On Writing: Surprise!

[anthrodisiac]

BOO!

Hah! Oh, not that scary? Damn text...

Surprises. Shocks. Twists. Be it of the reader or the characters, surprise is one of the foundational elements of storytelling. A too-predictable story hardly bears reading.

So, what kinds of surprises do you enjoy reading? What kind to you enjoy writing? How do you inject surprise into your stories? What techniques do you use to engender surprise within your readers? Are there particular points in a story that work better for surprise than others? Invent your own question to this topic, surprise me!

That's it. Why listen to me go off on a huge treatise about such and such nonsense? That would be... predic–

 

[anthrodisiac]

One of my personal favorite techniques is to try to line up surprise so that both the character(s) and the reader experience it simultaneously (I also like to use this technique for all sorts of other emotions, but surprise is so well-suited for this, as is confusion). A shock twist that sees a character as (still)stunned as a reader helps sync the two and allow for a deeper connection; "that character feels the same way I do!" is a great alignment tool.

Surprise is probably one of the easiest feelings to do this with, because plot twists tend not to be something a character sees coming unless they're in on it. The alignment is pretty easy in that regard. After all, learning Jorge's mother is actually his long-lost twin sister is probably going to be as shocking to Jorge when he learns this while his "mom" is sitting on his lap in the car as it is to the reader.

 

[caleb35]

The best kinds of surprises in written works are the hardest to pull off, where the author leaves subtle clues throughout the work such that the reader will be surprised but also immediately look back on what came before and say, "Oh, I see it now." Authors like Martin and Diaz have pulled this off to popular acclaim. Other authors, such as Levin, cleverly use the mechanics of writing itself to obfuscate by thing such as omitting key descriptive details. Other authors completely fake it and pretend to be smart by just blatantly lying to the reader or throwing roadblocks in the way simply for the purpose of preventing the readers from figuring it out (such as by giving the narrator brain damage).

As for myself, I don't know that I use surprise much in my stories; even if I do, I don't think of it as a surprise as I know what's coming. I'm also not very good at writing mysteries so that limits my use of surprise. I suppose that, at least for me, surprise works best when I'm writing in limited third person and only showing what the main character feels, thinks, or experiences. So when that character is surprised, possibly so is the reader. But I honestly don't write with the intention of surprising the reader per se, just to show them what unfolds and how.

 

[gloomyMoron]

In a really well-written contained work very little truly surprises me but that's because I see (feel?) stories as threads. While reading, one of the things my brains does is construct outwards threads and deviations that could possibly come next or later. Sometimes the things I think feel better to me than what was actually written and – even if I don't get the exact twist, turn, or shocking event – I usually wind up close enough that I'm like, "Oh, I get what they were going for." I'm pretty much always thinking about the story, even as I'm immersed in it. That being said, the other thing my brain does is the words fall away and I'm seeing/imagining the story as I'm reading it. In that sense, I can occasionally experience the surprise as the character(s) might.

It is, mostly, because of those two things that I will often throw myself into a work near completely. I read all three of the original His Dark Materials books in under 2 days. I read the first six Harry Potter books (as an adult at ~23) in under a week because, in part, the last book was coming out (the other part was because a woman I was interested/sort of seeing like the books and I had never read them). Which I then read in under 10 hours, to the point of lacking sleep. So it is the end rather than the ending that can surprise me because I will want more story.

 

[TheRedChamber]

This is actually a very complicated topic that I probably need to think more about. I think any story needs at least some kind of surprise in it. If readers know exactly what is going to happen at every stage, what even is the point.

We probably need to distinguish between surprising the readers, surprising the characters, and surprising both.

If you've called your story Mark and Katie Start Swinging and have Mark say to Katie about half-way through "Who knew the Jones were swingers?" then the answer will of course be 'all of us' and hopefully we've all been enjoying the subtle and not so clues that have been being laid in every interaction.

We've also been trying to guess what their reactions are going to be, and, now, are surprised that conservative Katie actually seems up for it. Our surprise is different from Mark who hasnt had time to think about it.

