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Topic: Red herring (plot device)

	Red herring (plot device) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		In literature, a red herring is a plot device intended to distract the reader from a more important event in the plot, usually a twist ending.
		The term "red herring" originates from the tradition whereby young hunting dogs in Britain were trained to follow a scent with the use of a "red" (salted) herring.
		Such plot twists are shown to be foundational to the use of the red herring.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Red_herring_(plot_device) (669 words)

	Plot device - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		A plot device is a person or an object introduced to a story to affect or advance the plot.
		In the hands of a skilled writer, the reader or viewer will not notice that the device is a construction of the author—it will seem to follow naturally from the setting or characters in the story.
		A poorly-written story, on the other hand, may have such awkward or contrived plot devices that the reader has serious trouble maintaining suspension of disbelief; indeed, the devices may even leave plot holes.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Plot_device (135 words)

	Essay: Tricks & Cheats
		A red herring is a misleading clue that serves to point the reader's attention in the wrong direction.
		With a few well-placed red herrings, you can heighten the tension, add complexity to the plot, and generally make the lives of your characters more complicated — all worthy goals.
		That red herring serves to explain Rochester's odd behavior long enough for Jane overcomes her suspicions and falls in love with him.
	www.sff.net /people/beth-bernobich/Essays/TricksCheats.htm (2019 words)

	Rosebud was a Red Herring
		Her godsparents include the king and queen of her country, a mage and his demigoddess shape-shifting wife, and probably others.
		Her films tend to shake us from within, like a deep bell tone, or the lowest note played on a pipe organ: quiet, almost beyond hearing, yet deeply felt.
		Her films have a slightly foreign quality to them, as if perhaps, something was lost in the translation.
	rosebud-reviews.livejournal.com (10919 words)

	THE ROMANCE READER reviews: Facing Fear by Gennita Low
		An agent abandoned by her superiors when she was captured and tortured ten years ago, Nikki was rescued when a powerful operative discovered her whereabouts by accident.
		She has large gaps in her memory, though, and has been promised that her file will be opened to her once she completes this assignment.
		Nikki is supposedly so thoroughly recovered from her harrowing ordeal that she’s had a successful five-year career as a skilled operative in an extremely demanding organization.
	www.theromancereader.com /low-facing.html (697 words)

	Writer's Encyclopedia--Letter F (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Mainstream, or commercial, fiction uses conventional storytelling devices, such as exposition, mood and a series of conflicts leading to a crisis and finally a climax.
		A fictive device in which a scene is interjected into the narration to relate events or situations that occurred prior to those just presented or before the work opened.
		(For example: "The sparkling pearl on her finger took me back to the oceanside where we had scavenged for oysters.") In a novel, it could be a highly theatrical incident brought to the foreground by a conversation, action or emotional response by the character to some surrounding.
	www.writersmarket.com /encyc/f.asp (10167 words)

	The Last Cycle - Kult Forums (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Red Herrings, Traitors, People you trust that really turn into hated (non-player)characters after having destroyed as much of the groups progress as possible.
		This type of Herring is not an "ALL OUT EVIL" type, it is a character that in the end thinks more about himself then others, and aren't willing to let any other be in his way, friend or foe.
		The Herring now needs a very big sense of "what is right" or "honor" or "sense of Duty" to actually book the chars after finding all the clues.
	www.kult-rpg.com /forum/viewthread.php?tid=75 (1462 words)

	95.01.07: It’s A Mystery To Me
		Her sad countenance was due to the death of her dog.
		Her ingenious plots made her the foremost writer of detective novels of the 20th century.
		By definition, the red herring is meant to divert, or distract, attention from the main subject by introducing something irrelevant.
	www.yale.edu /ynhti/curriculum/units/1995/1/95.01.07.x.html (5337 words)

	April 2003 Archives
		Her instincts are, however, putting her charges in the danger she desparately is trying to keep them safe from.
		Her only time alone with him in the episode is when they hunt down the place she'd found the first in Amends.
		Her hopelessness is rooted in her lack of faith.
	www.atpobtvs.com /existentialscoobies/archives/apr03_p24.html (22358 words)

	Alfred Hitchcock biography .ms (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		It was the last of Lombard's films to be released prior to her death in 1942.
		One of Hitchcock's favourite devices for driving the plots of his stories and creating suspense was described as a "MacGuffin" by the director himself.
		Hitchcock described the "MacGuffin" as a red herring: a meaningless, unimportant detail that solely existed to serve as a reason for the story to exist.
	alfred-hitchcock.biography.ms (3854 words)

	January 2003 Archives
		Justine in Angel, that's character as plot device - one who turns the plot and is developed to the extent that is necessary to move the plot forward.
		Then there is her obviously nuturing and wise nature...while the rest of the scoobies fall apart, she takes control of her life, and gives Dawn the support and reassurance she desperatly needs.
		Her real reasons are her being afraid of Faith as a mirror to herself, and her desperation in once being victimised.
	www.atpobtvs.com /existentialscoobies/archives/jan03_p29.html (21203 words)

