The Art of Misdirection

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” — Soren Kierkegaard

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One of the most interesting aspects of mystery novels for me is the author’s ability to construct a story that leads the reader “down the garden path.” Then when the truth is revealed, the reader smacks him/herself on the side of the head in recognition that they picked the wrong person as the villain. They should have seen it coming.

When I told a friend of mine about my interest in constructing novels that use this technique of misdirection, she was astonished. “It sounds like you’re deliberately manipulating what the reader is thinking.”

“Right,” I said. “That’s the point. If the author can present information to the reader so they react to the scenes in the story in a predictable way, it will produce an entertaining and satisfying experience for the reader.”

My friend said she didn’t like the idea of being fooled, but I think she’s fooling herself.

At its heart, a mystery novel is a game, a challenge to the reader to see if they can put the puzzle together correctly. The reader has all the necessary information, but the author uses several devices to misguide the reader into putting their trust in the wrong characters or the wrong clues.

Foreshadowing, Clues, and Red Herrings

In his article in Writer’s Digest,  Robert McCaw put it well:

“Misdirection also requires subtlety. The reader will feel crassly manipulated if the surprise ending arrives without sufficient hints or foreshadowing. Ideally, good misdirection makes the reader look back at various telltale clues peppered throughout the story, hopefully leading them to admire the author’s skill in setting up and obscuring the ultimate surprise.”

Perhaps the cleverest red herring of all time was created by Agatha Christie in her novel And Then There Were None, in which ten people on a remote island are being killed off one by one in a way that mirrors the nursery rhyme Ten Soldier Boys. When they get down to three people left alive, one of them (Vera) says

“You’ve forgotten the nursery rhyme. Don’t you see there’s a clue there?” She recited in a meaning voice: “Four little Indian boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.” She went on: “A red herring—that’s the vital clue. Armstrong’s not dead… He took away the china Indian to make you think he was. You may say what you like—Armstrong’s on the island still. His disappearance is just a red herring across the track…”

A clue that references the very words “red herring” is clever. But it turns out the clue itself was a red herring. Now that was really clever.

The Unreliable Narrator

In a novelsuspects.com article, Emily Watson writes

The term “unreliable narrator” was introduced in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in his book The Rhetoric of Fiction. Typically, for a narrator to be unreliable, the story needs to be presented by a first-person narrator. And since first-person accounts of stories and events are often flawed and biased, you could argue that all first-person narrators are by nature unreliable. But Booth explains that for a narrator to be unreliable, they must either misreport, misinterpret, misevaluate, underreport, under-interpret, or under-evaluate.

Once again Agatha Christie claims preeminence in misdirection with the unreliable narrator Dr. Sheppard in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

The False Ending

Robert McCaw also addressed the topic of false endings in his article in Writer’s Digest.

“Another of my favorite techniques is the false or penultimate ending. In this case, the narrative comes to a neat close. The protagonist solves the mysteries and identifies the culprit. There are no loose strings. The story is over, except it’s not. Instead, another chapter surprises the reader with a new and different take on the ending, often creating the opportunity to begin a new story, perhaps in another book.”

An example of this is the French film He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not directed by Laetitia Colombani. While not exactly a mystery, the movie’s unusual structure is a good example of misdirection, unreliable narration, and a false ending.

The movie was released in 2002 and starred Audrey Tautou, the actress who had previously been best known for her performance as the main character in the movie Amelie. Casting Tautou as Angelique in He Loves Me was a brilliant way to manipulate the viewers into immediately trusting the adorable girl.

In this movie, Angelique is an accomplished young artist in love with a married man, Dr. Loic Le Garrec (Samuel Le Bihan). The movie begins in a flower shop where Angelique is sending a pink rose to Le Garrec on his birthday, and it tracks the plot through scenes where Angelique appears to get closer and closer to her goal of breaking up Le Garrec’s marriage so the two of them can go off together.

Then something goes awry. Angelique realizes her plan has failed, and she decides to commit suicide. It seems this will be the sad end to a young woman’s life, but that’s the false ending. The movie is only at the halfway point.

As Angelique lies down on the floor in front of a gas stove, everything changes. It looks like the movie is rewinding in Fast Backward mode, and suddenly we’re all the way back to the beginning at the flower shop.

But this time, the movie presents the actual events, not just Angelique’s fantasy, and the viewer comes to understand Angelique was suffering from a mental illness called “erotomania.” The first half of the movie showed only a partial truth, but one that convinced the viewer of a lie.

In the actual ending, Angelique has survived her suicide attempt and is incarcerated in a mental institution. The final end of the movie is yet another false ending that I won’t spoil for you.

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So, there you have it. Red herrings, unreliable narrators, and false endings. All devices to trick the reader into enjoying a wonderful story.

