Writing Plot Twists

[RetroFan]

A good plot twist is a real challenge to write. When it works well its really good, but its also easy to mess it up especially if you try to be too clever.

I have three stories that involve major plot twists. My lesbian story 'April Leads Julie Astray' has a major revelation about the main protagonist Julie early in the piece, but only after readers have been introduced to her and already formed their perceptions of the character. My romance story 'Learning to Love Louise' has a major plot twist halfway through that turns it on its head; while the last paragraph of 'Bridget the Bossy Bridezilla' has a final, nasty little twist to end this story of cheating and misadventure.

Have you written plot twists and how did they go? Did your readers like them or dislike them, or did they get met with indifference? Have you read other stories where you liked plot twists, or others that you did not like due to the poor plot twists?

It would be interesting to hear of your experiences.

 

[TxRad]

Plot twists for me come in two forms. The one is an itchy feeling in the back of my head when I start. Sometimes they work and sometimes they are forgotten along the way. The second type comes along as the story progresses. Sometimes I have to go back and add or change things to make them work out in the end and they usually come at the end.

Most of the readers I've heard from loved the plot twists, especially if they didn't see them coming.

Here is the last one I did that way. Non-erotic. Style

 

[KeithD]

I write plot twists. It's just part what I usually put in a story. I've had favorable comments on occasion mentioning the plot twist. I can't remember having negative comments on the plot twists. There have been a few "didn't work for me" comments, which might have meant that. It don't think much about it, though.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Plot twists are tricky for me because I rarely have pre-conceived plots. I do have characters arrive unannounced, but that's more a twist for me the writer than it is for the reader - the reader doesn't know a character took me by surprise.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Have you written plot twists and how did they go? Did your readers like them or dislike them, or did they get met with indifference? Have you read other stories where you liked plot twists, or others that you did not like due to the poor plot twists?

There's a twist at the end of "The Floggings Will Continue". TBH I'm not sure whether it made much difference to reader reaction - I haven't had much feedback about it.

Twists can be fun, but I think there's a danger for a writer in fixating too much on the twist and putting everything else in service to that, which ends up feeling gimmicky.

 

[SimonDoom]

There's a twist at the end of "The Floggings Will Continue". TBH I'm not sure whether it made much difference to reader reaction - I haven't had much feedback about it.

Twists can be fun, but I think there's a danger for a writer in fixating too much on the twist and putting everything else in service to that, which ends up feeling gimmicky.

I thought that was an example of a perfect plot twist, because it forces the reader to see the entire story in a different way, but in a way that makes perfect sense --the twist makes the story that has come before it more plausible, not less.

I like plot twists, but they work best when, as in this case, they make sense of what's come before. It helps to have a bit of foreshadowing -- to throw in some behavior or action that makes more sense once the twist is revealed.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

My Turnabout had a pretty dramatic twist. It didn't do as well as I thought it would, but I'm still quite happy with it.

 

[Polyacrylate]

I love to read and write plot twists. My preference is to have them telegraphed in advance for the careful reader - I'm very put off when the twist comes out of nowhere, though I'm sure literature has many such examples that are really good, so to each their own. When a twist comes out of nowhere, I will often go back and see if I missed a clue or a Chekhov's Gun.

I'm a die-hard plotter, and the non-sequential manner in which I write is very conducive to plot twists.

For Literotica, my story Snowed In had a pretty solid twist near the end, and a few readers told me that they had caught the seeds I planted for it, which made me feel like I had done my job.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

There's a twist at the end of "The Floggings Will Continue". TBH I'm not sure whether it made much difference to reader reaction - I haven't had much feedback about it.

Twists can be fun, but I think there's a danger for a writer in fixating too much on the twist and putting everything else in service to that, which ends up feeling gimmicky.

I liked "The Floggings Will Continue", and I didn't think of the ending as a plot twist really. It felt more like an "aha" moment, where everything came together. LIke Simon said, revealed more about the story and put it in a clearer context.

I think of plot twists as things that significantly change the reader's understanding of what was going on, make you see the characters' actions in a different meaning.

And I'm with others who've said that they like the twist to have some sort of clue, but something subtle. Something that I'll either note in passing, or that I can go back and find if i'm really blindsided.

I can't say I've written anything with a plot twist in it. I'm working on a story that may qualify.

 

[Cfnmlover84]

There's a very sexy plot twist in the story i'm currently writing.

