forum How to plot twist

Started February 23, 2018 by @Lavy-the-Nerdy-Sci-Fi-Birdy

tune

So i'm halfway through developing and it hits me 0_0. I really don't know how to twist plots. everything has been straightforward so far and I don't want my story to be flat.
Please help!

Just take what the readers would expect to happen and do the opposite. If your book has been filled with twists and turns, your readers may expect the unexpected, so do the expected. If they have no idea something is coming; you want to use that.

Okay! Thank you!

I suggest giving them all the information that they need to predict the plot twist. Don't make it obvious thats what you're doing, in fact try to draw their attention away from it, but if they have that information then the moment of the plot twist will feel far more natural and plausible, though still shocking, hopefully.

Thanks!

Plot twists are some of my favorite parts of stories and I have a lot of them. I give out non-obvious hints to the twist. An example of this twist is in Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia when an old man says that he heard Mycen say he had no children, and Clive (I think?) says that the man is old and confused, but it turns out that the old man was right. Alm is actually the son of Rudolf.

A good example is to think how a reader will take a certain character and make it go down south: for instance, a generally bad dragon that does bad deeds and burns down cities and kills people is actually a caring father/husband/both and he's willing to help the protagonist if they make EVERYONE LEAVE THEM ALONE.

okay, I'll keep that in mind!

Hmm. Well, there's a difference from something coming out of the blue and an actual twist. To achieve a twist, try to leave subtle clues, because otherwise it might sound like you came up with a random idea that might make your readers a bit confused.