-spouse " for instance. Taking that victim won't fill the dark hole that is inside them. So...pass. It's self serving.

Whereas your manipulator is hungry, hasn't eaten in a couple of days. They find an easy mark, someone who just found $20 and is on their way to the grocery store. Normally, your manipulator would figure out a way to talk anyone out of $20. But she/he recognizes the potential victim is actually hungrier, and/or has children to feed at home, so lets the potential victim off with the cash. Your manipulator walks away still hungry, but experiences a warm fuzzy at doing the right thing.

That's how I see it.

Write your MC with an automatic filter, constantly evaluating the people they come across. "this person sucks, so they are a mark"..."this person is cool, so leave them be."

 

[NuclearFairy]

What environment are they trying to survive in? How is the manipulation a survival tactic for them?

Those questions are going to drive a lot of what makes the character tick, and how their manipulation plays out.

She spent the last couple of decades alone in a society that doesn't understand that concept, and didn't believe that her gender existed. She did it by making people think that she was younger than she was, and then when that occasionally failed, making the person who discovered her feel sorry for her long enough for her to run away again. As well as manipulating people into giving her a private sleeping area to help maintain her secret.

In the course of the story, she uses it to find her way to the top, and then to secure the resources that her territory needs to be self-sufficient. Because, in order for her to be safe, her gender needs a safe place, so she needs to be in charge, in order for the place to be safe, it must be able to maintain itself.

 

[NotWise]

Rachel in Meaningless Sex is manipulative. Not to survive, but to deal with her own conflicts. I handled it by having her explain her reasons in dialog, and it seemed to get the idea across. But it turns out that having readers understand a character and having them like the character are different things.

 

[YmaOHyd]

So I'm trying to look up how to write a manipulative character, and all I'm getting is guides for villains and anti-heroes with very negative reasons to manipulate.

But what about a character that has learned to manipulate to survive? That is their sole ulterior motive.

How do I write that without all the "They do not care about others" thing that these guides all seem obsessed with.

Plug here for Going Postal by Terry Pratchett. Moist von Lipwig is an arch-manipulator, but his motivation is the game. He steals and cheats because the money is a convenient way to keep score.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Plug here for Going Postal by Terry Pratchett. Moist von Lipwig is an arch-manipulator, but his motivation is the game. He steals and cheats because the money is a convenient way to keep score.

I wonder if we still have that book, or if it got lost in the move...

His witches are also manipulative as hell. Because no one in Lancer will just do what they're told.

 

[Britva415]

How do I write that without all the "They do not care about others" thing that these guides all seem obsessed with.

Why do you feel you can’t avoid writing “they do not care about others?” Because the guides say so? Because they don’t provide examples?

The acts and tactics of manipulation are a separate matter from the motivations why to manipulate. Take from the guides the useful bits about how and what, and leave the bits about why and provide your own.

 

[Britva415]

And there’s another angle, here, too, and that’s about the consequences to the manipulated party. Villains don’t care about highly negative consequences. If your character does, then, have them mitigate or minimize the harm to the person they’re manipulating. It doesn’t mean they don’t still get what they want, but can they get it without just royally fucking someone over?

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

So I'm trying to look up how to write a manipulative character, and all I'm getting is guides for villains and anti-heroes with very negative reasons to manipulate.

But what about a character that has learned to manipulate to survive? That is their sole ulterior motive.

How do I write that without all the "They do not care about others" thing that these guides all seem obsessed with.

Spy novels!

e.g., these and/or their film adaptations:

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Red Sparrow
Six days of the condor

My story Kirby and the Spy features a character who manipulates the MC as a means of survival and revenge. The novels mentioned above were direct inspirations.

 

[ronde]

So I'm trying to look up how to write a manipulative character, and all I'm getting is guides for villains and anti-heroes with very negative reasons to manipulate.

But what about a character that has learned to manipulate to survive? That is their sole ulterior motive.

How do I write that without all the "They do not care about others" thing that these guides all seem obsessed with.

What you're trying to do involves delving into the personality of both the manipulator and the personality of the one being manipulated. Some things I have observed in these types of situations.

Almost all good manipulators are also very good judges of other people. They seem to have the ability to figure out what makes another person tick, and they work on that aspect of the person. This means that a successful manipulator will often have a different method for different people. An example is a mother I once talked with about her son. He was having problems in high school and it was obvious to me that she wanted her son to succeed. Her son had played on that to get a car when he was sixteen. He'd been in trouble before that, but knew what his mother wanted to hear. He promised her he would do better if she bought him a car. Guess what, he didn't do better, but he still has his car. He had a couple of teachers he manipulated into giving him passing grades as well.

One thing a manipulator will home in on is the inadequacies some people feel about themselves. The manipulator will sympathize with the person by telling that person what they want most to hear. If a woman thinks she's too heavy, he will go out of his way to tell her she's beautiful just like she is. If a man thinks he's not worthy of her, she'll tell him he's the best thing that's ever happened to her.

