: Re: Writing a narcissistic psychopath as a compelling protagonist I'm in the middle of writing a book where the protagonist is a narcissistic psychopath, and while I personally am having a lot of

@Kaufman555

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Give her a foil

Since she is a person who uses others, probably by promising them things she can never give, or manipulating them via their blindspots and weaknesses, create a foil who can do this to her. Someone from her past, a mentor or relative, someone she idolizes and wants to please.

An example is Konstantin in Killing Eve who understands the psychopath Villanelle better than she understands herself, and can manipulate her by pretending to give her the things she wants, often leading her to believe it's her idea.

Give her a stooge

In a comedy act, a stooge is something like a straightman who sets up a joke, but is also the butt of the joke. Often the stooge is someone designed for the audience to dislike because they are too sincere, too proper, too earnest, or too naive. This character is wide-eyed and harmless, representing everything the psychopath despises. But, like the comedic psychopath, this character has plot armor that always allows them to be rescued, or find the silver-lining, or maintain healthy mutual relationships.

The stooge is the antithesis of the psychopath: selfless, honest, happy, and forgiving – to unrealistic levels. They are a frustrating idealogical impossibility in the worldview of the psychopath, and she might waste resources in elaborate schemes designed to give the stooge a bad day.

Make her plans go ridiculously wrong

In addition to accidentally harming villains worse than herself, make her own plans so ridiculous that it's obvious she could never pull them off – obvious to everyone else, but her. Her plans routinely require her to outsmart geniuses, seduce people who have no interest, be a master of disguises and accents, or otherwise possess skills she clearly does not have.

Also make her targets completely out-of-proportion to her ability. She has audacity, but also an inflated sense of self-importance. She is the proverbial 'little dog' that chases cars, an underdog we can root for but who clearly has no idea what accomplishing her goals would actually achieve.

She has agency because her plans do set the story in motion, but they are like a Rube Goldberg machine of unexpected causality that she never anticipated. What she actually creates is mayhem. Her real talent is switching gears and compulsive betrayal – behavior that is self-sabotaging in stable situations but once everything is falling apart she is almost as likely to land in diamonds as mud. As others fall into panic mode they make mistakes, and she is always an opportunist. She may not even realize her original plan was a failure, since she is quick to shift goals.

Make her fall for her own con

A typical comeuppance in the 1930s gold digger genre films is for the con-artist to fall for their own game. A romantic con-artist falls in love with her mark just before she is exposed, or having talked herself into an unqualified position begins performing the job better than the previous employee, or actions intended to sabotage inadvertently make her a hero.

Since she has no moral compass of her own to understand why these things are good or bad, it's typically tied to how other people see her. The self-con is reinforced by the sincere reactions of her intended victims, until she believes she is the good person they see. She wants to keep the con going as long as possible, so her stakes shift from "will she accomplish the bad thing" to "will she be caught". She bypasses several "clean exit" moments, deciding instead to linger in the con and dig a deeper hole. She may tell herself that she is pursuing an even bigger prize, but actually she falling for her own ruse.

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