: Re: How to write a manipulative protagonist that the audience can connect with I've created a manipulative sort of protagonist, one who enjoys mind games, blackmail, systematically destroying people

@Bethany377

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I think you'll admit that some part of this character should be abhorrent, but that the interesting space would be a reader feeling that but still identifying with the character. "Sympathetic" might not be what you actually want.

The way I'd go about it would be to have the character be in surroundings or situations that are familiar to my target audience. If my character was dealing with the issues that occur in high school and was that sort of person and my audience was people in high school, then a certain amount of sympathy will come through.

The other thing you could try to do is basically have this character do the things we would do, but would never be brave enough to do, skilled enough to accomplish, or which the reader would avoid to preserve their image. Basically, you want to get your character into the space a comedian inhabits. Dealing with the almost entirely familiar, but playing with the taboos that people shy away from and are uncomfortable with.

The other would be a solid internal justification that a reader can understand for this character and why they're doing this. Thievery is awful when it happens to us, but we've all played with the idea of "I'm stealing bread so my family doesn't starve". This is largely about getting the perspective. If you're character does awful things for good reasons, then people accept them. To be honest, this is going to be harder to pull off with how you've described your character so far.

On some level these characteristics are unacceptable. Research avenues that might be productive are: comedians, persuasive-yet-awful-leaders, and anti-heros.

Good luck!

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