But then, three-quarters of the way through, Mark realizes again through clues that are there, but maybe we missed, that Katie has actually been having threesomes with the Jones from page one and all this is just a way of bringing him in without out destroying the couples relationship.

The last quarter of the story deals with how Mark will process this information and what will happen to the relationship - ended, remonogomized or opened completely. Perhaps Mark doesnt know and, as he invites Katie in for the last scene, her answers are going to recontextualize and steer his decision. At this stage, even though we are Mark's PoV he's probably only letting us one-level into his subconscious and things are churnimg well below that.

Then, it's revealed that the whole story is taking place on an alien spaceship and the whole thing is a bizarre neurological experiment on Mark's already decaptiated head. At which point the reader would put the story down in disgust except its already over.

 

[anthrodisiac]

This doesn't really fit the theme, but I'd like to share it anyway. My favorite surprise — which is very rare, but when it happens, mmm, better than sex — is when I'm writing something and come to a sudden realization or come up with a plot twist I didn't see coming, except if I go back, it turns out my subconscious had been laying the groundwork for it the whole time. That kind of happened with Slippery When Wet, where I realized toward the end that it was a metaphor for trans discovery, and then thought back and realized I'd basically been writing it that way the whole time. Escaped my conscious notice, but my subconscious knew what it was doing. It's a beautiful thing. Or seeing a story shift as you realize it's actually something else entirely, not some sappy love story, but something tragic, and that tragedy, it's brutal, and yet beautiful. Or something bleak and grim turning out to have a bright shining core you didn't realize, and it was only after you struggled for months trying to write it that it reveals itself to you.

 

[caleb35]

This doesn't really fit the theme, but I'd like to share it anyway. My favorite surprise — which is very rare, but when it happens, mmm, better than sex — is when I'm writing something and come to a sudden realization or come up with a plot twist I didn't see coming, except if I go back, it turns out my subconscious had been laying the groundwork for it the whole time. That kind of happened with Slippery When Wet, where I realized toward the end that it was a metaphor for trans discovery, and then thought back and realized I'd basically been writing it that way the whole time. Escaped my conscious notice, but my subconscious knew what it was doing. It's a beautiful thing. Or seeing a story shift as you realize it's actually something else entirely, not some sappy love story, but something tragic, and that tragedy, it's brutal, and yet beautiful. Or something bleak and grim turning out to have a bright shining core you didn't realize, and it was only after you struggled for months trying to write it that it reveals itself to you.

Oh I think I know what you're referring to here. I've experienced something similar myself. It's rare but occasionally over the years I'll be writing something and I'll realize suddenly how one of my characters is going to act or react, or some secret about themselves, and it'll be something I hadn't thought of consciously before but it will make perfect sense for the character. Those do surprise me and unsettle me a bit as I realize that my subconscious apparently does some writing of its own separate from my conscious (or at least that's how it seems to me). It's also a surprise in that often the revelations are of a sad nature. Case in point, the last time this happened to me was in writing my latest story, "Toxic Vacations". I didn't have an ending, was wondering what the ending would be, and immediately had two surprising thoughts, both of which made sense for the characters but both of which I hadn't thought of until then: 1) the main character would escape a potential blackmail situation by confessing all to a family member and 2) the family member would resent and hate the main character for it. I hadn't intended on that to be the case but once I thought of it I realized that was how it would play out and that's how I wrote it.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Then, it's revealed that the whole story is taking place on an alien spaceship and the whole thing is a bizarre neurological experiment on Mark's already decaptiated head. At which point the reader would put the storybdowb except its already over.

Ah yes, the old "swingers but actually alien experiment on decapitated head" trope. An oldie but a goodie.