Another thing I've observed is that most manipulators don't get enjoyment from the manipulation of others. They are, in their own minds, trying to survive. It might be as others have suggested that they were abused as a child, or that they have their own perceived inadequacy that they're trying to overcome. By manipulating others, they can force acceptance if not adoration.

Then, there are some who manipulate others for fun and profit by playing on the inherent sympathy most people feel for those seeming out of luck. I'm not talking about the true homeless people here. You've probably read about the sidewalk beggars in some large cities who leave the sidewalk for their home in the suburbs and have a steady income earned by dressing in rags and holding up a sign. Check out the YouTube video of Heraldo Rivera posing as a homeless person to see how easy it is to do. In these cases, they're manipulating others so they can survive comfortably without having a job.

 

[OddLove]

One suggestion would be to look into CIA type techniques used to gain sensitive information. They're not 'Psychopaths' but they use very clever and sneaky forms of subtle manipulation. You might be able to apply some of those types of techniques into your characters way of behaving/communicating.

Starting with something like elicitation could be a nice thing for the type of character you're describing. A technique they used in the past because they came up in an inviroment where asking honesty was met with lies or a cold shoulder.

Here's a short video of some guy giving examples of how the CIA uses it to gain sensitive information without asking any questions.

I imagine there's lots of layers to it, but this could be a nice starting place for a potential rabbit hole to explore.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I'd also look at social media influencers, the best of whom are incredibly sensitive to the wants of their audiences and very capable of playing on them.

 

[OralAllOver]

So I'm trying to look up how to write a manipulative character, and all I'm getting is guides for villains and anti-heroes with very negative reasons to manipulate.

But what about a character that has learned to manipulate to survive? That is their sole ulterior motive.

How do I write that without all the "They do not care about others" thing that these guides all seem obsessed with.

Character HoG ( heart of gold?) helps/sacrifices to aid the weak and needy

 

[NuclearFairy]

Character HoG ( heart of gold?) helps/sacrifices to aid the weak and needy

I wouldn't quite call her that archetype.

 

[Cagivagurl]

The art of manipulation is understanding the people you are trying to control.
Manipulative people are not always villains. Some have the very best intentions, and they can be empathetic. They simply realise that to get the best out of a situation. They need certain outcomes.
Manipulators quickly read their audience, and come to understand what might motivate them...
As I say, not necessarily a bad person. Some of the supposedly great leaders were master manipulators....
How do you get another person into a mindset where they would willingly give up their life to save another...
Not all great leaders were good people...

Just my take on it... My thoughts...

Cagivagurl

 

[Bramblethorn]

So I'm trying to look up how to write a manipulative character, and all I'm getting is guides for villains and anti-heroes with very negative reasons to manipulate.

But what about a character that has learned to manipulate to survive? That is their sole ulterior motive.

How do I write that without all the "They do not care about others" thing that these guides all seem obsessed with.

There are plenty of good-aligned manipulators in fiction, we just tend to call them "charismatic" or "good at influence" or "leaders" instead. But it works in much the same way: understand other people's motivations and then use those motivations to give them reason to do the thing you want them to do.

Take Gandalf. He knows war is coming, the forces of evil are building, and he doesn't want them to have a dragon on their side when the war gets hot. He'd also quite like to have a strong fortress standing against the goblins of the North to keep them from threatening Gondor and Rohan.

He doesn't say "I need a hero to go protect the land from a dragon", because that's not a very appealing proposition. Instead he finds Thorin, who's already motivated by dwarven greed and an ancient grudge against Smaug, and encourages him to go deal with the dragon situation. Having decided that Bilbo is the guy to help them, he takes advantage of Bilbo's notions of civility - he knows that Bilbo's not going to let thirteen dwarves just walk into his parlour, but Bilbo is too polite to say no to one or two, and then one more and one more and one more...

Later on in LotR, Merry Brandybuck tries to persuade the Ents to help against against Saruman. Somewhat abridged:

- hey, me and my friends are in this war against Saruman, would you like to help us?
- ah, not really our business, it's time you were on your way now.
- sure thing, how about you drop us near Saruman's territory?

Because Merry has realised that Treebeard does care very much for trees - far more than he might care for little hobbits and their short-lived friends, and that seeing the devastation of Isengard's forests is going to be far more persuasive than any argument Merry could make.

Both Gandalf and Merry are "good guys", they both care about others, but they're still using manipulation tactics to get other people to do what needs doing.

A couple of non-evil manipulation examples from one of my stories:

Anjali is the teenage daughter of very strict, conservative parents. She's snuck off to a party which is wilder than she expected, one of her friends gets her drink spiked, and Anjali panics and calls her maths tutor Sarah to come rescue her. Sarah knows it's going to get back to Anjali's parents and they're likely to be furious, so she opts to call them herself and lead with "Anjali's in hospital" followed by a non-reassuring "don't panic" and mention of the police, trying to get them scared for their daughter so they won't have as much room to get mad when they find out she was at a party.

