The Red Herring is a staple of crime fiction. It's so important that it even lends its name to the monthly magazine for members of the Crime Writers' Association.
The term can be traced back to 1807 when the polemicist William Cobbett told of having used the pungent smell of a smoked herring to distract hounds that were chasing a rabbit.
Its purpose is to distract or side-track the characters and/or the reader.
Red Herrings can be intentional or unintentional (a coincidence).
There are lots of variants of this narrative trick, but here are three broad categories and examples of their use:
Distraction.
Intentional: Cash and jewellery are stolen in a burglary to distract from the fact that the burglar was after an incriminating letter.
Unintentional: A murder victim’s bag is stolen – somebody found the body and decided to help themselves to their bag.
A suspect that turns out to be innocent.
Intentional: The killer hides the murder weapon in someone else’s wheelie bin.
Unintentional: The young man in a hoodie caught on CCTV running away from the crime scene was just trying to catch a bus.
A suspect that is apparently ruled out, but who turns out to be guilty.
Intentional: The suspect apparently has a cast-iron alibi, but it later transpires that the alibi is manufactured.
Unintentional: Husband was spotted on a local shop's CCTV at time of murder, so can't have killed his wife. But the timestamp on the CCTV hadn't been updated when the clocks changed.


A Red Herring is composed of two parts and the placement of these parts within the story is crucial to its effectiveness.
Part One is the setting of the Red Herring. You can place this anywhere in the story - and a novel may well have multiple red herrings that come into being throughout the tale, but the key is to ensure that it happens sufficiently early in the story, or a particular story arc, that both the characters and readers have time to think about its potential significance. To use the second example, after the discovery of a murder, the police trawl the area for CCTV and find footage of a young man in a hoodie. They immediately set about trying to identify him.
Part Two is the resolution. In order for the Red Herring to be effective, this needs to be separated from its setting by time (for the characters) and pages (for the readers). In other words, the characters need to waste time and shoe-leather pursuing this suspect, and the reader needs to have it in the back of their mind, if not the forefront, for a chunk of the narrative. Therefore, when the man in the hoodie turns out to be entirely innocent, the characters feel disappointment, and the reader shares in this.

​In a typical whodunnit, the writer will usually try and set up more than one viable suspect (who may or may not be known). Red Herrings can be a crucial part of this process.


What do you think of Red Herrings? Are there other examples of types of Red Herring that you can think of? As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.

Until next, time, Paul.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.

Today's #TuesdayTip is another writing exercise/writers' block buster and is inspired by an occasional feature on this blog I call #ConversationsWithTheirCreations. I invite another writer to conduct an imaginary interview with one of their own fictional characters.
So for this Blockbuster, I am going to ask you to conduct such an interview. You could use one of your own characters or one previously created by someone else.

The aim is to interview them as if you are meeting them for the first time.
Think of it more as a TV or radio interview, rather than a police interview. With that in mind, think about what a reader or viewer would want to know.

The purpose of the activity is to make you think more deeply about the character and get to know them better. Pay particular attention to their backstory and how that lead them to the place they are now, and how it influences their actions.

Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don't worry if it doesn't make sense.
• It doesn't matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
Until next time,
Paul

"I guessed who did it halfway through!"
This triumphant statement, often featured in reviews, is enough to chill any crime fiction writer's heart. For months - if not years - you've slaved away at your manuscript. Meticulously plotting a twisty narrative designed to keep your readers guessing; carefully devising and placing red herrings to divert your audience away from the real solution and crafting memorable characters as a distraction from the actual culprit.
All for nothing! All your hard work is in vain and your beloved book baby is going to crash and burn.
Fear not! Take a deep breath! It doesn't matter.
First of all, let's look at what they've actually said.
"I guessed who did it halfway through!"
That's right, guessed.
There are few hard and fast rules about writing a crime novel. But one that is generally accepted, is that the culprit should appear early in the book, probably within the first quarter or so. Introducing a last-minute twist involving a brand new character a couple of chapters from the end is generally regarded as unfair to the reader. Therefore, you will probably want to introduce a few other reasonable suspects early on as well.
Let's assume that by the midway point there are five or so plausible people who could have done the deed. All things being equal, if you were to stop your reader now and demand to know who they thought might be guilty at this point, then they have a one in five chance of being right!
If a hundred people read your book, twenty will guess the right person. If ninety guess the right person, perhaps you have a problem, otherwise it's all down to  the laws of probability.
Nobody likes to admit they were wrong.
Crime readers, especially those who read a lot of books, like to play along as the story unfolds. They are going to try to work out who did it. For many of us, working out the solution before it is handed to you in the denouement is immensely satisfying. Dare I even say it's a wee ego boost? That's just human nature. On the flip-side, getting it wrong is less satisfying. That's not to say we can't enjoy being fooled by a clever writer. Far from it, and there are plenty of kind and generous reviewers who will recommend your book because you hoodwinked them. But I would suggest, that human nature being what it is, more people are likely to publicly crow about getting it right than getting it wrong.
Flip-flopping doesn't count.
A good writer keeps you guessing. In some of the best books I've ever read, I've chosen my pick pretty early on. But then there's been a twist and I've changed my mind. Sometimes more than once. Even if it turns out I was right in the first place, that's not a real win. Because the writer still fooled me for at least part of the book. So they have done their job.
So they figured out who did it? So what?
OK, let's assume that a reader does decide upon the correct suspect early on and sticks with them to the end. Well here's the thing - they won't be sure they've got it right until they read the last page. It's very unlikely that they are going to put your book down because they made a guess on page 150. Furthermore, the classic TV show Columbo literally told you who did it in the opener. Yet millions stayed tuned in, because what they really wanted to see was Columbo solve the mystery. To paraphrase the old cliché, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.


