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By Karen Albright Lin
Red Herrings, typically found in mysteries and suspense novels, are not the only diversions in fiction.
You could set off a false alarm, prompting laughter (perhaps fire sprinklers set off by lovers’ overuse of candles) or a disaster unrelated or tangent to the plot’s main goal (the getaway car overheats so the bad guy must run to find a taxi). Even more fun, create a fake danger such as a false ticking time bomb distracting your protagonist from the actual threat. One technique you can use is the Boy Who Cries Wolf. Have a false alarm go off three times and only the third turns out to be a real one warranting action. Horror movies use the noise-around-the-corner this way.
Aspects of a character can be diversions from the most important threat. In The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger brilliantly explained his Joker slit-face at various points in the story. Each time his tale was different. That took our attention off the main plot momentarily each time as we pondered the truth of his latest tall tale. It was creepy and entertaining and revealing of an aspect of his character, but it wasn’t essential to the plot line.
A character might lie, leading the protagonist and reader to suspect the lie is related to the plot, yet it turns out to not be. This lie acts as a distraction as well as a red herring. They aren’t key to the plot or solving the mystery, but they extend the suspense and tease and keep the readers guessing.
Make no mistake; diversions aren’t important only to a mystery audience. Romance makes use of them. How many of us remember vividly the restaurant scene in When Harry Met Sally in which Meg Ryan…. Well, I’ll assume you know what she did. It wasn’t essential to the plot, but it caught our attention and made the movie something people talked about; it was even emulated by those with thick skins and twisted senses of humor.
Pop in a surprise that is unrelated to the plot yet adds to the emotional content. Have a bird poop on your character as he’s racing to catch the bus. See how he reacts. One character will cuss up a storm. Another will laugh at his continued misfortune. A real nut might lick it off his shoulders. Sorry for that visual!
You can divert attention using tiny details that add suspense or a feeling that something’s not quite right. Find the front door wide open; have a gun jam during a skeet shooting scene; have a cell phone’s battery run out. These are not meant to be true warning signs. A character can create this type of distraction; a secondary character might wear a mask that doesn’t really hide anything important. They are diversions because they never pan out yet are plausible and seeming threats.
Have someone do something suspicious but only to get some attention.
Create a true hazard; divert attention from it with unrelated action. Then bring it back in a real disaster. Think Indiana Jones and the pit of snakes. On the other hand, one could give a character a weakness that the reader assumes will pan out but plays no serious role in the plot. Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum has a pet hamster but, other than the threat of her not returning in time to feed it, we don’t need it to solve her mysteries. Throw in some nosy neighbors peeking out the window offering only a humorous break from the action. You may remember the riotous Fun with Dick and Jane in which the nosy neighbor only adds to embarrassment. In the old TV show, Bewitched, there was a weekly artificial threat – Gladys Kravitz’s exposure of Samantha’s special powers. Talk about an interminable Boy Who Cried Wolf technique.
Props (such as Columbo’s recurring raggedy coat and Barretta’s cockatiel) can act as diversions, offering a sense of familiarity and sometimes comedic relief.
Try adding a few extra diversions to your plot in order to distract or fool or tease your reader. Then see what happens.
About the Writer: Karen is an editor, ghostwriter, pitch coach, speaker and award-winning author of novels, cookbooks, and screenplays. She’s written over a dozen solo and collaborative scripts (with Janet Fogg, Christian Lyons and director Erich Toll); each has garnered international, national and regional recognition: Moondance Film Festival, BlueCat, All She Wrote, Lighthouse Writers, Boulder Asian Film Festival, SouthWest Writers Contest, and PPW Contest. Find out more at www.karenalbrightlin.com.
or Stella’s Not the Only One that Needs a Groove
by Deb McLeod
Last November, I wrote about the importance of a writing groove to a successful NaNoWriMo. It’s February now and getting in the groove is harder than it was then without all that NaNo support, camaraderie and encouragement.
