How do I write a Red Herring?

writing
#1

I don’t know if this is off-topic, but I’m having trouble writing a Red Herring. For those not familiar with it: here is how Wikipedia describes it…

A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue. It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences towards a false conclusion. A red herring might be intentionally used, such as in mystery fiction or as part of rhetorical strategies (e.g. in politics), or it could be inadvertently used during argumentation.

I want my Red Herring to be either a Skeptic or a Guardian who distracts my protagonist from seeing what the antagonist is doing. My protagonist has an idea that could change the world. He makes a business deal with the CEO of a company to help make the idea a reality. The Red Herring is a competitor who knows about the plan and tries to stop it. The protagonist sees the attempts, interprets it as corporate espionage and security breaching, only to find out that the CEO is the real antagonist; his plan to change the world is in the hands of a man who wants world dominion. And the Red Herring was the one guy who tried to avoid this from happening.

I am still in doubt which of the two is the IC: the CEO/antagonist or the Red Herring. Both convince the protagonist that his original plan was bad; the former by exploiting the idea for his own gain, and the latter by warning, trying to stop it from happening and coming up with a better alternative.

It is hard for me to write a story like this, because it feels like I need to write several stories simultaneously:

  1. The evil plan of the CEO and why my protagonist is blind to what really happens
  2. The suspicious behavior of the Red Herring and how my protagonist interprets this
  3. The real motives of the Red Herring

Quite a few balls to juggle. How do I do this?

#2

I’m sure peeps smarter than me will have thoughts on this, my initial thoughts are that you are not calling the characters by their right name/functions, which is making it hard for you to find your actual story. But, of course, everything is relative to how you actually want the story to play out.

Seems to me you have your Protag/MC inventor
Then you have your IC - the one trying to put him on the actual “right path.” Competitor
And your Antagonist - the one trying to steal/use the work for his own gains/advancement rather than humanities. CEO. <----- This is your actual Red Herring. You do that by giving him functions from both the Antag and Guardian character elements – making him a complex character.

How these characters appear to the audience, for example the CEO appearing as the guardian/supporter is a non-sequitur in how YOU name and perceive them.

#3

First, Terry, I’m guessing your story has a Failure outcome but a Good MC Judgment. Is that correct?

Second, regarding “red herrings”: The “Symptom” part of a Dramatica storyform very much fits into this rubric, because the Symptom, as Dramatica defines it, is “what the characters are focusing on until they are faced with the problem directly.”

I.e., you the author know a certain character or seeming possibility is only a “red herring.” Yet several of your characters (especially the MC/Protag) for some time see this character/possibility as the actual Problem itself…

Up until that post-midpoint point when the MC/Protag begins to see that s/he has merely been responding to a Symptom, while failing to actually address the underlying Problem (which Problem might cause the Symptom either knowingly/directly or unknowingly/indirectly).

Keep in mind that the “red herring” typically has no idea that he/she/it is being used that way by you, the author — or by you working through the story’s evil, behind-the-scenes mastermind.

Again, using Dramatica’s definitions in the StoryGuide: “The OS Characters do not address the actual Problem of the story until the climax. Until then, they deal with the effects of the Problem, or what they believe the Problem to be… the OS Symptom describes what the characters are focusing on until they are faced with the problem directly.”

That is, “the OS Symptom describes the nature of how the OS Problem appears to the characters. When characters are at odds with their surroundings, a Problem exists between them and their environment. Neither the characters nor the environment are wholly at fault; it is the schism between the two that forms the inequity at the heart of a story.”

See, “the characters are not privy to [the ultimate big-picture] view, since they cannot step outside themselves to see the objective nature of the real problem.” So for much of the story, “what they are really looking at are the symptoms created by that inequity that is truly ‘in-between’ [them and their environment]. Unlike the [ultimately-revealed] OS Problem, the Symptoms are easily seen by the characters, and therefore [stay] the [Symptomatic] center of their concerns” for quite a lot of the story.

So a good red herring doesn’t know that’s what they are; they are but unaware (or perhaps vaguely aware) Symptoms of the big Problem/Antagonist that your Protagonist must ultimately confront, either to succeed or fail. Hope this helps!

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#4

Oh, and Terry, I suggest your IC should be the Competitor/Guardian. Because it sounds like that person is actually looking out for your MC’s (and humanity’s) best interests, and thus wants (in whatever way s/he can) to influence your MC to pull away from both the evil CEO and the production of this potentially-devastating technology.

(That is, assuming you plan to have a Change MC and a Failure/Good ending.)

#5

I’m going to second @Jassnip here and say that I think you are calling people by their wrong names.