What are your thoughts on trying to guess the culprit?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time.
Keep on guessing,
Paul.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.

In last week's #TuesdayTip (Tip149) I discussed how it is important to make your procedure authentic, rather than realistic; to craft a compelling story without burdening your readers with too much detail. This week I want to look at a related idea - how to get away with using artistic licence.
It's something that we all struggle with. Artistic licence is the need to 'break the rules' to create a compelling story. We often see this in police procedurals. An admittedly unscientific survey I conducted of the books on my bookshelf, reveals that the main character in most of these books (especially those in a series) is usually an implausibly high rank. A Detective Chief Inspector or Detective Inspector, or even a Superintendent. This dogged individual will visit crime scenes, interview witnesses and suspects, chase bad guys and even perform the arrest at the end. My own series of books centre around DCI Warren Jones, who does all of the above.
Unfortunately, in real-life this is far from what really happens. In the UK, inspector ranks and above are largely office-based. They are likely to be the Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) in charge of a major investigation, but it is an organisational role. They direct the case, but the legwork is usually carried out by detective constables or detective sergeants. Interviewing is a highly specialised role these days, conducted by interview specialists, which are almost exclusively DCs and sometimes DSs. SIOs will often visit a crime scene, but they are usually being shown around by other experts who have already been on site for some time. And they certainly don't go running after suspects and arrest them.
But for narrative purposes, a DI or DCI is an extremely useful rank. The implied level of seniority means that they can plausibly decide how the case is going to be solved, with a team below them to carry out the work, whilst still having to answer to those above them (a great source of narrative conflict). In theory, they see all the evidence and can piece together all the pieces to 'solve the case'. That's not how it works in real-life. In reality it is far more of a team effort, but for the purposes of story-telling readers (and viewers) need a 'hero' they can focus on.


I came up against another instance of reality getting in the way of my story very early in the series. My books are set in a fictional north-Hertfordshire town called Middlesbury, but Warren and his team are officers in the very real Hertfordshire Constabulary. About halfway through writing book one, The Last Straw I was doing some research and realised to my horror that ALL major crime in Hertfordshire and the adjoining counties of Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire is investigated in one big building in Welwyn Garden City run by the three constabularies to increase efficiency and save costs. I had already set up the team structure as described above, with Middlesbury CID consisting of a Detective Superintendent in overall charge, my hero DCI Warren Jones as SIO and then a small team of officers below him. This places Warren in the centre, and limits the number of major characters that readers need to get to know. It also allows those characters to remain consistent from book to book, rather than each investigation being staffed by a different selection of officers assigned from a pool (conveniently, none of my main characters are on annual leave when each year's murder happens!).


As a writer, I therefore had two choices. Either ignore reality and hope my readers will forgive me because it's a cracking story. Or address it head-on. In my series, I decided to address it head on. I explain that Middlesbury CID (which is geographically quite distant from Welwyn Garden City and semi-rural) is a unique 'first response CID unit'. Middlesbury deals with major crime in the local area and recruits additional officers as needed from Welwyn. This is a complete fiction, as far as I am aware.
This set-up also helped me address the other big use of artistic licence; DCI Jones being the heart of the action. I've made it a bit of an in-joke, with Warren being acknowledged as probably the only officer of his rank who still interviews suspects and visits crime scenes (some of his peers are jealous that he gets to poke around crime scenes whilst they are stuck in budget meetings). Narratively, it also means that Middlesbury and Warren are always under pressure to justify their unique (and costly) status.
Touch wood, my readers seem happy to accept this and I have had few, if any criticisms. I've even had the odd retired police officer comment that 'it sounds like something we might do'.
So my advice is this:
If you are going to use artistic licence to break the rules, first know the rules so you can break them effectively. Then decide whether you are going to ignore this on the grounds "it's fiction, innit?" or if you are going to explain it away.
Lee Child once said that readers will forgive one big instance of implausibility. He was specifically referring to the fact that about once a year, Jack Reacher will wander into a small American town where there is a problem bubbling beneath the surface, which he will then fix in his own unique way (spoiler alert: there will be violence and mayhem and the evildoers will usually end up buried in the ground, before Reacher moves on, never to be seen again until it's time for the next book).
So, decide what your instances of implausibility are and decide whether you are going to keep them or fix them. And if you keep them, whether or not to address them head on.
Do you have examples of artistic licence? How do you think they should be dealt with?
As always feel free to comment here or on social media.
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
Until next time,
Paul