 

[TheRedChamber]

@anthrodisiac

There's two slightly different phenomenon here, to my mind. The first one is the idea of 'serendipity' - those moments when things in my story seem to line up way neater than my flawed planning should have allowed. A good example of this is in a recent story - as of yet unpublished - where I realized during my 'final proofread' before sending it out to proof readers that --- a packet of condoms, which play an important role in the final (non-sexual) scene, could have been brought during the earlier scene where the male MC is trying to buy the morning after pill for his girlfriend using the excuse that the condom broke on them (instead of what extreme degeneracy was going actually going) to a skeptical pharmacist. That would mean that the condoms would have been in his coat pocket in the pivotal (actual sex) scene where the use of a condom would have radically have altered the whole course of the plot. Kind of an 'oh, yeah, that was sitting here the whole time' sort of obviousness for a small but nice detail.

The other is the idea that it's better to let theme emerge during the writing (or, if you're like me, the advanced plotting) of a piece rather than something that you build in from the start. Get your key concept, have the characters do what they will and then trying and work out what it all means later. In a surprising number of cases, it actually DOES mean something.

 

[Actingup]

This doesn't really fit the theme, but I'd like to share it anyway. My favorite surprise — which is very rare, but when it happens, mmm, better than sex — is when I'm writing something and come to a sudden realization or come up with a plot twist I didn't see coming, except if I go back, it turns out my subconscious had been laying the groundwork for it the whole time. That kind of happened with Slippery When Wet, where I realized toward the end that it was a metaphor for trans discovery, and then thought back and realized I'd basically been writing it that way the whole time. Escaped my conscious notice, but my subconscious knew what it was doing. It's a beautiful thing. Or seeing a story shift as you realize it's actually something else entirely, not some sappy love story, but something tragic, and that tragedy, it's brutal, and yet beautiful. Or something bleak and grim turning out to have a bright shining core you didn't realize, and it was only after you struggled for months trying to write it that it reveals itself to you.

I’m fully with you on that. It works best when a story is written slowly, I think, so that it has time to reveal itself to the authorities.

Another aspect of surprises in stories is what the readers come back with, which can be delightful or terrifying. Many of my stories have plot twists, some better than others, but you never really know how it will land with the audience until they tell you whether they saw it coming.

Of my own stories, I think the most successful twist was when I wrote a short epistolatory romance ‘Love You To The Moon and Back’ set partly in a remote outback mine, that had a zinger of a plot twist resting on the leading man’s knowledge of explosives. It was a nod to my favourite ever plot twist, in an old Jack Vance novel. I wondered if anybody could relate to it, but several readers had connections into the mining industry, including one who had worked themselves on such a mine. Nobody had picked the surprise, which delighted me, but then they added extra insights into the story.

 

[TropicalTwist]

Surprises. Shocks. Twists.

Well look at that. I'm one of these.

I suppose my favorite version would be a good horror twist, a la reshapes your interpretation of certain events/interactions from earlier giving one quite a bout of the heebie jeebies. I know that I despise the breadcrumb into reveal route. I'm a simple, tired, soul, and I don't care enough to solve a literary puzzle (this includes blitheringly vague texts *shakes fist*).

One of my all time favorite surprises is from A Scanner Darkly.

As to my writing a surprise, I tend to go for something absurd, quite blatantly ludicrous. My first Halloween entry comes to mind.

The serendipitous or things worked out better than I thought is also not something that I feel has happened to me. It has never been an "Oh!" moment it has been "Ah ha!" I soldiered on through or came to a realization and worked it out, or it came upon me. That said during waking hours my subconscious and conscious intermingle quite a lot. I'm never too far from daydream and idea, so maybe it does happen it just feels natural and not like it came out of the blue?

If readers know exactly what is going to happen at every stage, what even is the point.

Does not having a surprise mean that the reader will know what will happen though? I am at a loss with this only because most times when I read I wouldn't say I am surprised but I don't know what will happen at every stage. Not usually, at least per my fatigued recollections.

 

[Britva415]

I prefer surprises regarding what happens, where the plot goes, what direction the story takes, over surprises regarding what was happening all along, what clues the reader was led to misinterpret, what secrets the author slash narrator was keeping the whole time.

