The Dark Side of Charisma — A Writer’s Guide

You know who they are.

The superstars.

The BFDs.

They get the best tables, fly private, live on palatial estates.

They are the ones who Have. It. All.

They’re actors, influencers, corporate honchos, entertainers, TV personalities, rock stars, religious leaders, politicians and presidents.

They’re the Superstars, the A-listers, the Big Man On Campus, the Home Coming Queen, the most admired, most popular, most likely to succeed.  The mega stars who stand out even among other stars.

They enter a room oozing confidence, command and competence.

They demand attention — and get it.

They’re the winners, the charmers, the seducers, the larger-than-life hero or heroine of every dazzling success story.

Their names are in headlines.

So are their marriages and divorces, scandals and triumphs.

The spotlight burns brighter on them.

They have that certain, indefinable something.

Something called “It.”

Who are they?

• Princess Di. But not Princess Anne.
• Steve Jobs. But not Bill Gates. And not Mark Zuckerberg.
• Stormy Daniels but not Karen McDougal
• Hannibal Lector. But not Jeffrey Dahmer.
• Hemingway. But not F. Scott Fitzgerald.
• Elvis. But not Tony Bennett.
• Tiger Woods but not Rory McIlroy.
• Eva Peron but not Angela Merkel.
• Frank Sinatra. But not Frankie Laine.
• The Beatles. But not the Beach Boys.
• Anthony Bourdain. But not Rachel Ray.

Why writers need to know.

We want to create dimensional characters, but how do we write those charmed (and charming) characters who Have. It. All.

What’s the character arc for someone who has a perfect life? Someone who’s living the ideal life everyone envies.

What motive would s/he have to change?

Why gild the lily?

Instead ask a few questions.

Is all that glitters gold?

Is their life really that perfect?

Maybe.

But perhaps more often than you might think, maybe not.

Ask their wives, husbands or exes, their children, colleagues or chauffeurs.

Here you will find victims — the discarded, the disillusioned, and the embittered — and it is here that you will find the path to a compelling character arc.

How, exactly, does charisma work?

According to Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at University College London, at Columbia University, an associate at Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance Lab, and  author of Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (and How to Fix It), there are only three ways to influence others: force, reason, or charm.

Professor Chamorro-Premuzic points out that force and reason are rational. Even when we are “forced” to do something, we obey for a good reason like getting the grades we need to get the scholarship we want, keeping the job we need or avoiding a divorce by a fed-up wife or a he’s-had-it husband.

Charm, however, is based on emotional manipulation and therefore can — and will — eclipse any rational response.

Charismatic leaders influence by charm rather than reason, but when they run out of charm, they tend to revert to force (think Hitler, Stalin or Jim Jones.)

Charisma is addictive — and a two-way street.

Professor Chamorro-Premuzic goes on to say that leaders capable of charming their followers become addicted to that love.

Followers in turn become addicted to the leader’s charisma.

The result is a reciprocal dependence that encourages both leader and follower to distort reality in order to prolong the high, the rush, the “magic.”

But.

According to Audrey Murrell, associate dean of the University of Pittsburgh College of Business Administration and director of the David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership, “The dark side of charisma is often referred to as a ‘cult of personality.’ Differences of opinion and divergent values are not tolerated.

“What often happens is that when different opinions challenge the leaders’ influence, consensus-seeking is deployed as a weapon to maintain the leader’s superhuman status. This means that disagreement with the leader is viewed as a sign of disloyalty.”

The dreck beneath the dazzle of charisma.

What is a charismatic person really like?

To find out, consider that beneath the magnetic, irresistible charm is a bottomless pit of need. And a devouring appetite for more.

Insatiable. Voracious. Too much is never enough. Not for them.

They want to dominate and manipulate.

And have a win-at-all-costs mentality.

They are often bullies and users, narcissists, sociopaths and/or psychopaths.

They fascinate in fiction.

