My advice on characters today concerns how to write sneaky characters. I had to create one in my second novel, A Storm of Doubts, and he proved to be a challenge.
What Do I Mean by Sneaky Characters?
Since I write mysteries, of course the guilty party is always sneaky because he or she has to cover their tracks after committing the crime. But for this post, I’m referring to characters who are sneaky by nature. The weaselly police informant who will tell the cops anything for a price, making his information suspect. The high school girl who is so sweet to everyone’s face and yet anyone who associates with her is always caught up in some kind of drama.
These are characters whose actions, words, and expressions mask their real thoughts and feelings. A writer can approach this character one of two ways–either, the main character (MC) is completely taken in by the performance and the revelation of sneaky character’s true intentions is a big plot twist. Or the MC is suspicious of the sneaky character to begin with or soon after meeting him but has trouble deciding if the character is a sneak or trustworthy.
By the way, if you want your MC to be the sneaky character, you are allowed. Just remember–most readers enjoy a book because the MC is someone they want to spend time with. A sneaky MC could get very old, very fast.
Creating a Sneaky Character
In A Storm of Doubts, I adopted the second way of developing a sneaky character. Rae’s Uncle Troy returns to Marlin County, Ohio, where he grew up. Everyone there knows he’s a grifter, so Rae, my MC, is suspicious of him from the start.
I’ve read a lot about grifters and realized Troy would never be aggressive or combative in any situation. Grifters don’t want to bully you into doing what they want. They want to entice and manipulate you. This is harder to write than a blunt bully. A bully’s intentions are obvious and therefore easy to convey to the reader. Showing Troy entice and manipulate Rae was much harder because I had to write him in subtle lines.
What helped me was to realize Troy would agree to anything anyone said if it gave him an advantage. Unlike a lot of characters, who would take offense at being criticized, Troy goes along with the criticism because agreeing with someone puts him in a position to get closer to them. He’s like a snake who can pivot and twist in any direction he thinks necessary.
In this scene, Rae’s dad, the sheriff, is questioning Troy.
“You need to come up with better excuses.” Dad put away his notepad. “You made a mistake two years ago, and I got jumped. You made a mistake today and put my daughter in danger. You can’t keep saying you make mistakes, Troy. You’re forty-three. Not fourteen.”
Tory sighed, his tiny mouth drooping. “I’m just not as smart as you are. “
I also use several two-person scene between Rae and Troy so I have the time to describe in more details his expressions and mannerisms and how Rae analyzes them to figure out what her uncle’s true intentions are.
Have you tried to write a sneaky character? What helped you to write them? Who is a convincing sneaky characters in a book or show?