 

[ClintonBrooks]

I like them. I tried writing one in an Erotic Horror/Criminal Investigation story I wrote back in March. The response was "meh". At least I enjoyed writing it.

My second where, well, not really a surprise. I purposefully left some things vague so the readers could figure it out on their own and some commenters didn't appreciate that. I thought the last sentence was a twist, but I whiffed it as no one seemed to catch it. Of course, putting it in Loving Wives did me no favors.

In my head, when I think of twists, I think of M. Night Schmalalalalahan, and what he did with the Sixth Sense.

He set a pretty high, and intimidating, bar.

 

[Britva415]

when I think of twists, I think of M. Night Schmalalalalahan, and what he did with the Sixth Sense.

He set a pretty high, and intimidating, bar.

And after that, he never came close to meeting his own bar again. He turned “twists” into the predictable shitsauce on a whole bowl of shitnoodles.

 

[gloomyMoron]

And after that, he never came close to meeting his own bar again. He turned “twists” into the predictable shitsauce on a whole bowl of shitnoodles.

We're just lucky he never got his hands on a beloved franchise to ruin.
"There is no war in Ba Sing Se."

 

[StillStunned]

This doesn't really fit the theme, but I'd like to share it anyway. My favorite surprise — which is very rare, but when it happens, mmm, better than sex — is when I'm writing something and come to a sudden realization or come up with a plot twist I didn't see coming, except if I go back, it turns out my subconscious had been laying the groundwork for it the whole time.

As a writer: yes, totally. I had it a bit ago with Shadows of Betrayal, but fairly early on in the writing process. Several separate elements just came together when I added a single line, and the whole story unfolded for me.

More generally about surprise in fiction: I think every story needs some element of surprise somewhere, otherwise why would anyone read it? That can be anywhere from "I knew where this was going, but I wanted to see how it got there" (fairly common in strokers, I'd say) to "Oh wow, no you didn't, you did not just do that!"

As others have mentioned, it's best when the reader looks back and in hindsight sees all the clues. But as long as the twist or surprise doesn't feel out of place or out of character, I think most readers will buy into it.

Ben's Big Mistake has a big twist. It's been up for a long time, so I think it's safe to spoiler it by saying that the pretty student that the narrator wants to blackmail is actually a trans woman, who ends up blackmailing him. The purpose of the story was as an exercise in 1P present tense, and I wanted something that justified the immediacy of the style, so that meant a big surprise. But, as I wrote the WIWAW about the story, there are clues. The girl is described as having a boyish figure, her name (Gan) means "forceful", the narrator Ben watches a bird with a worm in its beak and so on. Very subtle, and not really meant for the reader to pick up on. But they're there, and they're in the reader's subconscious mind.

 

[THBGato]

The best kinds of surprises in written works are the hardest to pull off, where the author leaves subtle clues throughout the work such that the reader will be surprised but also immediately look back on what came before and say, "Oh, I see it now."

As a writer, I've tried to do that in several of my stories: the twist being that a character wasn't who the reader/the narrator thought they were.

Pygmalion 3.0 was my first attempt, then What a difference a day makes... (one of my most popular stories, and I think the twist plays a role in that popularity), and Clara and the solar system is my most convoluted. If you know about the kind of twist in the latter then the title (and the names) give it away immediately, however many readers clearly hadn't and were really surprised by the twist.

As a reader, I think my favourite twists in fiction are "Sophie's world" by Jostein Gaarder and "Fingersmith" by Sarah Waters. Both twists come bang in the middle of the novel, which is really exciting, because suddenly you are reading an entirely different text to what you thought. Plus, unlike, say O'Flaherty's "The sniper" or O Henry's "Gift of the Magi", we aren't left wondering, but get to see the outcome of the twist and it's impact on the characters.

On Literotica, Bi_Cathy's "Black Leather" and GinnyPPC's "The tryst" both have excellent twists in them that recast the whole story once they are revealed. Can recommend!