Mostly I say this because you mention the IC, but you don’t mention the Main Character. I’m assuming that is the Protagonist, but because you don’t mention it, I’m afraid you’re not understanding the difference between the two roles. This should be your focus, and once you have a good grasp of your MC, you can think about the IC.

My understanding of red herrings is that they are something that is misunderstood to be more important than it is, and probably something that you think is going to lead you to your goal. @keypayton is right, that the OS Symptom is something that people think is going to lead to the solution, but I tend to think of a red herring as a storytelling technique, not a storyforming thing. [There is no reason it couldn’t be both, of course.]

Just so you know, I’ve almost never heard of anyone using a red herring outside of a mystery. A red herring in that context is essentially finding some clue that makes it look like A happened, whereas in reality, B happened.

In your case, I would say that a red herring is something that is misinterpreted. A corporate spy who turns out to be helping you (but, importantly, creates mystery until you – the author – reveal this). A competitor who isn’t. In one way, what you are doing here is saying, “It’s a guardian who looks like an antagonist” or “It’s a skeptic who looks like a sidekick.”

Anyway, focus on the MC/IC first, and then address this.

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#6

Maybe I am using the wrong words here; maybe not. I already decided to make my protagonist the main character, so I use them interchangeably, not because I don’t know the difference, but because it is not relevant in this case; I tried to ask a different question. My main focus is: how do I write the misleading path and the real story simultaneously?

I don’t think the CEO is the actual Red Herring here. The situation is very similar to Harry Potter 1. The CEO has basically the same role as Quirinus Quirrell. The competitor is like Severus Snape, who behaves like a villain, but turns out to be helping the MC. This article calls Snape ‘possibly the longest-running literary red herring’, because he is not only a Red Herring in book 1, but remains to be misleading throughout the entire series.

@keypayton gave very helpful replies here; thank you very much. Of course this doesn’t spell out how to write a Severus Snape into my story, but it sure clears up a lot of confusion around story forming. And he guessed it right that I had a Change MC/Protag and a Failure/Good ending in mind. Sorry that I forgot to mention that.

#7

Terry,

You do that through characterization/how you present him on the page.

For example:

Scene(s): MC/Protag wants to keep his idea tightly under wraps because he doesn’t want it stolen. So he’s pursuing that and the Antagonist character says…Oh yes! That’s exactly what you should do. Here let me help you. And the IC character gets wind of the secrecy and tells MC you’re a stupid, selfish jerk and exposes the secret, creating problems for the MC/Protag secrecy plans, but also trouble for the actual antagonist, who wanted the plans secret so he could later claim them as his own.

OR whatever your scenarios are

But the answer to you question is, you do it on the page. Snape always appeared like the bad guy…lots of trope cues (dressed in black, giving the hero a hard time, etc) So the sterotypes were playing into people’s perceptions, but that doesn’t change the underlying functions. Dramatica, afaik, isn’t going to tell you how to convey that, that’s part of the artistry of writing.

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#8

First of all, that sketch is hilarious. Second, the terms mean different things, so you can’t use them interchangeably – this is core principle of Dramatica. But the real confusion wasn’t how you used the words, it was what you explained with the characters. If your Overall Story involves saving the world, and the IC tries to convince him (the Prot/MC) the plan was bad, this reads like your IC is operating in the Overall Story, which is the real confusion. It makes it seem like you are confusing your MC’s personal problem with the goal of the Protagonist, and the IC’s personal throughline with the red herring operating in the OS.

Dramatica is very specific with its language, and it helps to use it precisely. Think of how different the sketch would have been if the woman had been talking about her dog getting killed and then at the end said, “Oh, not my dog… my parents were killed.”

Anyway, I think red herrings are really just what happens when you withhold the truth from the audience and actively point them in another way. I guess the way to write it is to tell us only the information that misleads us (including telling us misinterpretations that mislead us), and withhold the information that lets us see the truth (that is helpful to the protagonist).

#9

I am sorry to cause any confusion. But I still don’t see what caused it. There is not much story forming information in my original post. The only exception is that I was in doubt who should be the IC. The rest was about the protagonist, antagonist, guardian and skeptic. Nothing about different through lines or bigger picture versus personal problems.

I think it is very much a problem that needs to be resolved ‘on the page’ as ‘part of the artistry of writing’ like jassnip said.

But I might still be missing the point you are trying to make. I’m still learning, you know…

#10

This caused the confusion:

It makes it seem like you think the IC is influencing the protagonist. That doesn’t happen – the IC influences the MC.

Yes, Obi-Wan influences Luke to trust the force, but what he’s really doing is convincing the MC Luke to trust the force. That allows Luke-the-Protagonist to destroy the Death Star. It’s almost simultaneous, and it’s the same player… but it is distinct.

It’s because you are still learning, that I am pointing all of this out.

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