Give Your Characters the Wrong Ideas
Fallacies in Logic and Rhetoric
Errors in logic and rhetoric are a great basis for characters misrepresenting themselves, obfuscating the truth, and creating dialogue based on false information.
Especially in mysteries where the protagonist uncovers the truth using fallacies by placing them in the mouths of your characters will set your protagonist down false paths.
Think of your character’s personality, what they want to hide, and what type of fallacious thinking they can use to state their case.
Two Fallacy Tools for Writers
Online, information is beautiful creates a reference that breaks down various fallacies in logic and rhetoric into categories.
- appeal to the mind
- appeal to emotions
- faulty deduction
- manipulating content
- garbled cause and effect
- on the attack
Bookmark the page so you can scroll through to find just the right wrong thinking for your character.
The website Your Logical Fallacy Is created a downloadable poster of logical fallacies that you can print out for quick reference.
Either way, you’ll have tools to help you give your characters the wrong ideas.
Zara Altair