So, yes, more twists please!

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I've mentioned in a few times in other threads that surprises, twists, or slightly complex plots tend to sail right over the head of many readers on this site.

Surprise another character in the story and it's fine. Surprise the readers and they will surprise you.

Three of my lowest rated stories on Literotica (1 Romance, 1 Loving Wives, and 1 N/N) have done exceedingly well on other sites, even winning awards, yet reader feedback here makes it obvious that the particular nuances other sites' readers appreciate, are missed by many Lit readers.

Live and learn.

 

[TheRedChamber]

@TropicalTwist

Does not having a surprise mean that the reader will know what will happen, though? I am at a loss with this only because most times when I read I wouldn't say I am surprised but I don't know what will happen at every stage. Not usually, at least per my fatigued recollections.

True, I guess. You can give a character a decision to make between two completely reasonable alternatives and thus have the reader think that neither them of them would be a surprising choice. I think a sign of a good story is when you encourage the reader to mentally map out the possible story paths, have them satisfied when they've correctly guessed something non-obvious, but also pleased when the story goes somewhere they didn't predict but they feel is better than what they came up with. Maybe none of that is quite at the levels of 'well blow me down with a feather' surprise.

 

[Erozetta]

This doesn't really fit the theme, but I'd like to share it anyway. My favorite surprise — which is very rare, but when it happens, mmm, better than sex — is when I'm writing something and come to a sudden realization or come up with a plot twist I didn't see coming, except if I go back, it turns out my subconscious had been laying the groundwork for it the whole time. That kind of happened with Slippery When Wet, where I realized toward the end that it was a metaphor for trans discovery, and then thought back and realized I'd basically been writing it that way the whole time. Escaped my conscious notice, but my subconscious knew what it was doing. It's a beautiful thing. Or seeing a story shift as you realize it's actually something else entirely, not some sappy love story, but something tragic, and that tragedy, it's brutal, and yet beautiful. Or something bleak and grim turning out to have a bright shining core you didn't realize, and it was only after you struggled for months trying to write it that it reveals itself to you.

This is basically how things like that happen with me.

"Yes, Foreshadowing.... I totally did that completely on purpose." (Where the fuck was the foreshadowing?! *Goes back and reads my story again to see if I can find it.*)

 

[bi_cathy]

This doesn't really fit the theme, but I'd like to share it anyway. My favorite surprise — which is very rare, but when it happens, mmm, better than sex — is when I'm writing something and come to a sudden realization or come up with a plot twist I didn't see coming, except if I go back, it turns out my subconscious had been laying the groundwork for it the whole time. That kind of happened with Slippery When Wet, where I realized toward the end that it was a metaphor for trans discovery, and then thought back and realized I'd basically been writing it that way the whole time. Escaped my conscious notice, but my subconscious knew what it was doing. It's a beautiful thing. Or seeing a story shift as you realize it's actually something else entirely, not some sappy love story, but something tragic, and that tragedy, it's brutal, and yet beautiful. Or something bleak and grim turning out to have a bright shining core you didn't realize, and it was only after you struggled for months trying to write it that it reveals itself to you.

We were talking about this yesterday, @anthrodisiac, and how this is what happened in my shorter WIP. It started out as a simple story and then revealed surprises I had not expected. Kept slapping me and the narrator with each change and twist.

I don't know if I like that surprise-centric writing experience pushed to that level. It made for an interesting final result, but it did things to my heart I had not consented to when I started the damn thing. But yeah, usually, I enjoy twists and surprise moments that even I did not see coming, and that take the story into another direction. As a pantser, this happens quite a lot, and I embrace it.

Otherwise, I've written a lot of stories centered around mystery and unveiling the story bit by bit (I Know Where Your Tongue Has Been, I Dare You, 60 Seconds), but the one time I think I sprang a surprise as part of the plot and at the service of the story is in Black Leather. Half of those who read it expected it (for reasons I knew and accepted), the other half had no idea and it worked so well in that context.