	Fallacies in Logic
		A red herring is irrelevant and misleading support that detracts audience attention away from the real argument.
		For example, "I won't hire John Smith because he drives an expensive red sports car" is a red herring; the model and color of John Smith's car have nothing to do with his qualifications for the job.
		The claims are that a student's location in the classroom indicates a willingness to work hard or not, a professor's clothes indicate his/her grading standards, and the color of one's care reveals how one drives.
	faculty.fullerton.edu /cibrahim/fallacies.html (1189 words)

	The Closers (Harry Bosch (Audio))
		Her corpse and the gun that ended her life were later found on a hill behind the house.
		In Los Angeles in 1988, a 16-year-old girl who had disappeared from her home was later found dead with a single gunshot wound to the chest.
		There's a ton of red herring thrown into the plot to make the murder mystery all the more complex, yet all the more satisfying.
	www.iyares.com /amazon/details.aspx?id=1594830193 (1579 words)

	Claudia's Chimera Comments
		Crittendon call her lover, the Sheriff, who was right in town, to comfort her instead of her husband who was in Miami.
		It was a failure in the end because of bad plot devices.
		When an episode, a book or a movie grabs you in a certain way one can forgive these plot devices because everything else is so good in it.
	pubpages.unh.edu /~csc/xfiles/xfchimera.html (888 words)

	Laramie Movie Scope: The Wedding Planner
		Due to a freak accident, her life is saved by Dr. Steve Edison (McConaughey) and the two share a romantic evening before she finds out she is the wedding planner for the wedding of here new heartthrob, Steve, to Fran Donolly (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras), an Internet tycoon.
		Unfortunately, the plot devices used to keep Steve and Mary apart are clumsy, to say the least.
		The so-called romance between Mary and Massimo Lanzetta (Justin Chambers) doesn't really work as a distraction and what happens when he asks her to marry him is totally unbelievable.
	www.lariat.org /AtTheMovies/weddingplanner.html (628 words)

	Aquaman #30 Review - Silver Bullet Comics
		Plot: Aquaman returns from a JLA mission and finds that in his absence, Sub Diego has fallen prey to a serial killer who has already killed eight victims by exposing them to pure oxygen, which due to their altered body function resulted in heart failure.
		The issue also introduces a new member to the cast who I hope will remain a regular part of the book beyond this arc, as Abbott is a surprisingly well realized character, and her interaction with Aquaman was quite engaging.
		Now the basic plot is a pretty standard hunt for a serial killer story, complete with a red herring plot device, but the underwater setting does give the story a new spin, as does the rather unusual method that is being used by the murderer.
	www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com /reviews/11164958917896.htm (485 words)

	Glossary of Literary Terms
		"Because the plot consists of characters performing actions in incidents that comprise a 'single, whole, and complete' action, this relation involves conflict between opposing forcesWithout conflict, plot hardly existsThese forces may be physical (or external), or they may be spiritual (or internal); but they must in any case afford an opposition.
		If the propagandistic purpose dominates the work so as to dwarf or eclipse all other elements, such as plot and character, then the novel belongs to the realm of the didactic and probably cannot be understood or appreciated for its own sake as a work of art.
		Mysteries often employ red herrings to complicate the plot and draw the reader’s attention away from the real solution, thus prolonging the pleasure of reading.
	www.notesinthemargin.org /glossary.html (4544 words)

	Journal of Religion and Film: Romans, Greeks, and Jews: The World of Jesus and the Disciples by Sidnie White Crawford
		Lecter, it turns out, is in communication with Red Dragon through personals ads, which feature a series of biblical references: Gal 6:11; 15:23; Acts 3:3; Rev 18:7; Jonah 6:8; John 6:22; Luke 1:7.
		They quickly realize that the biblical verses are a red herring: Galatians has no 15:23; Jonah has no 6:8.
		Both Red Dragonand Mission Impossible then, use a biblical citation merely as a device to mean "this is a code," pointing to something entirely other than what it appears to be.
	www.unomaha.edu /jrf/2004Symposium/Denzey.htm (2094 words)

	Author Robyn Amos: McGuffin
		n: A device that helps propel the plot in a story but is of little importance in itself.
		In this particular case, I'm not as interested in working the word McGuffin into conversation as trying to work the plot device into a future story.
		I guess the McGuffin concept is not unlike the red herring concept, in which you want to force the reader to look off to the left while you send the story's true villain off to the right.
	www.robynamos.com /archives/000032.html (261 words)