• Mrs. Danvers (Rebecca).
• Miranda Priestly (The Devil Wears Prada).
• Leonard di Caprio as a Wall Street Midas (The Wolf of Wall Street).
• Logan Roy (Succession).
• Patrick Bateman (American Psycho), a 1980s yuppie serial killer.
• Or Hitchcock’s Norman Bates in Psycho.
• J. K. Rowling has described Lord Voldemort as “a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people’s suffering.”

• And in real life.
  

• John Gacy, who received a “Man of the Year” award from his city, murdered thirty-two and buried their bodies in the crawl space beneath his house.
• Handsome, charismatic Ted Bundy, lured women with his charm — and then murdered them.
• Jeffrey Dahmer, raped, murdered, dismembered — and sometimes ate — his victims.
• Green Beret and medical doctor, Jeffrey MacDonald, a man who had what seemed a picture-perfect resumé, murdered his pregnant wife and daughters.

Not all sociopaths are murderers.

Some find other ways to satisfy their need for control, power and prestige.

According to Forbes, jobs that attract sociopaths include:

• CEO
• Lawyer
• Surgeon (just ask my friend Sharon who was married — briefly — to a surgeon)
• Cop
• Teacher
• Clergyman (or woman)
• Chef
• Salesman (or woman).

Or consider Silicon Valley #GirlBoss Elizabeth Holmes, who raised millions for her medical diagnostic company, Theranos, on the promise of a miraculous blood test (which didn’t work).

Here, too, are the weaponizers of charm, the crooks and conmen (and women).

The liars, hustlers, swindlers and flatterers, the fakers, phonies and poseurs.

In The Wizard of Lies, Robert De Niro portrays Bernie Madoff, who ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history. He defrauded millions, left his victims broken and bankrupt.

At the end of the film, De Niro as Madoff asks, “Do you think I’m a sociopath?”

He wonders.

And so do we.

As Elizabeth Holmes serves an eleven-year prison sentence.

Are there good sociopaths?

Perhaps.

Maybe.

I couldn’t find a definitive, persuasive answer.

But what about Sherlock Holmes as portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC series?

Sherlock is referred to as a psychopath several times throughout the series and has also been described as having Asperger syndrome.

In response, he says: “I’m not a psychopath, I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.”

Is your character sociopathic? Or not?

We’re writers, not shrinks — at least not most of us — but if we write crime, the murderous sociopathic/psychopathic character gives us home field advantage. Just ask Thomas Harris about Hannibal Lector (The Silence of the Lambs).

If we don’t write crime, the sociopathic character can appear as a stalker, a deadbeat, a person who lurks on this side of the law (or maybe just over), causing chaos, disappointment, and leaving behind a wake of broken promises, professional wreckage, failed marriages and/or romances.

Another alternative is the character with traits that can be thought of as sociopathic — the charm, the charisma, the dazzling success — but who isn’t a menace. At least not in any normal sense of the word.

A character like this can be the center of a rags-to-riches (or riches-to-rags) story.

This kind of character is also a good candidate for a compelling character arc.

Will s/he learn from the downside consequences of his/her ways and change?

From East Hampton With Love

In my about-to-be-published new book, From East Hampton With Love, (Book #4 in the Cozy In The City series), the story begins when the body of a magnetic, charming, super-successful Mad Man washes up on East Hampton’s Billionaire’s Beach. Blake Weston and her handsome sexy ex-cop husband must spend the summer among the 1% in the fabled resort to find out what — or who — caused the mysterious death of this ad world’s superstar.

ARCs coming soon! If you’d like to be put on the list, please let me know in the comments and I will add your name and email.

PS: Park Avenue Blondes, #1 in the Cozy In The City series, is now on sale for 99c.

by Ruth Harris (@RuthHarrisBooks) February 26, 2023

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What about you, scriveners? Do your characters have charisma? Have you ever written a charismatic villain? A sociopath? What do you think makes a character charismatic? 

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