So I’d like to ask you to take a few minutes to look at your writing ritual. What helps you get to the chair? What helps you stay in the chair? How can you improve upon what you already do?
My clients can tell you the importance I place on ritual and writing. I encourage everyone to create established patterns that will get you to the chair and signal to your body, your internal editor, and that creator inside that it is time to write. If you can identify and improve your writing rituals, you’ll have a much easier time of it.
Before I had any kind of ritual, my biggest issues were:
Noise
Distractions
Procrastination
Noise
Some people can write to music. I am not one of them. When I write or need to concentrate I am best served by dead-silence. But silence isn’t easy to find. Even cloistered in my office, I can hear the white-hum of my computer, the ticks and whir of the heater going on and the old-fashioned alarm clock from the next room.
So I went on a hunt for earplugs. I tried all different kinds. Then I found Mac’s earplugs. Sweet silent bliss! The ones I like are soft enough to wear for long periods of time but thick enough to drown out all noise. I use them all the time. When I put them in and the noise stops, it’s a physical signal to my body that I’m ready to concentrate. Being able to carry silence with me allows me to write anywhere I want.
Distractions
Of the computer kind… Once upon a time I would turn on my computer and check email first. In those days I had a limited amount of time to write before I had to get ready to go off to my job, or pick up my daughter or do whatever was on the list. More times than not I found myself answering emails with long and beautifully written tomes. I’d follow links onto the web; I’d whittle away my writing time until everything was taken care of, then I’d try to write.
That clearly wasn’t working. So I set a boundary.
No other computer work, no phone calls, no doctor’s appointments, no appointments of any kind until 11:00 am. I made myself unavailable to the outside world from the moment I sat down until 11:00.
That ritual worked until I began my own business. Now my distractions aren’t just social, they’re client emails, they’re website updates, class prep, client pages to read and blog deadlines. I found myself using my writing time to get ahead of the demands of my coaching practice.
So I had to set a different sort of boundary. Now I get out of my office so I’m not tempted. I work at a coffee shop. I get there anywhere from 5:00 – 7:00 a.m. so I can get my favorite spot. I put my earplugs in. Somebody else makes the coffee and I write until 11:00 every day except Fridays, when I teach in the morning.
Distractions
Of the light bulb kind… I’m lucky here. I’m not bothered by laundry that needs to be done, dishes in the sink or pies that should be baked. I’m one of those oblivious housekeepers. I can step over three piles on the way to the door and not notice a thing.
But I do notice the energy shift when things are clean and organized. So I do put my time in cleaning. I just wait until after everything else is done.
I know not everyone is like that. I have some clients that put a deadline on their day so they shift from housework to writing. They rush through chores and commit to getting to the desk. That way they can do so without guilt or that tug of work left undone.
Procrastination
Not long ago I figured out that my procrastination had a lot to do with the lack of a plan. I have been a dedicated pantser; an organic writer who sat down to a clean page every day. While it was exciting to know I was courting surprises, it also took a gargantuan will to jump and trust that I was going to produce something story-worthy every single day. The way I wrote necessitated a log of rewriting as I figured out my story or chapter only while I was writing it.
Then I discovered planning.
I still have organic moments within the plan and I still let myself follow a riff to see where it will go. But now I start with a structure and sometimes even an idea of what I want to work on before I sit down. Having a plan has made all the difference. It’s easier to approach the work and it’s easier to stay on task. I’ve found a happy medium between plotter and pantser that works for me.
I do well producing pages as long as I stick to my routine. So how's your groove?
- What issues keep you from getting into the chair?
- Are there boundaries you could put up to help you produce more work?
- What are the tricks that work for you?
About the Writer: Deb McLeod, is a writer, creative writing coach and founder of The Writing Ranch. She has both an MFA and a BA in creative writing. She has been teaching and coaching for over ten years. Deb has published short fiction in anthologies and journals. She has written articles and creative nonfiction. Deb has been a professional blogger, tech writer, graphic artist and Internet marketing specialist.