 

[Voboy]

I don't outline much either, but the ending usually presents itself to me within about the first third of any given story. It's often a mild twist. No matter when I figure out what it's going to be, I ALWAYS go back and foreshadow it. I always think a deus-ex-machina twist at the end is unsporting.

Hints are important early on.

 

[KeithD]

The twist usually comes to me while I'm writing. When it does, it comes as a welcome "that's a fun angle to look at this from." I don't agonize over it; it just happens or it doesn't. I also rarely consider "How is the reader going to take this or will them give it a lower vote?" If I like it, that's enough for me

 

[yukonnights]

My Turnabout had a pretty dramatic twist. It didn't do as well as I thought it would, but I'm still quite happy with it.

I love to read and write plot twists. My preference is to have them telegraphed in advance for the careful reader - I'm very put off when the twist comes out of nowhere, though I'm sure literature has many such examples that are really good, so to each their own. When a twist comes out of nowhere, I will often go back and see if I missed a clue or a Chekhov's Gun.

I'm a die-hard plotter, and the non-sequential manner in which I write is very conducive to plot twists.

For Literotica, my story Snowed In had a pretty solid twist near the end, and a few readers told me that they had caught the seeds I planted for it, which made me feel like I had done my job.

I suppose I would say I'm a 'plotter', but not a 'detailed planner'. Like a drunk walking home at two in the morning, I generally know where I'm going...but I weave my way there step by step.

I do think it is important, if not imperative, to plan the twist. On the couple of occasions I tried to "add some spice" to this boring pile of words I'm writing — it ended up as more of a "surprise ending". A frivolous attempt at making something seem more exciting and interesting than it was. Luckily, my beta-reader friend called me out on it. (I still have one, it's one of those stories still in my "to fix" pile.)

 

[SamScribble]

I think one of the absolute essentials for a plot twist is that there must be seeds early in the story. I read a whodunit recently in which 'the clue' was not revealed until the second-to-last page. That's not playing fair. <grump>

 

[BillandKate]

Plot twists are tricky here. We've used them in some of our stories. Some readers comment how they've appreciated the twist, giving it high marks; others have bombed the same story because they just couldn't make the leap.

One commentator actually bitched we "broke the contract between reader and author" when we didn't have the wife commit adultery; we put in a twist and the wife was innocent, the commentator thought it wasn't fair to have a truly loving wife in the 'Loving Wife' category.

In other words, you must ignore the bottom feeders.

 

[KeithD]

I think one of the absolute essentials for a plot twist is that there must be seeds early in the story. I read a whodunit recently in which 'the clue' was not revealed until the second-to-last page. That's not playing fair. <grump>

Doesn't need actual clues, I don't think. More that it needs to be a consistently plausible result of the setup. I don't like mysteries that throw in all sorts of relevant material in the end that is needed to solve the mystery either. Conversely, I sometimes write counter to the TV mystery formula in that sometimes the one who looked at first to have "done it" really did do it.

 

[EvelynEden]

I LOVE plot twists, they are a lot of fun. I've written a few, but only one here on lit so far. Probably doesn't qualify, its a small one, maybe more of the 'other side to the story' kinda thing. Either writing them or reading them, plot twists are a favorite of mine

 

[RetroFan]

I think one of the absolute essentials for a plot twist is that there must be seeds early in the story. I read a whodunit recently in which 'the clue' was not revealed until the second-to-last page. That's not playing fair. <grump>

I definitely agree there.

In one of my romance stories a single middle aged school teacher Paul has a platonic female best friend named Jane, who is 16 years younger than him. Everything seems normal enough or or does it? Readers may miss that when Paul and Jane meet other characters they say hello to him, but never acknowledge her. Or that Jane speaks to no character other than Paul. The fact that Jane and Paul never communicate by telephone or text message may just be a simple omission. Clothing Jane is described as wearing - long floral skirts and hipster jeans - fit more to the late 1990s or early 2000s, but still sometimes seen today. And while Jane is in the bathroom when the third major character Louise calls to see Paul, Louise seems completely clueless to the fact that Jane is in the house, even missing seeing her car.

These are all clues I put in the early parts of the story to show that Jane is in fact dead all along. She was Paul's fiancee, but tragically died just before their wedding 16 years earlier. Whether or not Jane is a ghost or a figment of Paul's imagination is left to the reader to decide, but the clues are there so that when the plot twists and readers find out the truth it makes sense in hindsight.

