Clues & Red Herrings -- Part III

When I first started writing, a dear friend (and author of many books) gave me a piece of excellent advice. He said, “When things are going smoothly, put your protagonist in a tree and throw rocks at him.” In addition to torturing your protagonist in the usual confrontational manner, a mystery writer has the ability to frustrate the living daylights out of their characters with clues that make no sense and red herrings to lead them on unproductive goose chases and push them to the edge of defeat. To that end, we shall continue;

The contradiction: He said/she said. This is any information, subtle or obvious, and imparted by at least two different characters that gives lie to an event. Who’s lying? Who knows! Put them together in a room for a fight, put them in separate scenes to confuse the sleuth.

For example:

A witness might declare, “It was exactly three o’clock when I saw him go into the bank. I know this because I had an appointment with my doctor two doors down at three and I was running late.”

The man in question might say, “I left the bank at two fifty-five to catch the bus at the stop on the next block.”

If this is critical information in solving the crime, you can have fun driving your sleuth nuts with it.

  

The omission: A character doesn’t mention something when they should – well at least when the reader expects them to because it’s consistent with their character to say something.

 

For example:

A catty woman tells her co-worker, “I saw your husband last night at Smitty’s Diner with a red head.”

The co-worker, a woman we know needs to believe in her husband’s fidelity, shuffles some papers and says, “He loves their hash browns.”

Uh oh. Trouble is brewing. Is the wife planning it … or will she be the victim? 

The misinterpretation: In real life, people can be given the same information and, for various reasons, interpret that information differently. This goes for your characters, as well. You can use all things/people/situations both familiar and unfamiliar (and therefore dismissed as commonplace or given too much importance), but misinterpreted to the writer's advantage. When specifics are missing, the possibilities are your oyster.

For example:

What does it mean if someone says to you; “You have to do more if you expect to get ahead here”?

“More” is hardly specific, and delightfully common. We think we know what it means; Work longer hours, work harder. But to someone else it could it mean; Arrange an unfortunate accident for your supervisor. Sabotage the competition. Have an affair with the boss.

See what I mean?

The outright lie: Good standby. But watch who uses it (someone who normally tells the truth or is a habitual liar?) Again, know your characters.

Do you really need an example? Thought not.

The tantalizing hint: the partial, intriguing  bit of information that leaves out the most important stuff.  These things happen all the time in real life. In your novel, it’s the equivalent of an end-of-chapter cliff hanger, but in a bite-sized form. Keep in mind you don’t have to spill all the information you possess. Putting off the moment you let your reader in on the rest of the tidbit will keep them turning the page and give you multiple opportunities to torture your sleuth.

For example, your friend’s FaceBook post:

I knew I shouldn’t have opened the letter I got today.

Not only do you NOT know what happened because of it (although it seems it wasn’t good), but you don’t know who the letter was from or what it said (Frankly if your friend does too much of this nonsense you’d be justified in unfriending them. It’s annoying).

Here’s another famous example from comedian Louis Black: “If it weren’t for my horse I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.” As the man says, there is no conceivable logic to that statement and if you think too hard about it your mind will explode.

The common thread is; Only additional explanation will satisfy the reader. 

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You might think that this is it – the final list … but … like the ad says, there’s more! Digest this and we’ll move along to the next bit in a couple of days. Enjoy!

Clues & Red Herrings -- Part II

Ready for Part II of Clues and Red Herrings?

Great! Let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Remember, don’t lose sight of your story or your characters as we discuss places to hide clues and showcase red herrings. The places are the same, as are the techniques. It’s a matter of (see Part I) character and story that will aide in these.

The lists: Pay attention to the weight of the items in the list. A good clue will seem inconsequential or at least blend in with the other items. Should there be a clue or a red herring in the list? Yes! Otherwise you need a different, excellent, reason for including a list in your discourse. Your reader isn’t on a trip to the grocery store.

