Exchange of Realities

Yesterday, I discussed the concept of manipulation styles: different ways in which characters can attempt to get others to do what they want. Today, I’m going to go into a little more detail.

The individual-based or personal manipulation style is the one many people think of when they imagine a manipulator. Most tricksters in folktales are personal manipulators. Most people’s image also involves direct interaction, but that isn’t the only way. With sufficient knowledge of an individual’s personal patterns, one can also trick them into a specific set of actions by ensuring that they notice events they might react to in an expected manner—for instance, triggering a fight between a couple by having one catch the other in an indiscretion.

While individual manipulation can eventually be used to affect a larger group, the manipulator must remember that this sort of effect is likely to fail without careful planning. Number of people influenced alone won’t do it: since each requires an individualized approach and a certain amount of time dedicated to working with them, working by quantity alone is inefficient. Individual manipulation is, after all, a precision tool. But affecting groups isn’t impossible—if you choose targets with power, respect or other sources of influence, targeting the weaknesses of a group or the points of greatest leverage, you can get the desired result with less effort and far less pesky backtrail.

The most important tool of the individual manipulator is knowledge. He should know his target, or at least be able to make educated guesses about her. If it is just her mind he wishes to change, knowing some of her likes and dislikes, which qualities she admires and which she detests, her wants and fears, and a bit about what she can, can’t and won’t do are the minimal knowledge required—if he does not already know these things, he must also be very good at subtly bringing them up in conversation. If he wishes to affect a larger group through his target, he also needs to know her role in said group and the limits to which she can affect it. After all, there’s no point in losing a plan because you’ve used a tool in a manner to which it isn’t suited.

But just having this knowledge isn’t enough—he needs to apply it. Optimally, this is done in an innocuous manner, such that the target does not realize that the manipulator is playing to her habits. The more blatant the manipulator is, the more suspicious the target gets, and the more cautious she is about what’s being said by both sides; often a target who suspects that she is being influenced will change the subject or end the conversation. Offhand comments, allusions and topic-steering are important skills in this regard, but more important is knowing what not to say.

When engaging in direct conversation, it is vital that the individual manipulator be good at giving incorrect impressions, matching what the target wants to see and keeping his falsehoods imperceptible. Being able to work around lie-detecting effects always helps. In addition, he must be able to read her emotions as much as possible—to notice when an approach is working (and, more importantly, when it isn’t), to glean insight into other angles that might work better, or to manage any of the other perpetual adjustments and corrections that keep the conversation where he wants it.

Along with his intentions being discovered, the direct individual manipulator has one major worry that users of the other styles, or even indirect individual manipulators, are less prone to: the possibility that the target is not only just playing along, but might be manipulating him. After all, interaction goes two ways. Attachment to the target, in any of its possible forms, is also a valid if minor risk. In both cases, objectivity, being able to separate oneself from the situation, can help to avoid the problem.

Individual manipulation is a difficult technique to make believable, but taking into account the above useful skills and difficulties should help. Happy word-twisting!