So you want to write a book with a big twist? Of course you do! Who doesn’t love a massive blindside? It’s an incredibly fun thing to pull off but it also takes skill from the writer.
Consider all of the masters you are trying to please:
–You want your readers to be shocked and entertained.
–Yet, you can’t have them so dumbfounded that they get annoyed because there were zero clues leading up to it.
–You want your reader to say, “Ohhhh! How clever…” and realize they missed clues hidden in plain sight.
–But your hidden clues can’t give too much away or it’s all just way too obvious and the “twist” will feel rote.
–You also need to decide how many twists you will have. Sometimes one is not enough. A twist upon a twist (upon a twist?!) can be especially fun for a reader but then all twists need to apply the same rules above.
How do you do it?
Here are a few ideas for how to pull off a really good distortion.
#1 The unreliable narrator. In other words, your narrator is telling your reader things but not ALL of the things.
Example: Your protagonist is packing for a getaway with friends. “I can’t wait for this weekend. The things I have planned, oh my, it’s going to be a trip none of us will ever forget…” might lead a reader to believe the characters are going to be drinking and partying when really your protagonist is going to pull off an elaborate murder.
#2 A strong backstory.
In the above example our protagonist needs to have some sort of experience with murder and a motivation to do it. They can’t just say, “Hey, I think I want to kill all of my friends this weekend.” Your reader needs to understand that this person has done something awful– or at least strongly considered it– before, and has a reason to do so now. Readers do not like it when a protagonist does something wildly out of character. It feels cheap to them, like the writer did it just for shock value rather than putting in the time to properly build the story.
#3 Clues.
Is your character packing a murder weapon but the reader doesn’t realize it’s one? You could set up that the whole gang was going to bake bread together this weekend so when our protagonist packs a knife the reader assumes it’s for that; or you write that the protagonist has been bothered by itchy, red eyes so putting Visine in the bag seems perfectly natural until the reader learns later that this will be the poison slipped into a drink. You don’t want to be so on-point that it’s obvious: “I packed my knife– I hoped it wouldn’t get too bloody– and my Visine wasn’t going to be for my eyes…” That takes away the “a-ha” moment later.
#4 Speaking of clues…
One way to hide them in plain sight is to slip them in and around other things. I wrote a book where something in a fish tank was going to play a prominent role later in the book but I slipped it into a long descriptor:
“The accouterments that Ken had insisted on in the aquarium gave me a smile. Seaweed and fake plants and coral of all colors, a small treasure chest speckled with jewels, a replica of a scuba diver’s helmet, and a sunken ship with portholes so large the little fish could dart in and out of it.”
This way the one big thing (which was the treasure chest) seems like just a detail in a series of descriptions and the reader might breeze past it on first read. Another way to hide clues is to have something massive happen right after your clue that takes the reader’s attention away.
“I was packing my overnight bag and put one large bottle of Visine in, then another. The sharp ring of the doorbell startled me. It was my friend, an hour early. Why was she here now? Something had to be wrong.”
Now the reader is focused on the friend’s premature arrival rather than the fact that the protagonist packed an unusually high amount of Visine for a weekend.
#5 Make it believable.
An alien can’t just drop into your world if you have not set this up as sci-fi. Think of things that are shocking to the reader but not so unrealistic that they lose trust in you as an author and never pick up your work again.
#6 A few final tips.
Make sure your puzzle comes together in the end with absolutely no loose ends. Readers want to feel 100% satisfied when closing your book, not think ‘But what about that giant knife she packed? It was never mentioned again.”
Remember too that not all of your clues may come to you in the first draft. In every book I have written I have gone back and layered in more clues. I have also taken characters who I thought were minor at first and given them a more prominent role because I suddenly thought of a new way they could play into the twist of the story. I encourage you to give yourself permission to drop in fresh easter eggs or change trajectories as you go.
The bottom line: try a few things and have fun getting bendy and turny. It’s like organizing a giant party game or an escape room for your readers and it’s a blast.
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