Here’s a passage I made up (that isn’t in a story);

If you didn’t know you were in a small town, our weekly paper would tip you off. The pitiful lack of pulse pounding events had most stories sharing the first page. Today, Pamela’s murder shared the above-fold space with the city council meeting’s debate over the wetlands, while a suspected arson fire and a lengthy report on a successful neighborhood garage sale rubbed shoulders below.

Which is a clue or a red herring? I don’t know, but there should be one or the other.

Proximity: Something happens, an object discovered, or something is said that is then overshadowed by unrelated emotions or circumstances. The reader’s attention is then diverted from the clue to something “more important”. A crisis in a sub plot works well here.

You can use this technique with a red herring also, but you’ll want to bring up the event/object/something-said later on to give it some weight as a red herring. Otherwise, you’re just building word count – no one is impressed with that (even your characters).

The physical item: The fact that it is noticed or mentioned is powerful. You don't have to do things to it, it doesn't have to be out of place, but those are options.

Here’s an interesting point; the more you (or your characters) mention the object, the less intriguing or powerful it becomes (unless you’re meaning it as a joke, then that’s a whole other blog subject). However, if you mention it on page eleven and don’t bother to do so again until page three-hundred and twenty, your reader will probably have forgotten about it. Learn to strike a balance. 

The Setting: The actual place the story occurs can provide significant cles and red herring opportunities. Time of day, day of the week, weather, time of year -- all can contribute. The added bonus is they make your setting more alive, more vital to the story and, some say, a "character." If you have a strong setting consider incorporating some elements of it into your clues or red herrings. 

For example, if the weather is particularly hot of cold and the body is found outdoors, time of death may be difficult to determine. 

If a character typically gets a day off on Wednesdays and that's when the crime occurs, who's going to believe he actually sneaked into his office to finish up reports in the morning? 

Authors like Nevada Barr, who sets her series in different National Parks, uses setting as a major character. Laurie King's Sherlock Holmes mysteries are set in a number of different locations -- the moors, a gypsy camp, the Middle East -- and all contribute important clues to solving they mystery. 

Remember, if your point of view character is new to the setting they will likely notice things that could misdirect or direct. If the setting is their usual haunt, then your reader may notice things that make useful red herrings. 

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Is there more? You bet there is! Part III is coming soon. There's many more ways to be nefarious (as a writer, of course!). You'll want to go through your draft and see if any of the above mentioned techniques can work to your advantage. Remember -- don't force. Weave!

Clues & Red Herrings -- Part I

Everyone knows what clues and red herrings are, right? A clue is anything that leads to the truth. A red herring deceives and misleads. If everyone knows what they are, then why do I keep hearing variations of these questions?

How do you build them into your mystery?

How do you hide the bad guy?

How do you plant clues a reader may miss?

How do you construct red herrings to misdirect?

Where should the clues of means, motive and opportunity as well as the red herrings be planted?

How many should there be?

Over the course of six books, I’ve learned one or two things that will help answer these questions. One is that clues and red herrings don’t just spring into being. You have to be as deliberate in hiding and misguiding as you are to adhering to the slavish demands of the creative process.

The other is, no matter how clever you are, not every reader will miss the clues you plant, and not every red herring you plant will be swallowed. On the flip side, some readers will see clues and red herrings where there aren’t any. You have no control over this. You can work on what you do have control over; your story, your characters and how you put them together. This is the basis of well hidden clues and believable red herrings.

A mystery is a distillation of many stories – the protagonist’s, the antagonist’s, the villain’s, the secondary characters’, the victim’s. Understanding all your characters’ stories well will help you weave in clues and red herrings.

While it is possible, and some say preferable, to know what kinds of clues and red herrings you’re going to include in your story before you type the first word of the first draft, it’s probably in subsequent editing passes where you’ll insert, or rearrange those items – or find opportunities you didn’t realize would be there. To be successful clues and red herrings should be part of the weave of the story.

So, what do you do first?

A little analysis helps give a starting point. Knowing how your protagonist is going to proceed will help you decide where the clues and red herrings should be placed. Whether you’ve finished your first draft or are ready to start plotting, figuring out what kind of a mystery you are working with will help you sprinkle in clues to motive, means and opportunity in the right places.

