ONLINE Red Herrings & Other Fishy Business - Mastering the Art of Misdirection
3 Weeks | Tuesdays | Begins November 18, 2025
5pm-7pm PT | 6pm-8pm MT | 7pm-9pm CT | 8pm-10pm ET | 9pm-11pm AT
Instructor: Juanita Rose Violini
MEMBER PRICE: $120.00
NON-MEMBER PRICE: $160.00
Every great mystery has a little fishy business. It’s called misdirection—the art of guiding your reader’s eye to the wrong detail while the truth waits in plain sight. The best mysteries mislead with purpose: every red herring believable, every twist inevitable once revealed. Get it wrong, and your plot collapses. Get it right, and your ending feels both shocking and earned. Done well, misdirection builds tension, shapes pacing, and makes the reveal unforgettable. Done poorly, it leaves readers confused or cheated. The difference is structure.
This course takes you inside the mechanical structure of misdirection. You’ll learn how to build false leads that hold up under scrutiny, shape clues that double as distractions, and use timing, point of view and character bias to keep suspicion shifting. More than hiding the truth, you’ll discover how to make the wrong path feel so right that readers follow it willingly—and never feel cheated when the curtain lifts.
Master which information to use for misdirecting and learn how to create compelling red herrings, design layered clues and plant false assumptions. Get a clear vision of how clues and red herrings are separated only by your intention for them. See how using your protagonist’s uncertainty ratchets up the tension and helps build suspense.
This class takes place online using Zoom.
Juanita Rose Violini has been creating interactive murder mystery entertainment for over 35 years. Her scripts—performed everywhere from luxury hotels in Canada to schools in Australia, wineries in Texas, and pubs in Great Britain—have been sold worldwide through MysteryFactory.com, especially popular for fundraisers, community theatre, and special events.
She is the creator of the Mystery Bones Method, a step-by-step plotting system that helps writers untangle complex stories using clear diagrams and a one-step-at-a-time approach. Juanita shares this in her books CLUETRAIL and The Mystery Bones Method DIAGRAMS, through online classes, and at writers’ festivals—her recent session Cluezilla vs The Red Herring explored the art of misdirection. She works as a plot consultant to to writers, screenwriters, game designers, and YouTubers worldwide.
Juanita is a member of Crime Writers of Canada and Sisters in Crime (Canada West and International). She served as a judge for the 2025 Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence and sits on the Bouchercon Calgary 2026 Anthology Committee.
~~~
We are a community that thrives on support and encouragement. Based on the philosophy of "no writer left behind", the J. Michael Fay Subsidy Program is available to anyone who finds themselves in financial need but really wants or needs to participate in one our programs are classes. Click link above for more details and to apply.
