The single most important thing
the most important instrument that a writer has
is absolute honesty with their readers.
No, I'm only kidding. It's actually misdirection.
Misdirection is wonderful.
You can completely deceive and betray your readership
and they will thank you for it.
You will have given them such a surprise
that it will actually be delightful.
And they will forgive the fact that you are clearly a…
incredible serial liar.
There's ordinary forms of misdirection
that everybody uses.
The most common one would be
only allowing your readership
a drip-feed of information
so that they only get information
when you want them to have it.
You withhold the information about a thing
until there is time to make the proper dramatic revelation.
That's the most common form of mild misdirection
but you can aspire
to some absolute genius pieces of misdirection.
One of my favourites
would be from the novel Magic by William Goldman.
William Goldman was the author of Marathon Man
made into a film with Dustin Hoffman
and Laurence Olivier.
And the novel of that, in itself
contains some brilliant pieces of misdirection.
I assume that it's one of William Goldman's
favourite techniques.
But in the novel Magic
it's an absolutely blinding piece of misdirection.
He commences the novel talking about a stage magician
who is performing in a club
and he's not entirely sure
that the act is going to go well
but he's fairly confident
because it's all set up nicely for the performance.
The dummy has been planted in the audience
so that after he's done a couple of clumsy conjuring tricks
which the audience will be starting to feel
a bit restless about
at that point, Fats will start to shout out from the audience
and heckle him.
And the banter between him
and this hostile audience member, Fats
will become the real act.
It's a comedy act based around a magical act.
And as the novel progresses
we see the central character, the stage magician, and Fats
we see their relationship.
We see them talking in the dressing room afterwards
discussing how the thing has gone.
Discussing perhaps any possible improvements.
And we see their personal relationship
and we follow this until, one night
in the dressing room
an argument develops
and it becomes increasingly vicious
and increasingly personal.
And they're both becoming increasingly angry
until, at one point, the stage magician stands up
he picks Fats up
he folds him in half
he crams him into a suitcase
and he slams the lid shut.
And at that moment, the reader thinks…
HE GASPS
"He said on the first page
'The dummy has been planted in the audience.'
But we thought
that that was some technical term for a plant.
We… We didn't realise that he's literally a dummy."
And at that point
your entire previous understanding of the novel
explodes and is made into rubble
and you suddenly see what the novel is really about.
And that is an extraordinary feeling
to have your entire mental construct
that you have built up in the course of your reading
instantly demolished to show you the true situation.
So, yes, that level of misdirection
you probably won't be able to do it straightaway
but if you ever get the chance
jump on it as quickly as you can
if you ever have an idea like that
because it will make your novel into something extraordinary.
Other forms of mild misdirection
would include things like…
the magnificent last-line reveals
of some particularly skilled twist-ending authors
like H. H. Munro
who wrote under the name of Saki.
Saki's stories are magnificent.
Often the very last line or the very last word
is like a punch in the stomach.
It brings the impact of the story home to you
like I say, the last syllable.
One of Saki's stories has got two noblemen
living on conflicting estates that are adjacent to each other
and that have been at war for decades, centuries
over some imagined slight
between one family and the other.
They hate each other.
And the two heads of the household
are out riding in a woodland
that adjoins both of their estates.
And they meet each other, and they both have an accident
where a tree…
because there's a storm blowing...
a tree has collapsed upon them.
And they're both pinned down under the tree.
And both men start out by saying that…
HE SCOFFS "When my men arrive here
then we will put you to death like the dog you are."
And they're both threatening each other
about what they'll do when their men arrive.
And then one of them
after they've been talking for a while
they've got to know each other
and one of them says, "Listen…
if my men arrive first
and you've got no obligation to do the same
but if my men arrive first, you are going to be set free
and I'm going to take you back to my castle
and I'm going to feed you and look after you
and we can end this senseless rivalry
that has consumed our families for so many years."
And the other man says
"Thank you so much for saying that.
And I say the same thing.
If my men arrive first
then we will do exactly the same for you.
Let us use this accident
to put behind us all of this tragic misunderstanding."
And so, they're resolved.
And then they see figures.
Through the failing light
there is some movement coming in the distance.
And they say, "It's… It's the men arriving.