Know your story

Here are the three basic types of set-ups for the mystery story;

Fair play: There is more than one suspect – often times a lot more. Each character has motives the sleuth investigates and dismisses one after another until the bad guy is caught.

Quest: As the sleuth uncovers one clue it will inevitably lead to another. The red herrings lead to dead ends.

Puzzle: the sleuth uncovers pieces which are in no particular order until the whole picture fits together. It will also be at that time that the red herrings will become evident

Next,

Know your characters

You will have gotten to know the players in your drama either by walking with them through the story’s first draft of by constructing a dossier before hand – or through a combination. However you’ve done it (and character building is a volume in and of itself) you should be able to answer these questions for all of your main characters and probably several of your secondary ones as well. 

What do they want? Goals, needs, desires.

What do they notice in the story & how important is it to them?

What kinds of things will divert them from seeing the truth?

What are their limits, strengths, weaknesses – and what do they believe them to be?

How do they react to conflict?

Remember, although you write your story from your point-of-view character's goals, actions and reactions, the other characters have them, too, and will influence the obstacles your sleuth must overcome.

Yeah, it’s work. And in all likelihood, you’ve got some heavy thinking to do. The laying in of clues and red herrings is not a small topic, so it’s going to take me several blog posts to cover the specific techniques, and all of the techniques are based on story type and character. So … do your homework and hang on to what you find out.

Next time: The tools to conceal and mislead.

The Long, Strange Road from Gonzo

Jeanne Matthews is one of my favorite authors. Her world-view, and subsequent wit, hit close enough to home to make me identify with her characters and are just enough off-center to make me see with with new awareness. I've often wondered how she does it, where that ability to perceive the commonplace with fresh clarity comes from. I asked her to write a piece for me and she graciously has provided a peek into her process. 

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While excavating my garage in an attempt to bring order to the midden I call home, I found a few disintegrating pages of a story I wrote in 1969 during a road trip from my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia to Seattle, Washington.  The yellowed, handwritten pages lay moldering at the bottom of a cardboard box that had obviously provided shelter and nutrition to generations of mice and moths.  I tried to remember how many garages in how many towns that box had been stored over the decades – too many to recall off the top of my head.  In a misty-eyed glow of nostalgia, I sat down on a crate of old Betamax tapes and other relics of the past, and started to read.  The first few lines yanked me back in time and mood.  “We gazed out at the deserted highway that stretched across a barren waste into infinity.  Time dragged, as if our little car were being pushed back by the relentless winds.  When at last we pulled into the one-pump town of Bill, Pat said, ‘God, if I lived here I’d kill myself.’” 

  Pat was my traveling companion and the catalyst behind our odyssey across the country.  Her boyfriend David, a second lieutenant in Uncle Sam’s army, had been stationed at Fort Lewis, from whence he was soon to ship out to Vietnam and he yearned for a summer of love before heading off to war.  Both Pat and I taught school and had the summer free.  I owned the most road-worthy vehicle, a ’68 VW bug.  Pat owned the maps and AAA guidebooks.  We decided to make the drive an adventure, taking in as many sights along the way as possible.  We included on our zigzag itinerary Mark Twain’s old stomping grounds in Hannibal, Missouri; Will Cather’s childhood home in Red Cloud, Nebraska; and Hunter Thompson’s home in Aspen, Colorado. At the time, Hunter was gearing up to run for Pitkin County Sheriff on the Freak Power ticket and he was also inventing a new writing style called Gonzo – exaggerated, wildly subjective, and shamelessly self-conscious.  He’s the guy, by the way, who said that the only people who know where the edge is are the ones who have gone over it.  In both his personal life and his writing, Hunter sought the dangerous edge of things and wasn’t afraid to dive off.  It was his belief that the journey to the grave should not be a safe ride.  He wanted to “skid in broadside, shouting ‘Wow!’” 

