Go Fish: Red Herrings and You

This Bait Is of Excellent Quality

Don’t you just love being lied to?

Oh, not in real life, of course. That’s terrible. But in fiction?

Be honest, who doesn’t like a good twist at the end, a grand reveal that what once was believed to be true is actually something different? Something MORE?

Such a twist is often referred to as a Red Herring and boy are they an artform, dear reader. Successfully pulling off one of these bad boys will elevate your story to unknown heights while failing to do so will lay your entire narrative lower than the walls of Jericho.

But what, in essence, is a Red Herring?

Well, basically it is to Foreshadowing what Batman is to Bruce Wayne. Where foreshadowing is more of an honest statement/event that only in hindsight is revealed to have signaled an eventuality in one’s story, a Red Herring is a planted misdirection. Worse, it’s an intended distraction planted by the author, a false trail left to mislead readers into realms perilous.

Why would an author do such a thing? Why attempt to deceive their own audience? Simple, dear reader: the Grand Reveal.

We’ve all seen it. The singular jaw dropping moment where a character reveals “Ah, but it was me all along!” and we as readers are left thinking “well smack my ass and call me Marty shit just got real.” Such moments are narrative drivers, sure, but all too often they can leave readers with a sour taste in their mouth.

You see, the trick is in the delivery.

In order to execute a Red Herring properly sufficient details must be planted to purposefully mislead the reader without misdirecting them. Sure, you’re leaving a false trail but the end result should still be plausible. When your reader reaches the Grand reveal they should be able to look back on their own assumptions and still believe them as logical while also being able to see where the author oh so cleverly buried the lead.

Making the reader incorrectly guess what has happened or will happen is ballsy, though. No one likes being tricked for the sake of being tricked after all so plausibility is a must. Well, plausibility and a light touch. If you beat people over the head with your signposts it’ll be too obvious while if you don’t signpost enough things will be too opaque. You must balance subtlety with necessity, weaving your false trail into your story until it becomes a natural part of events. Every chief suspect ought to have a reasonable motive (not just the cliché’ obvious answer).

Putting in the effort to make a reader subconsciously divert *just* enough blame away from someone so that the true culprit sneaks by that initial sniff test is difficult but oh, oh, so rewarding.   

So that’s the gambit, dear reader. Do you try to hoodwink your audience knowing your every move will scrutinized? Do you put in the time to make your twist believable? If so…well, you may have just caught yourself one hell of a red herring.