(It's kind of like that joke where the daughter starts out by telling her dad she's pregnant to the local ne'er-do-well, lets him freak out about that, then winds it back to "actually I'm not pregnant, I just put a scratch on your car".)

Later, Anjali wants to change her studies from medicine (which her parents are set on her doing) to astronomy. She and Sarah put their heads together, and realise that Anjali's parents are never going to accept her choices over theirs, but they do respect her grandmother and grandma is soft on Anjali. So instead of going up against them, Anjali waits for the next family visit, wins her grandmother over, then goes to her parents and lets them tire themselves out with arguments before she suggests asking for grandma's advice.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

But what about a character that has learned to manipulate to survive? That is their sole ulterior motive.

How do I write that without all the "They do not care about others" thing that these guides all seem obsessed with.

This is literally the definition of sociopathy - psychopathic behaviors which are learned through hard knocks rather than born hard wired. Now perhaps your character only manipulates in fearful situations, then this would not be full on sociopathy but certainly the same psychological template. I applaud you for taking on such a character in your story.

Here is a real life story.

Friend of mine was living with a guy and everything was great. Then she got pregnant and he started treating her like shit. They broke up and she was a single mom at 19. There was a custody battle resulting in shared custody. One day when her daughter was about 2 years old, her ex took the kid for his turn and never brought her back. He kept her for spite. Long story short, the custody battle was in court for years and finally when her daughter was about 13 her ex stopped showing up for the court hearings once evidence of abuse had arisen, so by default my friend won sole custody like out of the blue.

So her 13 year old comes to live with her for the first time since she was a toddler. She won't sit down to dinner. She won't go to bed. She gets up in the middle of the night and turns on the TV. She raids the fridge and cupboards whenever she wants. When my friend tries to get her to adhere to some basic life structure, her daughter attacks her physically, hits her. She has to call the cops twice during the first week. She can't handle it and gives up custody to foster care.

So what happened here? Her daughter in an abusive neglected situation for 11 socially formative years at the hands of her father and step-mom, learned to feed and look after herself and defend herself physically on her own. It's not an uncommon story.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Almost all good manipulators are also very good judges of other people. They seem to have the ability to figure out what makes another person tick, and they work on that aspect of the person. This means that a successful manipulator will often have a different method for different people. An example is a mother I once talked with about her son. He was having problems in high school and it was obvious to me that she wanted her son to succeed. Her son had played on that to get a car when he was sixteen. He'd been in trouble before that, but knew what his mother wanted to hear. He promised her he would do better if she bought him a car. Guess what, he didn't do better, but he still has his car. He had a couple of teachers he manipulated into giving him passing grades as well.

I've worked with several manipulative people. They usually end up quickly hating my guts because I refuse to let them manipulate me. ; ) Then they go manipulate my co-workers.

 

[onehitwanda]

His witches are also manipulative as hell. Because no one in Lancer will just do what they're told.

Is it manipulation or terror, though? People do things in Lancre because otherwise Granny Weatherwax will come around and stare at them

 

[Erozetta]

I've worked with several manipulative people. They usually end up quickly hating my guts because I refuse to let them manipulate me. ; ) Then they go manipulate my co-workers.

Same.

I also grew up with manipulative family and they got pissed when they couldn't manipulate me. Coworkers are the same. I actually just had a confrontation with a coworker who has been attempting to manipulate me for years. Want to stop a manipulator in their tracks? Lead with: "We need to talk and I'm recording this conversation."

Suddenly there was zero pushback or attempts to control or twist the narrative in her favor. Just admission and startled compliance. I'm sure the next time I interact with her she's going to be moody as hell and bitter. But that conversation was truncated by my being unable to continue telling her all of the issues with her behavior lately. I have a whole fucking list. I only managed to get through three things before I was unable to hide my trembling and ended the conversation. (I am not great at standing up to people.)

Manipulation is a choice one makes, not something they are backed into due to circumstances. It's a cowardly act that shows weakness of character to me, but my opinion is swayed by growing up in an environment where manipulation and control over others were rewarded while honesty and having a sense of fairness was punished.

There have been times I chose to allow a manipulator to control the narrative because it was less confrontational and the people being manipulated refused to see it as such.

See above coworker. She straight up lied to our previous boss about something she said to me. I had told my boss about it because I thought they should know to watch their back considering it was about getting them fired. I said fine, whatever, it's not worth the fight, if you want to believe her over me, that's your choice.

So, talking manipulation, it's really hard to write a non-villain character who chooses to manipulate others because it's usually done for personal gain rather than for the good of someone else. And if there's any personal gain to be had from the manipulation, it's not coming from a good place. There are ways to manipulate people into pushing themselves to reach goals they otherwise might not out of fear, but I'd personally call that persuasion or influence, not manipulation, even if the tactics could be seen as manipulative.

@NuclearFairy is there a reason you want the character to be manipulative rather than persuasive? Being manipulative to survive implies a willingness to harm others to stay alive. Using charm and persuasion to survive implies a sense of taking only what you need without a willingness to cause harm.