As I reread my long-ago account of that summer of ‘69, I detected an undeniable strain of Gonzo.  The landscapes smacked us in the eye with their transcendent beauty, or else pierced us to the heart with their desolate bleakness.  The characters we encountered riveted and revolutionized.  They didn’t just introduce us to some interesting new ideas.  They transformed us forever.  The action whipped along at breakneck pace from the Havasupai Indian Reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the folly of Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley, and the dialogue was dense with exclamations of imminent peril and “kill myself” moments.

   A charitable reviewer might describe the story as “fraught.”  A less charitable one, well . . . a number of less charitable assessments come to mind.  But don’t let’s go there.  I was young.  It was my first go at a novel and no writing is ever wasted.  It’s a learning experience.  Time brings perspective.  It also brings less breathless verbs and histrionic adjectives.  The days of Gonzo recede in the rear view mirror.  Still I can’t help but feel a sort of wistfulness for those girls who drove 3,000 miles across the country looking for the edge, and for the wannabe writer who was so thrilled by the adventure that she skidded into her story broadside, shouting “Wow!” 

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Jeanne Matthews is the author of the Dinah Pelerin Mystery series; Bones of Contention, Bet Your Bones, Bonereapers, and Her Boyfriend's Bones. Read them in that order (if you're one of those people) (otherwise, have at it. You'll enjoy the books regardless of the order). She lives in Renton, Washington with her husband and enjoys traveling and learning about other cultures and their mythology. Along with authors Joyce Yarrow, Lisa Stowe, Jane Isenberg and yours truly, Jeanne is part of Women Who Kill -- a group of intrepid authors who visit libraries, bookstores and other venues (that are brave enough) to entertain and impart writerly wisdom to the curious.

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A Second Chance for the Written Word

Joyce Yarrow is an amazingly talented woman. Not only is she a writer of considerable ability, but she is a singer-songwriter, screenwriter, multi-media performance artist and member of the world vocal ensemble, Abráce. 

She is also an adventurous traveler having done research for her book  

Code of Thieves (previously published as The Last Matryoshka) in Moscow and getting to know the local police (no, she wasn't arrested, but did get to tour a prison). India was one of her more recent destinations, where she was asked to lecture on "The Place of Place in Mystery Writing" at the University of Allahabad. Pretty impressive stuff for a girl raised in the south east Bronx, New York!

Not surprisingly, the accomplishments of other talented individuals interest her. With the Olympics in full swing just this past few weeks, Joyce found herself drawn into a kind of kinship with figure skaters. Writing and skating ... so different, yet -- well, I'll let Joyce explain. In her well-chosen words, the writer in you will likely find some inspiration and the reader in you will gain appreciation.

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Recently I posted the following status on Facebook:

As a novelist, no wonder I love the idea of figure skating so much – you start off with a jump that propels the storyline, lead into some fast fancy footwork accompanied by longer arcs of character development, finish with a giant leap into the unknown and a dizzying spin - and then you’re judged!

Fact is, I’ve got structure on my brain due to a rewrite I’m doing of a literary/crime novel.  A feeling of barely controlled chaos is inevitable when approaching a task like this and questions abound: – What plot points do I change and why? Are some of these characters I worked so hard to create actually expendable?  Is pace more important than lyricism? Why is this SO hard?

In the midst of this angst, clarity has gradually emerged. In a work of fiction, the author continually makes choices that change what happens next. As I slowed down and examined the important crossroads in my protagonist’s story, I began to see that I could actually enjoy this! I mean, how many second chances do we get in ‘real life’ – here was an opportunity to open some doors that had been left closed, to confront an adversary more forcefully, to take a few more risks than before in the endeavor to end up in a better place. Who wouldn’t want to do this if given a choice?

The most unexpected arrival has been a new adversary who will keep my protagonist on her toes. He scares me – a good sign – but my heroine will rise to the occasion. I’m happy to say I’ve made  some ‘clean jumps’ and will skate to the finish in spite of a few slips on the ice.

I’d better get back to it – since I have a deadline. To my writer friends – happy revising. To my reader friends – enjoy the results!