“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

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So TKZers: There are many ways to lead the reader astray. Have you been fooled by misdirection? Have you used misdirection in your books? What books or movies would you recommend that gleefully mislead the audience?

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Was it a clue to murder? Or just a small child’s fanciful note? Private pilot Cassie Deakin must find her way through the labyrinth to solve the puzzle.

Available at  AmazonBarnes & NobleKoboGoogle Play, or Apple Books.

18 thoughts on “The Art of Misdirection

  1. Yes, it’s definitely a fun read when a mystery writer manages to string you along and keep you guessing. But tricky figuring out how to do that as a writer. You have to learn to be very deceitful. LOL!

    And interesting — I didn’t know — or had forgotten, where the original red herring reference came from.

    • Good morning, Brenda!

      Today’s mystery readers are sophisticated and are looking for the red herrings and misdirection. It makes the job a lot harder for the author to surprise them.

      I love that red herring example in And Then There Were None.

  2. Kay, great analysis of misdirection.

    Authors should play fair with readers. Otherwise the reader feels cheated. Withholding information isn’t fair. If the clues are all there to solve the puzzle, but they’re not noticed or they’re misinterpreted, that’s fair.

    We writers need to be magicians, drawing the audience’s attention to one hand while the other hand actually performs the trick.

    The term red herring originally comes from hunters who trained dogs to follow only the scent of the game and not be distracted by other scents. To test the dog, hunters would drag smelly pickled fish across the trail. A well trained dog stayed with the game’s trail. A poorly trained dog would get distracted and follow the wrong trail.

    Thanks for a great start to the week, Kay.

    • Good morning, Debbie!

      Yes, playing fair is essential to the game. Readers don’t like it otherwise.

      I came across the origin of the term “red herring” when I was preparing for this post. This from masterclass.com:

      ‘The journalist William Cobbett is credited with originating the term “red herring” in an 1807 story. Cobbett criticized the press for prematurely reporting Napoleon’s defeat, and compared that act to using strong-smelling, smoked red herrings to distract dogs from another scent. Cobbett was accusing the press of intentionally using a fallacy to distract the public.’

      Have a great week!

  3. Talking with a homicide detective, he mentioned how he would dispose of a body so it wouldn’t be discovered. I used that in one of the short stories in “Seeing Red.”

  4. A good example of misdirection and unreliable narrator that lead me down the path as a reader recently is The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. I was stunned and flabbergasted when the true culprit was revealed. And a little miffed. Maybe because I realized I should’ve caught on sooner. Or because Michaelides did such a good job of pulling the wool over my eyes. Regardless, I respect his ability to make it work. (Sort of reminds me of the Sixth Sense movie. I didn’t see that one coming either, but I should’ve!)

    • Good morning, Kelly.

      The Silent Patient is on my TBR list, so now I’m really interested in reading it.

      Sixth Sense was ingenious. I wonder if anyone caught on before the end.

      Have a good week.

      • My sister wasn’t surprised at all by the ending of the Sixth Sense. Actually, she couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t figure it out–The boy said he talked to dead people. But it completely fooled me.

  5. Terrific primer on an essential aspect of a mystery novel, Kay. This one is near and dear to my heart. “Hidden in plain sight” is usual the case for the actual murderer’s identity, which makes misdirection vital as the sleuth navigates the mystery funhouse. It’s definitely tricky to pull off, but necessary.

    I spent a lot of time studying and learning it, and worked hard to put it into practice. I don’t claim mastery, but was pleased when several readers said they were fooled in my first two mysteries.

    I like four-act structure for mysteries. The misdirection can begin in the first act, but definitely by the second, when the investigation begins, often somewhat haphazardly as the in my case amateur sleuth is working through a maze of confusion. Things clarify in the third act, after someone crucial at the midpoint. But now things get really tricky as the misdirection peaks as the sleuth thinks they’ve solved the crime.

    If you have the amateur sleuth definitively solve the mystery before the climax and it seems like all the narrative tension would be gone, so the timing of when the misdirection is seen through is crucial. Mysteries were it turns out that the original suspect actual was the killer have fooled me–the misdirection has to based on something seemingly rock-solid that was faked–such as a certain alibi that was faked.

    Lots of food for though in today’s post, Kay. Thank you! Hope you have a wonderful week.

    • Good morning, Dale!

      It’s music to my ears when a reader says, “I didn’t see it coming.”

      Great breakdown of the four act structure. Amateur sleuths have advantages and disadvantages in trying to solve the crime. I think that adds spice to the narrative.

      Have a great week.

  6. My editor is my first reader and I love it the few times I’ve fooled her. I think the key is to have several characters who have motive, means and opportunity.

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