Beyond the Red Herring: Fallacies in Fiction, Manipulating Your Characters

Sometimes, your characters are going to argue with others in their scene. 

The arguments you present will be very telling about your character. Perhaps considering the kinds of arguments that might be made and how they'd be received is worth a bit of thought.

On social media, for example, I see a lot of ad hominem attacks. Ad hominem attack happens when an insult is used as if that was the argument. The attack is the conclusion. This is usually the name calling:

"You're just a stupid X." That is, because you are identified as being in group X therefore you are stupid (This is one of 4 ad hominem arguments. Guilt by association). 

Will your antagonist rise to the insult with an equally fallacious ad hominem attack? "Stupid face!" (Abusive)

That's a pretty low level. Perhaps your characters started at a much higher level of argumentation; but over time and with an expenditure of energy, they just gave up and allowed things to spiral downward. 

OR perhaps your characters have been at each other's throats so long that they skip an argumentation downward spiral and just drop right to their ad hominem crouch: "Shit for brains." 
It happens. 
And it would show history.

4 examples of ad hominem:

• abusive 
• circumstantial
• tu quoque (you also)
• guilt by association

Remember your characters' ad hominem attacks are not arguments.


There are two major kinds of fallacies:

A Formal Fallacy is a breakdown in how you say something. The ideas are somehow sequenced incorrectly. Their form is wrong, rendering the argument as noise and nonsense.

An Informal Fallacy denotes an error in what you are saying, that is, the content of your argument. The ideas might be arranged correctly, but something you said isn’t quite right. The content is wrong or off-kilter. Source

Both kinds of fallacies in thinking or communicating can show the mindset of your character. And can also be used as a device to twist your plot. If your character leans on certain kinds of fallacies, then they can be used as tools of manipulation much like playing poker, someone throws out a fallacious argument with a straight face and watches the choices made by their opponent.

Your character might use these particularly if they were trained - or someone who enjoys logic: chess players, mathematicians, programmers, military officers, CIA, FBI (and other alphabets), lawyers and politicians for example might enjoy toying with those around them by using these fallacies. 

Others might use them because they haven't been taught and therefore they don't know that their thought process isn't correct. That's not necessarily a person with a lower IQ or a person with a lesser education than your other characters, simply one who has not taken a critical thinking course. Though, many people who prepared for the logic parts of their SATs would have practiced recognizing these.

Quick and fun overview:

Graphic you could print and stick near your workspace:

Found publicly on Facebook, attribution unknown

If you are using fallacies to help develop your characters or plot, you may want to spend some time on this more in depth article. They have video explainers that show how how they might be applied to your characters' decision making. 

For example: The sunk cost fallacy. Your character has gone through med school and realizes that they have no desire to be a doctor. All that money and effort and time (sunk cost)... they should probably just suck it up and continue doctoring, right? 

Your character can recognize that argument is a fallacy and go on to make great choices, or can continue on, unhappy. 

Often times others who have sunk costs will work to persuade your character to follow through with the original plan. I'm thinking of parents who have sacrificed to put their kid through med school and the kid says, "nope not for me." The character parent may weight the cost that they provided and be horrified that their sacrifice went for naught. They may try to manipulate your heroine into staying in the medical field to assuage their own needs.

Another example - your heroine doesn't want to marry the guy. They've been dating for seven years. If she leaves him, that was seven years wasted. So she should probably go ahead and marry the guy, right?

Can you name this fallacy?

Found publicly on Facebook attributed to imgflip.com

How can you use fallacies to develop your character and change your plot?

Hope this helps.


Happy writing!
Fiona