	Red Hen Publications - from you to PDF
		Not only did the Pensieve scene get played out with both Snape and James casting spells nonverbally, but the notation “(nvbl)” which accompanied the incantation for Levicorpus isn’t likely to have meant anything to a student who was still unaware of this form of magic.
		And, considering her performance the year before of silencing, rather than stunning, one of the DEs at the DoM and getting herself soundly cursed in response, clearly she had never encountered it, which seems decidedly odd, and smells faintly of “idiot plot” device.
		Maybe not immediately, but another collection of the sort of cumulative maybe-clues such as the ones we had been getting all along were likely to see Snape doing yet another stint as JK Rowling's favorite red herring.
	www.redhen-publications.com /DADA.html (4144 words)

	Dissing Dahak: What Went Wrong In The Third Season Of Xena: Warrior Princess (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Ares only tells her that this one god, who Xena believes to be the god of the Israelites, is evil, and that his temple should be destroyed.
		Gabrielle wants to believe in her child's innocence, but when the baby apparently strangles a soldier, Xena assumes that Hope is little more than a vessel for Dahak to enter the world.
		Despite her wishes for Hope to 'be good', Gabrielle sets the child adrift in a hostile wilderness, where any wandering miscreant could pick up the baby.
	www.whoosh.org /issue26/week2.html (3098 words)

	The Inside "Old Wounds" (6/15/05) SPOILERS! - TiVo Community
		Her "fl outs" are annoying....I hope they don't continue to lean heavily on the plot device.
		I guess that I haven't seen that many detective shows with that as a plot device to realize that it had actually, in fact, become a cliché.
		I think him making her reenact stuff was a tad over the top, but not out of reason to help her recall the events.
	www.tivocommunity.com /tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=244976 (764 words)

	Comics Should Be Good: Rape as a Plot Device...or "Brad Meltzer is a Big Fat Liar"
		"I'm quite sure he plotted the entire mini-series all at once, and that the rape was critical to the plot from the beginning - that it was a defining moment for the heroes who were present, and will be a crucial element going forward." - A defender of Meltzer's use of rape.
		Maybe at some later date, a writer will say that she was mind-wiped (explaining, I guess, why such a major event never affected her in the slightest), but as of right now, that is not what happened.
		The rape was used as a plot device.
	goodcomics.blogspot.com /2004/12/rape-as-plot-deviceor-brad-meltzer-is.html (2320 words)

	JMS on Writing, Volume 8
		To say, "Well, you just put in a character to kill him," and citing red shirts, is really...well, a red herring and a distortion.
		And their belief was that it was probably Londo who was behind it all...it's Londo to whom Ivanova expressed her outrage, not Vir, who she figured was probably being pushed into it at his behest, so logically she would take this right to Londo.
		He was cleared for that kind of access, and until/unless the device was activated, it was electronically dormant, you wouldn't notice anything.
	www.writingonyourpalm.net /jms/jmsvol08.htm (4342 words)

	WhedonWiki - Main.TheMcGuffin (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		TheMcGuffin is a plot device utilizing an element which may or may not be integral to the overall climactic conclusion of the story, but moves the plot forward nonetheless, and keeps the audience's attention..
		In it's most ideal form, TheMcGuffin is what the entire plot revolves around, yet has no real significance.
		For Hitch it wasn't relevant to the story, and he often used it as a red herring, to throw the audience off the trail.
	whedonesque.com /wiki/index.php/Main/TheMcGuffin (575 words)

	The Cynics Corner: Voyager's "Barge of the Dead"
		RED HERRING OF THE WEEK: The plot device of the Klingon artifact astonishingly discovered in the Delta Quadrant served as a clever way to throw viewers off the track.
		Considering the remarkable number of Alpha Quadrant connections Voyager has already found in the Delta Quadrant, it seemed perfectly plausible that such a thing would be found.
		HEAVY HAND OF THE WEEK: The portrayal of Janeway as "mother hen" to her crew has never been portrayed subtly, but it's rarely been bludgeoned as it was this week.
	www.cynicscorner.org /voy_6/voy_603.html (489 words)

	SchoolNotes.com - Notes Page
		Students are evaluating the story based on the elements of a good mystery: well-described characters, a strong setting, suspense, a fast-paced plot, convincing dialogue, red herring (a plot device), and clever clues.
		The person who is telling a story filters that story through her own frame of reference, coloring it with personal perceptions, biases, and interpretations.
		Later, red herrings may also have been used to confuse the hounds in order to prolong a foxhunt or to test their ability to stay with a scent.
	www.schoolnotes.com /70458/martin.html (8846 words)

	Read and Discuss - Todd
		A clever plot device -- advancing the story by leaps and bounds, in some cases.
		Is Todd using this as a red herring?
		The plot is not thickening, it's thinning out, moving away from a mysterious center, following a spider's web of conflicting emotions in which a central character has gone from being too obvious a suspect to being the chief suspect.
	mywebpages.comcast.net /monkshould/Read&Discuss-Todd.html (1641 words)

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