Is it my men or yours? You can see better than I can."
And the second man peers into the gloom.
And then, turns around
and the last word of the story is…
"Wolves."
It's incredibly impactful.
And nearly all of Saki's stories were like that.
And in fact, the man himself
it was like he conducted his own life
like one of his stories.
The way that Saki died, it's got a great last line.
He was in the trenches in World War I
and you may have heard
of the superstition of the third light.
The third light of a match was supposed to be unlucky.
This had originated in the trenches
because the first time that the match is struck
and lights the first cigarette
that is when
the sniper in the enemy trenches will notice it.
When it lights the second cigarette
he will be taking aim.
When it lights the third cigarette
that is the one that will get shot.
So, Saki's last words were…
"For God's sake, put that match…"
Which is the perfect last line for a Saki story.
There is a further form of misdirection
which is trickier still.
This is where the author
deliberately kind of misdirects themselves.
I've heard about this being a technique
used by one of the brilliant female crime writers.
I don't know whether it was P. D. James
Patricia Highsmith…
It might even have been Agatha Christie
but what this writer used to do
was when writing her murder mysteries
she would just write about the murder
she would write about the reactions in the community
but she would not know who had committed the murder.
She would not bother about that...
until about two-thirds of the way
through writing the book
where, suddenly, it would hit her
who must have been the murderer.
So, she can go back and make a few minor changes
to strengthen that
but the value of that technique is
if she didn't know who the murderer was
during the early chapters, there was no way
that she could, even unconsciously
telegraph that to the reader.
So, if it was a surprise to her
it's going to be a much bigger surprise to the reader.
l remember an example of this from my own work.
And in my experience, these things
they happen by accident...
at least in my case they do...
rather than by design
but I was working upon a science fiction comic strip
called The Ballad of Halo Jones.
This was some decades ago.
And in the first story arc
we introduced the main character
who is an ordinary young woman
living on this gigantic hoop
that is tethered just off Manhattan
for housing the poor people
so that better-off people won't have to look at them.
And we follow this girl through her fairly ordinary life
in an extraordinary century.
She's living in a shared house with a…
an older woman called Brinna.
Brinna owns a robot dog called Toby
who is an artificial intelligence
and a very fierce killing machine
that is for the old lady's protection.
One of the story elements involved a shopping trip
which, in fact, took up most of the first book
because 50th-century shopping
it turns out, is a hazardous experience.
During the trip, there is some reason
where I thought, "Yeah, the two women
Halo Jones, the protagonist, and one of her friends
are accompanied by this robot dog."
At one point, I thought, "Hmm, actually
having this invincible robot dog with them
is going to spoil the story, because that means
that they can't get into any trouble."
So, I came up with a simple device
whereby the robot dog says
"Look, I'm going to take a shortcut that only I could do
and I'll meet you on the other side of The Hoop"
at such and such a time.
And this happens
and the three of them then go back home
to find that, in their absence
Brinna, the nice old lady, has been murdered.
There's been a home invasion. She's been killed.
The vengeful robot dog
says that he has got the scent of the assailant
and he's going to go off and take care of it himself.
Halo decides, with her life in pieces
that she's going to head off into space
as a hostess upon this luxury liner
the Clara Pandy
that will be taking off quite shortly.
So, that's how the first book ends.
She meets up with the dog again
because it turns out that there was a legacy programme
whereby the old lady, in the event of her demise
was leaving the dog to Halo.
So, the dog accompanies Halo out into space.
Here commences the second book.
Now, I was starting to write the second book
when I suddenly thought...
"Oh, my God.
It was the dog that killed the old lady."
He had opportunity
because there was that whole bit where he wasn't with them
where he told them one thing
and then he told them
that he was going to hunt down the old lady's murderer
but we never saw that.
We were only told by the dog that he'd done that.
"The dog killed the old lady. Why did he kill the old lady?"
Because he knew about the legacy programme.
He'd gone mad and fallen in love with Halo.
And because he knew he would be left to her…
HE GASPS
Right.
And at that point
that gave me a magnificent plot twist
that ended the second book
and was an enormous surprise to the reader
because it was an enormous surprise to me.
So, in summary, then
misdirection is absolutely the one essential tool
that you can have as a writer…
unless I'm lying.