The Right To Write

Plot Twists: Part 1

This section is dedicated to types of plot twists. It's loosely based off of Jenna Moreci's video on plot twists. Please go check her out. She's a professional, unlike me.

There are two things that hype my writing mood, and make me dance with joy: plot twists and villains. So here we go.

The Built-up Plot Twist. This is most likely an anticipated, extremely major event. This kind of plot twist has events that lead up to it, and clues built throughout the story. It is usually a more satisfying version in comparison to others because it includes a collection of answered questions and resolved guesses. It usually says either yes or no to if your reader lived up to his suspicions.

Well, your goal is to make sure you don't live up their suspicions. That's why it's a plot twist for crying out loud. You need to redirect your plot towards another direction, or maybe even have that element unclear, and seemingly, unimportant. But you need clues to make the plot twist relevant.

For example, if I used to my former plot setup: Laura looking for her lost brother with Michael, say the plot twist is Michael killing her brother. You need evidence to back this up throughout the story. Tiny various things, such as a supposedly "irrelevant" blood stain on Michael's shirt, and perhaps his mild indifference to the fact that her brother was "lost," or Michael's suspicious brief disappearance before her brother appeared. Take note that these can't be too obvious. They need to be buried deep into the manuscript and away from the focus, but they do need to be there. Without any clues at all, your readers will feel tricked. One the other hand, these clues may make readers run their fingers through their hair and make them think something along the lines of "Why didn't I see that earlier?"

A quick tip on burying clues. You need to distract the reader from them, not draw them towards it. Do this by having your characters do something more "important," such as finding important clues to where her brother could have gone. Readers will be caught in the action of what your characters are achieving now, thus making Michael's blood stain and indifference seem irrelevant. So focus on writing the real, current problem rather than trying to get into the clues.

Try not to impose feelings on the situation through your characters or plain choice of descriptive words. Never say anything like "the suspicious splotch of blood," but you've already learned that you shouldn't be making your clues obvious, right? Don't do this either:

"What's that Michael?" Laura pointed to his streak of blood on his sleeve.

"Nothing, I just cut myself on rock," he replied.

"Right," she laughed at herself. She wasn't suspicious about it at all.

The last sentence completely gave it away. Why? Because it was attempting to redirect the emotion by blantantly screaming the opposite. Give the readers some credit, they can decide whether or not it's suspicious. Denying the suspicious quality of the blood just makes it seem more suspicious. It's not every day a stranger spontaneously shouts "Hey, there's not a stalker waiting on your doorstep." Well, duh, there isn't a stalker on my doorstep. And duh, I won't find myself dead by morning. Let your readers do the brainwork.