Blog 64: Fooled Ya!

I hope everyone is having a lovely Easter. As I am writing this before Sunday, I keep looking longingly and drooling slightly at the chocolate and hot cross buns that are waiting patiently for me to eat them. It isn’t just Easter that’s happening though, is it? No! We have sailed into April, which means we have had to survive the ominous April Fool’s Day. I have to say I am pretty gullible and quite easy to fool for most of the year.

I read about an old April Fool’s that the BBC played on the public in 1980, which my husband seems to remember, but I have no memory of. Apparently, there was an announcement on the news that the Big Ben clock in London would be going digital and would have the name changed to Digital Dave. Instead of the iconic gong sounding across the city, it would be a beep and would give a five-minute news bulletin every evening. Additionally, as it was to have a digital screen, they were giving the original clock hands away to the first people who rang up. You will be relieved to know that Big Ben is still there in its original form, bonging away.

There have been some quite creative pranks over the years, but have you ever tried fooling your readers? Having a predictable conclusion can sometimes feel a little bit of a letdown, but there are many techniques you can use in your writing to keep them guessing right to the end. Wanna play a prank? Grab your disappearing ink, whoopee cushion and plastic poo and come with me: -

1.     Unreliable Narrator

If you want to get technical, you could say that all narrators are unreliable because they only give you a limited perspective. Many narrative styles add emotion and opinion, which will make a reader lean a certain way. If they write that a character is a nasty piece of work, you will take that as accurate. But what if they are not being entirely honest? That’s right! You can have a narrator who dishes out porky pies. They may have their reasons for lying about people or events, perhaps to make themselves look innocent or because they are jealous or hold some sort of vendetta. They may also be mistaken; perhaps they have heard the story from someone else, and the facts have been twisted. Maybe they are drunk when they are telling the story, forgetful, or it happened so long ago that the details are fuzzy or warped. Whatever the reason, you can really have fun with this type of technique.

2.     Red Herrings

I’m sure you will have come across these before in fiction or watching on screen. It is where you deliberately mislead your audience by leading them down the wrong path. You pop a clue in about a character that makes them look suspicious, focus in the wrong direction, while the actual suspect is running around creating all kinds of mayhem. The little tinker! I am reading a mystery by Claire Douglas at the moment, where the main character is certain someone close to her is targeting her, and nearly all her friends have some reason to make it appear that it could be them. For example, someone on CCTV is wearing the same beanie and jacket, someone else has the same handwriting as a mysterious note, and another is acting strangely or appears to be avoiding them. It is all about misdirection and planting enough seeds of doubt to keep that mystery going.

3.     Keeping Stum

Withholding information is another successful way of fooling your reader. The characters may be keeping secrets from each other or from the reader. Maybe they are acting strangely, making us jump to the wrong conclusion.

4.     POV Switch

You can have two or more points of view that edge around what is actually going on, creating blanks that have us scratching our heads.

5.     Slow Reveal

Similar to the withholding information above, you give clues at a slow pace, making it difficult for your reader to know who is doing what until they get further along and more gets revealed to them.

6.     Dual Meanings

You can give out information about events or characters that have two or more ways of being interpreted. Much like the true story of two burglars in 1952, Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig, who were found responsible for the fatal shooting of a Police Officer. Derek had said to Craig, “Let him have it.” This could be interpreted as, “Let the Police Officer have the gun,” or “Shoot the Police Officer.” Craig took it to mean the latter and was convicted of murder.

7.     A Dream

Is anyone old enough to remember this scenario in Dallas, where Bobby Ewing was killed off and then a few months later returned, and the entire plot after his death turned out to be a dream? There was a mixture of frustration, confusion, and relief at this outcome. So, make sure you are careful with this one. Similarly, you can have the story be part of another story. For example, in the short story Hotel De Boobs written by David Lodge, the main character appears to be someone staying in a hotel with his wife and is having an affair. However, towards the end, we realise the main character is actually the author of the story and the pages he has written end up being blown away in the wind whilst he is sitting near the pool, outside his own hotel.

8.     A Twist

I challenge anyone not to love the thrill of a good twist. There you are going along, convinced you have figured out who the trusted characters are and who are the ones to keep an eye on, and BAM, it gets flipped upside down, and it’s that innocent 80-year-old Mrs Miggins from down the lane who is actually a ninja spy and can kill people with her little finger. Don’t let her walking stick fool you, it shoots poison darts!

While you are creating a little web of lies, make sure to have the clues in there somewhere, little ones, so your readers don’t feel cheated when they get to the end. And don’t go crazy with lots of misdirection, as this will just frustrate and confuse them. Remember that your misdirections must be plausible and convincing.

Did you miss pranking someone on 1st April? Make up for it by fooling them through your fiction. Have fun and let me know how you get on.

Catch you later. And try not to make yourself sick by eating too much chocolate.