A red herring can be a clue falsely pinned to an innocent person; it can be a forced confession, or an unreliable narrator falsifying the past, or even a coincidence that the writer didn’t intend.
Red herrings are one of the more versatile storytelling techniques, as they take many different forms. A red herring can be a clue falsely pinned to an innocent person; it can be a forced confession, or an unreliable narrator falsifying the past, or even a coincidence that the writer didn’t intend.