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As a fiction writer, you create worlds. You create a different reality, populating it with characters and meaning. In essence, the role of writing as art is to inspire affect – that is, an emotion, a thought, or a state of mind. And learning how to manipulate readers can be an integral part of this endeavor.

At first, the idea of an author manipulating readers might sound controversial. This is probably a result of the connotations the word “manipulation” contains. But, as with so many other things, the controversy stops once you realize what manipulating an audience really refers to in this context.

Manipulating your readers creatively has nothing to do with writing gimmicks. The former is a legitimate literary device; the latter has nothing to do with the art.

In today’s article I’ll show you:

1. What it means to manipulate your audience.
2. Why would you want to do that.
3. How to manipulate readers in an efficient, respectful way.

What It Means to Manipulate Your Audience

For our purposes, manipulating your reading audience means to mislead them. That is, to let a reader believe that a certain thing is occurring, whereas in actual fact something else is going on. There are several ways for this to happen. You should avoid some of them. Let’s first take a look at the kinds of manipulative tactics an author may deploy, and then we’ll talk more about which ones are alright to use and which are not.

How to Manipulate Readers on the Sentence Level

Consider the following (imaginary) excerpt:

“There’s something you should know,” John told Mary looking into her eyes.

“Alright, I’m listening…” she replied with a certain trepidation in her voice.

“Your son died this morning in an accident,” the words almost made it out of John’s mouth, but he stopped himself in the last moment. He sighed and said instead: “Why don’t we go sit down for a moment.”

See what happened there? The author manipulated the reader’s expectation by presenting the information in a way that makes it appear that the character of John actually communicated it. However, it immediately becomes apparent that this is not the case.

Manipulating the reader on the sentence level has a very short-lived but potentially powerful effect of creating suspense and/or a feeling of disruption.

How to Manipulate Readers on Longer Textual Levels

If you have read Bret Easton Ellis’s superlative American Psycho, you might remember some chapters that are little more than lengthy descriptions of Hi-Fi systems or critiques of singers. They go on and on and on, with no apparent reason or meaning.

Indeed, go check an online discussion on the book, and you’ll inevitably come across people complaining that those chapters are very boring.

Guess what? They’re supposed to be.

Using these chapters is a way for Ellis to manipulate his readers. The author wants you to get hopelessly bored, because this is a state of mind that the protagonist, Patrick Bateman, experiences. Remember what we said at the beginning? The role of writing a novel is to instigate an emotional reaction.

Manipulating your readers on longer textual levels can be very effective, though it requires significantly more experience.

How to Manipulate Readers on the Narrative Level

Things get more interesting if we’re talking about reader manipulation on the narrative level. That is, if the author attempts to mislead the readers throughout the entire plot.

Now, this is where things get trickier. The reason is, most authors think of a narrative-level manipulation when they think of misleading their readers, however, it’s also the easiest way to mess things up. We’ll talk about this in more detail later on, but for now let’s just see what a narrative-level reader manipulation is all about.

Misleading your readers on this level essentially refers to plot twists, hidden characters, unexpected endings, and such strategies the aim of which is to surprise the reader. For example, consider a detective-fiction narrative where the entire plot leads the reader to believe a certain character is the killer, only to reveal a bit before the ending that it was his twin brother after all. 

If this sounds familiar, take a look at the Surprising-and-Avoidable kind of ending described in my article of narrative endings.

This is very widely used, unfortunately. Let’s first see in more details why manipulating your readers is a good thing, and then we’ll speak of how to do it properly.

Why Would an Author Want to Manipulate the Reader

The reason as to why you, as an author, should be open to manipulating your readers, is something I’ve already alluded to. Manipulating your reading audience is a narrative strategy.

As I have mentioned often in this blog, art is not always about what you show. Often, it’s about what you don’t. Sometimes a little smoke screen can be very useful in conveying a certain element of affect across.

Remember my post about linear narratives. I then said:

The problem with a linear narrative progression is that it leaves no room for creativity. It is the very act of temporal shifting that emphasizes certain portions and downplays others.

Manipulating the reader is, in effect, a narrative strategy that precisely disrupts linearity. Hence, it helps the author insert a creative effect that underlines a particular trope, emotion, or state of mind.

How to Manipulate Readers in an Efficient, Respectful Way

And now we’ve reached the most crucial part. Namely, how to manipulate readers in a way that is respectful and hence efficient.

To see what “respectful” means in this context, let’s visit the article on narrative endings once again. I wrote there about endings that are surprising-but-avoidable:

A narrative ending that is surprising but avoidable comes off as cheap. It screams “authorial trickery”, and leaving a reader with such a taste is not good at all. To say that an ending is surprising and avoidable is basically a fancier way of referring to a Deus Ex Machina ending […]

Basically, the plot has stalled so much in terms of narrative journeying, that the author (unable to resolve it) comes up with a fanciful, improbable solution. It comes off as surprising, but since it’s avoidable the reader feels cheated. Many low-quality crime-fiction narratives work like that: a character is introduced a little before the ending, and the entire solution is predicated on his/her presence. Sometimes even the murderer shows up a couple of chapters before the conclusion, out of thin air.

The reason using this kind of narrative manipulation is not recommended is because it doesn’t take the reader on a narrative journey. The narrative promises something that is never delivered. Effectively, it’s a case of literary bait-and-switch. You don’t need me to tell you that this is not a very wise thing to do.

So, How Do You Manipulate Your Readers respectfully?

As we briefly saw earlier, narrative manipulation is basically predicated on duration. In other words, it all boils down to the length of time you plan to deceive your readers.

Generally speaking, you can get away with almost anything that is transient – that is, with any kind of manipulation that is revealed as such soon enough. Be careful though not to overdo it in terms of repetition. Examples such as the ones shown in the “How to Manipulate Readers on the Sentence Level” section are efficient when you use them sparingly!

The longer the duration of the “deceit”, the more careful you have to be. Try to follow the advice given on my article on narrative endings:

A novel is a text that tells a story. In order for this story to be engaging and convey rich meanings, it must be structured. Imagine leaving your house to go to your friend’s. There is a direct route, but often you might take a longer one because it’s more scenic; or, perhaps you want to pass by the grocery store first. A narrative works the same way: you go from one point to the next, but you don’t take the straight road – if you did, the result would probably be lackluster. Indeed, the journey is often more important than the destination or the departure point. […]

Imagine you’ve left home on your way to your friend’s. You could pass from the grocery store or you could pass from the liquor store; maybe you could pass by the scenic park or by the port. You have full control of these choices, you can pick your route. But, once you’ve made your choice, certain repercussions are generated.

Manipulate Your Readers as a Part of Your Narrative Journeys

In our context, that is, how to manipulate readers, you can get away with extensive (i.e. narrative-level) manipulation as long as these are integral parts of the narrative journey. Pay attention to the wording: I said journey, not plot. In our detective-fiction example earlier, a character introduced just before the ending to resolve the narrative is indeed crucial to the plot but not to the journey.

Would you like a famous, recognizable example of audience manipulation on the narrative level that is respectful, highly efficient, and absolutely a part of the narrative journey?

The Crying Game

I expect most people to have watched the film, therefore to understand what I mean – if you’ve spent the past three decades on Mars and you have no clue what I’m talking about, watch the film and come back 😉

The reason the movie acquired such fame and lasting cultural impact is precisely the way it manipulated its viewers (essentially forcing them to share the same experience as the protagonist). 90% of the affective impact would’ve been absent if there was no such deception.

In the end, reality in fiction is a fluid concept. Not everything has to be offered to the reader. And certainly not at the time that it occurs.