“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.
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