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Joyce's published novels include Ask the Dead (Martin Brown Publishers) and Code of Thieves, Istoria Books e-book edition (published as The Last Matryoshka by Five Star Mysteries in hardcover). She is a Pushcart Nominee whose stories have appeared in Inkwell Journal, Whistling Shade, Descant, Arabesques, and Weber: The Contemporary West. You can find her at JoyceYarrow.com . Her books can be found online and in book stores everywhere. Her newest book, a romantic suspense co-authored with Indian writer Arindam Roy, is awaiting a title. Keep your ear to the ground -- you wont want to miss it.

 

Look! Up in the sky ... or right in front of you

Kait in the cockpit 

Kait Carson is another wonderfully talented author I have known for years and consider a good friend. However, because about 3,000 miles separate us, we have never had the pleasure of hacking out plot lines over coffee at the local Starbucks. Nevertheless, I often pick her brain knowing she has the ability to see an array of story possibilities in any given situation. She pushes and prods and coaxes the writer's standard "What if" question into giving up the details. 

Take it away, Kait! Let us in on your secret!

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Ideas are everywhere

Driving down the road a few weeks ago, I saw a young man on a bicycle. Not unusual. He turned to look over his shoulder at the car approaching and I saw the most spectacular jaw line I have ever seen. Strong, chiseled. He is clearly someone you can lean on in an emergency. I knew instantly that he’s a character in my next book. I also know he’s got piercing blue eyes. A muscle in his jaw jumps when he’s angry. He’s a lawyer and he has a secret that he guards with his life. The same secret that can cost him his life and that my sleuth, Hayden Kent, must uncover. All that from a glimpse of a jaw.  Go figure!

My first book, Zoned for Murder came from a real life incident. It was 2005, the height of the housing boom in South Florida and one of my friends was the local zoning officer. She had the thankless job of citing the folks doing below standard work on homes to insure quick sales. She also needed to ride herd on the rest of the community for more typical zoning violations. One day she mentioned receiving death threats. Both against herself and her dogs. Zoned for Murder was born from that comment. I wondered what if. What if someone did try to murder a zoning official? What would push someone over the edge from disgruntled citizen to murderer? It didn’t take long before I had the answers to the questions and my sleuth, Catherine Swope was caught up in a murder investigation that threatened her own life.

Murder in the Multiples, the second in the Swope series, sprang from a photo of a mansion up for auction.

The home was gorgeous. It was confiscated by federal agents as spoils of drug profits. That’s all it took to play the “what if” game. What would happen if a Realtor bought the house for re-sale? What would happen if the re-sale buyer of the house were the rival bidder’s husband? A doting and well-meaning man who was blind to his wife’s secrets? What would happen when Catherine found her rival dead in the bathtub on the day of the closing? Who gains, who loses?  My husband created a dummy cover for Murder in the Multiples to help me visualize the house and the day of the murder. He drew his inspiration from what I told him of the story.

Death by Blue Water, the first in the Hayden Kent series, sprang from one of my passions. Scuba diving. I am a rabid wreck diver. One day, at 120 feet, a plastic bag floated out of a cabin and past my face. What if the bag was a hand, floating up to a window from the cabin floor attached to a very dead man? What if I had an appointment to meet this man? What if this man was the brother of the man who recently jilted me? What if, what if, what if. My husband created a dummy cover for Death by Blue Water based on how he sees the inciting incident.

So, where do my ideas come from? Everywhere. Sometimes it’s something as concrete as a news story, other times it can be as nebulous as a glimpse of a biker’s jaw. The most important part of the process for me is the what if question, and how my imagination answers that. Things are never what they seem to be.

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Kait Carson currently lives in an airpark in Florida, where she mixes scuba diving, flying and a day job in with her writing. Her work has appeared in "Chicken Soup For The Soul" (writing as Kim A. Hoyo), "Cup Of Comfort" (writing as Kim H. Striker ), "True Confessions", "True Romance", "True Stories" and "Women's World". Zoned For Murder is her first full length mystery. Death by Blue Water and Murder in the Multiples will be available soon.

You can catch Kait any time at http://www.kaitcarson.com