Reader Manipulation
by Linda Yezak,
Want to challenge opinions? Introduce issues in a different light? Try a political spin, novelist style?
Work on your reader manipulation.
Our sympathies and emotions are manipulated on a regular basis by special interest groups, politicians, and gifted, experienced writers. Reader manipulation is a tool for mature writers, those who have mastered what novelist Ane Mulligan dubs RUE: “Resist the Urge to Explain.” If you don’t trust your reader to understand what’s going on, if you feel the need to explain what you’re doing, your manipulation attempts will fail. If you’re obvious, have no finesse, you’ll fail.
The reasons for manipulation range from shock value to challenging social mores. In 2010, TNT aired an episode of The Closer in which the scriptwriters, the “pros” in today’s Lessons from the Pros post, did both.
The story line goes something like this: The star, Brenda, and her squad of detectives probe a string of sadistic slayings, presumably members of a Mexican drug cartel offing members of a rival cartel.
From the start, the scriptwriters make certain that viewers understand the murder victims were evil, so at the first of the show, we simply have a case of bad guys killing bad guys. Banking on a “let them kill each other off” viewer mentality, the writers keep the sympathy level low.
Once it’s established that the decedents are scum, the authors twist our perception. Enter the pathologist, who provides the twist. The victims’ organs are missing. Hearts, kidneys, livers–gone. Some professional, with knowledge of organ harvesting, is killing these people.
Interest spikes. Sympathy rises. It’s one thing for bad guys to kill each other, but it’s quite another for an disinterested party to step in and make money off these poor victims’ organs. So, just who is the bad guy here? The heartless cartel members who moments ago were evil in our eyes, or the unknown murderer who kills for profit?
Next, we’re introduced to one of the beneficiaries of this profiteer’s heinous crime: a child who needed and received a transplant that saved his life. Again the viewer must re-evaluate: Who is the bad guy? The cartel members who do horrid things to people, or the wonderful organ-harvester who rids society of this threat in order to save children? And, again, sympathies shift.
Then, the righteousness of our own heroine-of-justice, Brenda, is called into doubt. To her, the organ harvester is just as much of a bad guy as his victims, and she’s hot on his trail. She discovers a child awaiting heart transplant and questions her father while posing as a journalist (or something other than the cop she is).
The truth of her identity comes out. Dad panics–“don’t do anything to endanger my daughter!”–and Bang! Sympathies shatter, confusion reigns. She’s on a mission for justice. Dad wants to save his daughter’s life by any means. The organ harvester provides that means. Who’s the bad guy?
Finally, we discover the organ harvester is a doctor who runs a free clinic. He tells a horror story of what his latest “donor” did to a child, as the donor lies on an operating table with his chest open and heart exposed and ready for removal and quick transit to the child in the previous scene.
Brenda shouts, “Stop what you’re doing, you’re under arrest! You murdered that boy!”
Doc says, “Prove it.”
Brenda tries to break into the room and halt the procedure.
Brenda’s team says, “The kid’s dead. Why let the heart go to waste?”
Is the argument valid?
Brenda asks, “Who gave you the right to play God?”
Doc says, “The position was vacant. I took it.”
He’s arrogant, yes–but is he the bad guy?
Brenda threatens to arrest him the minute he opens the door to leave with the heart.
Doc says, “Who’s playing God now?”
Where do your sympathies lie? What values do you hold that are being challenged in this episode?
Modern society is aware that morality is enveloped in shades of gray, and the authors of this episode want the viewer to explore an even darker hue. They ask, “Who’s good? Who’s bad?” and present the age-old philosophical enigma, “Does the end justify the means?”
But the impact hits at an almost subconscious level. The viewer isn’t actively thinking of these things. She sees an action-packed murder mystery with twists and turns, surprises and shockers. The master scriptwriters made channel surfing verboten. Their show is too gripping to leave in favor of the World Poker Tour.
Continuous manipulation--changing where the sympathies lie, putting the reader in the position of having to choose between the hero and the bad guy, presenting murky gray areas, and challenging, always challenging, the perception of right and wrong, good and evil.
Manipulation is a powerful tool. Present the premise and twist it. Illustrate and make both sides of a controversial issue sympathetic. Challenge, question, re-evaluate, challenge again. Don’t explain. Present each new twist and trust your reader to go along for the ride. ~BE
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Linda
Yezak (pronounced like “yes” and “sick” thrown together with a “z”),
lives with her husband and three cats in a forest in Texas, where tall
tales abound and exaggeration is an art form. She is a two-time finalist
in ACFW’s Genesis Contest, in 2008 for Give the Lady a Ride, a contemporary western comedy romance published by Port Yonder Press, and in 2010 for The Cat Lady’s Secret, a Women’s Fiction comedy-drama. She has been published in Christian Romance and Vibrant Nation e-zines,
has served as a judge in several national and local writing contests,
and is currently a freelance editor and a consulting editor for Port
Yonder Press.
