'Though obviously in a sense provoked by Miss Helen's story, I've never quite been hooked by it. I'm a fisherman and I know the difference between a fish that's just playing with your bait and one that says, Write! I'm It! and takes your rod down and you sit back and put the hook deep in.' -- Athol Fugard
'Red Herrings' give you another way to stretch a Suspense Plot by providing an opening bridge that leads us to the introduction of the real thing. These kinds of Suspense Plots come few and very far between in the work of contemporary playwrights. Their most famous use was in the classic James Bond films -- the ones where Sean Connery was performing Bond as he was meant to be. But they work in the theatre, too.
Essentially, you're beginning the play with what appears to be a suspense plot, but this fishy thing has no direct connection to the play's actual Suspense Plot. Its primary purpose is to hold us while introducing your characters and until the Inciting Incident of the real Suspense Plot happens.
One of the benefits of Red Herrings: they allow you to use up pages on your way to that Length you need for a full-length play. But that's also one of their dangers. These things are a great way to botch up the opening of a play. They do that by pushing you to accept a Point of Attack that's nearly always too early in the history of the story you're telling.
Red Herrings only work well when introduced right at the beginning of a play. Audiences will ride with you as you make the transition to the real Suspense Plot and accept the fact -- usually happily -- that they've been conned.
This is one area where Aristotle was right. What we're talking about here is Unity of
Audiences like one story at a time and the Red Herring technically still gives them that: You get the fish and then you get the real thing. If you try this later in the play, then you'll end up interrupting one story to tell another. It's obviously possible to make this work. But there's a reason it's hardly ever done by playwrights today.
The classic example of a great Red Herring Suspense Plot is in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA
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