 

[ThatIsNotSupposeToHappen]

My thoughts would be that plot twists are probably always okay as long as they are either early in the story or do not change the fundamental direction of the story. But if you include a plot-twist late in the story that goes against the elements that have attracted readers so far, you will likely alienate much of your readership.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I think one of the absolute essentials for a plot twist is that there must be seeds early in the story. I read a whodunit recently in which 'the clue' was not revealed until the second-to-last page. That's not playing fair. <grump>

Sorry, Sam, but I don’t think that’s cast in concrete. It can certainly help, but a well-written story can work without it.

 

[KeithD]

My thoughts would be that plot twists are probably always okay as long as they are either early in the story or do not change the fundamental direction of the story. But if you include a plot-twist late in the story that goes against the elements that have attracted readers so far, you will likely alienate much of your readership.

The kicky (and memorable) plot twists are the ones that come at the end and that stand the entire understanding of the story up to that point on its head--but plausibly so (to agree with that element of your post). Fiction is a marvelously fluid and expansive medium. It's not "one size fits all" based on some fictitious universal reader's approval.

 

[SimonDoom]

The kicky (and memorable) plot twists are the ones that come at the end and that stand the entire understanding of the story up to that point on its head--but plausibly so (to agree with that element of your post). Fiction is a marvelously fluid and expansive medium. It's not "one size fits all" based on some fictitious universal reader's approval.

Totally agree. Example: The movie The Usual Suspects. The last five minutes reveals that one of the characters is, and always has been, completely different from what you expected, and it forces you to look at the whole movie in a different way. It's not expected, but many of the things that have happened in the movie up to that point make much more sense once you understand the reveal.

Another example is the movie The Sixth Sense. The final scene reveals that almost the entire story has been something different from what you expected, but when you look back you realize that there have been many, many clues. I didn't pick up on them, but my ex did and figured it out. This movie, I think, is an illustration of how tricky a good plot twist is: it works better when it surprises you, but once you see it and understand it you also have to feel that it fits with what's come before. As an author, you should drop some clues, but not so many that most people will figure it out.

A different kind of plot twist is at the end of the movie Seven, where the villain/serial killer commits a crime that is unexpected and shocking. It's a twist in the sense that you don't expect it (at least, I think most moviegoers didn't expect it), but not in the sense of the other movies I mentioned because it doesn't change how you've viewed the whole movie up to that point. It fits with the pattern of killings up to that point, in a particularly shocking way, so it works.

 

[ThatIsNotSupposeToHappen]

The kicky (and memorable) plot twists are the ones that come at the end and that stand the entire understanding of the story up to that point on its head--but plausibly so (to agree with that element of your post). Fiction is a marvelously fluid and expansive medium. It's not "one size fits all" based on some fictitious universal reader's approval.

Yes you are right. Though I would still caution against even those kind of plot twists as in that they are really great IF you pull it off, but your attempt could also go belly up and instead end up simply alienating people. Basically to me it seems rather difficult to pull off.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yes you are right. Though I would still caution against even those kind of plot twists as in that they are really great IF you pull it off, but your attempt could also go belly up and instead end up simply alienating people. Basically to me it seems rather difficult to pull off.

For me, one of the delights of a really well written short story is a twist in the final sentence or paragraph, where the reader's response is, "Ah ha! Of course." As you say, difficult to do well, but brilliant when it is.

 

[RetroFan]

My thoughts would be that plot twists are probably always okay as long as they are either early in the story or do not change the fundamental direction of the story. But if you include a plot-twist late in the story that goes against the elements that have attracted readers so far, you will likely alienate much of your readership.

That's correct. If somebody wrote a sensible, straight and dramatic romance story between a young soldier and a young war widow during the Second World War and when it reached the bedroom it without warning degenerated into Hucow fetish sex acts between them, I don't think that would go down very well.

Another mistake that can be made is getting too clever at the end, and having one twist too many. I found that with the 2018 movie 'Game Night'. Another better known example is 'Safe Haven', the Nicholas Sparks novel and the film adaptation of the book. One twist was very good, where Kevin simply appears to be a cop doing his job but is something else entirely. But the other, bigger twist at the end took the story out of the real world romance/crime/drama genres where it seemed to fit and into the supernatural. Readers and viewers were thrown by this plot twist that came out of nowhere.