The anatomy of a plot twist
Some of the best and worst endings ever were intended as plot twists. Books and movies can be ruined by not being innovative and surprising or being surprising in the wrong way.
At their best, plot twists keep the viewer invested, curious, convey a message and teach a lesson about expectations and points of view, or add intensity to a brilliant showdown scene. Plot twists are essentially a way of saying “All you’ve seen could be seen another way.”
At their worst, though, they surprise the reader by making an otherwise great story lose its meaning and direction. These non-sequiturs disturb the balance, ruin the pace and confuse instead of explaining.
As a reader and writer, I tried to study what makes a plot twist brilliant and memorable, and why so many attempts result in angering and alienating your viewer, and here are my humble opinions on the subject. I asked some fellow writers and readers what they think of a good plot twist, their favorite and most hated one, and if they could, what would they change? Then I condensed everything in a list of elements that good plot twists share and how to avoid a bad one.
Good plot twists move the story forward.
Good plot twists are meaningful. The main difference between getting the reader excited and curious and making them feel confused and alienated is that the surprise has to serve a purpose.
This is because the viewer invests feelings and possibly money to follow a thread of expectations, which does not by any means have to be linear but definitely has to be uninterrupted. Think of it as guiding your viewer along a dark road by making them follow the line. You want to change its direction from time to time so they do not believe it’s just a straight path from A to B, but you do not want to interrupt the line altogether, because your reader would get lost.
Good plot twists create a change in pace.
To truly create impactful art, it is not enough to surprise but to carry through with what you do. A lot of bad plot twists are surprising in the beginning, but afterward, they get annulled by not being relevant. For a few paragraphs, the story takes a turn from the unexpected only for the status quo to effectively return a few pages later, if not in the plot, at least in tone and style.
Dave the marathon runner breaks a leg. He gets a cast and speaks to the doctor the next scene, but after that, we skip to when he heals, he does not have any problem related to being out of business for three months, and he does not question his choices or that his excessive training hurts his health. This is rather extreme but creeps up in short stories especially, as a way to add conflict without adding length. But this is not an obstacle that he overcame, because everything returning to normal after 2 pages makes everything related to the event feel superfluous. This kind of plot twists are usually added after the other story, during an edit, when the author realizes it’s not surprising enough. They do not belong, and it shows in the fact that they are not reflected beyond mentions in the rest of the work.
Good plot twists are predictable
This is not to say readers saw it coming, but that they feel as if they could and should have. A good plot twist is a turn for the less expected, not for the completely unexpected. There was foreshadowing, or at least the events playing out this way was a possibility by definition.
Dave wants to ask Becky to marry him, and we follow him preparing and doing everything he needs, but he gets rejected. He subsequently realises where he went wrong and that maybe he has to work with himself or he chooses vengeance in a misguided attempt to ease his pain. This is a good plot twist, because the reader expected to be one of the books about overcoming self-doubt and, like Dave, forgot for a minute that Becky might say no despite this being a clear possibility by definition.
Good plot twists do not cancel everything before them
They change the way the reader interprets what they saw, but they do not change the essence of what they experienced so far. Finding out it was a dream, or that it was all for nothing, is more likely to alienate and anger the reader than to make them reconsider the way they interpret things.
This is related to the above points but is a distinct idea. Not only do they blend seamlessly with the story to create curiosity and conflict, they also make what came before feel more, not less, real. They stay fundamentally consistent, and the variation they bring is a continuation, not a cancellation of whatever led to them.
Lastly…
Good plot twists are what you make them to be. Their very nature requires one to defy predictability and rules, and as in everything literary, innovation is amazing and strongly encouraged.
