I hate it when a creator finds out people have guessed their plot twist and then change it just because of that. Like yeah, now people don't know the twist, but also the reason they guessed it was because it made sense, and changing it midway is going to make it completely nonsensical.
Oh, I hate that so much! To this day, I'm still 100 % convinced that the plot twist of Red John's identity in The Mentalist was changed half-assedly when people guessed it right. I'm still bitter.
Yeah before it was revealed some fans had already guessed the twist in gravity falls that Stan has a twin brother. Gravity falls would have been way worse if the writers had paniced and changed the twist. Same with Garnet in Steven Universe being a fusion.
@@cringemeister04 But if your Church said "it's because they're really demons" if he leaned heavier into the subtext on that the movie would have made more sense. In Signs, they're really demons - which should have been explained better, as it is a niche belief within Christianity.
The "sister we never heard of before" in the Buffy series actually turned out to be a genius plot twist, because when the character Dawn first showed up, we all thought it was a cheap retcon that didn't fit the prior seasons at all because she seemed to come out out nowhere and then the actual plot twist of the season was that she REALLY in-story came out of nowhere in the episode she first appeared, because she wasn't a real human, she was an entitiy created to hide the dimension key (and placed close to Buffy so that she would protect the key without being aware who or what the key is) and the memories of Buffy, her mother and others who would have known the sister were altered to fit her in. Well, it still sounds a bit contrived, but by the time we got there we were already so mad at the writers for the seemingly dumb retcon that it was a marvellous twist to have it actually make sense.
Plus there is light foreshadowing of her coming. Like when Fatih and Buffy are talking in the dream they actually say little sis is coming and something about the Dawn. That was also ment to be the last season so they wanted to kill off Buffy and give her a huge hero send off. The network however ended up wanting more suddenly and they were pushed into making another 2 seasons. Which is why the following season bad guys were just lame dorks since they had no plans for after Buffy died.
@@arymillarosewood8774 Buffy's two additional seasons were because the original owner (The WB) killed it, then the new owner (UPN) wanted more. After 2000, The WB and most television executives lost all business sense. UPN outbid The WB for Buffy and Roswell. UPN then promptly canceled everything viewers liked. Roswell had surprise cancelation just after the "we want you very much" show of faith. Buffy ended because Sarah Michelle Gellar quit. Spin-offs Ripper and Faith were expected. But stupid TV executives.
@@Eidolon1andOnly Thank you. I have every spellwrecker disabled on my phone, and still discover words changed. I am top software expert so use VPN much more than UPN. I check everything before submitting. Something still wrecks spelling during submittal. I want access to Alphabet/Google/Android/RUclips source code so I can fix.
I remember a plot twist in “One Piece” involving the identity of a traitor. After they were revealed, readers looked back and found a list of foreshadowing events as long as their arms. It still worked as a plot twist, though, because the character in question looked to be a secondary joke character.
@@Elisandro2cool fairy tail did a similar thing with Leo. He seems like the most interesting thing he’d have going for him would be becoming sort of a rival love interest to Natsu, but his twist is actually super interesting.
That reminds me of the big plot twist in Black Butler, where a bunch of fans were like no this came out of nowhere, the author only just recently started hinting at it, but when you reread the story you realize the author has been foreshadowing it since the first chapter.
One of my favorite plot twist I've ever read was that the protagonist of a book was actually the Chosen One. I know it may sound stupid, because *of course* the protagonist is the chosen one, why wouldn't she be? But the book does a very good job convincing you that she's just an ordinary girl and her *mom* is the chosen one, and literally all characters in the book believe this as well. However, this was the mother's plan in the first place; pretending she was the chosen one, so that the bad guys wouldn't go after the protagonist, and if you reread the book, all the clues pointing to this are extremely obvious, but the first time I completely missed them.
And if you think you know whats coming, sometimes its even more exciting because you get excited for how the characters are going to react. Guessing the plot twist doesnt mean you no longer care about it
I once told a writer I predicted the plot twist and she told me I was the only one that figured it out. I felt very smart indeed 😂 but to be fair, I suspected it more in the beginning. As the novel went on, my suspicions lowered, only for me to find out I was right all along haahaha
I remember I guessed that one of the characters in a book we were reading in class was pretending to be a boy. Was so happy when it turned out I was right.
Your plot twist being predictable is honestly not a problem for me, as a reader, because I'm pretty good at picking out foreshadowing. What's far more interesting is what happens _after,_ how the story changes, how the stakes change.
Yes, but those "angst writers" would usually not label their genre as romance, at least not if they know what they're doing. Not every story that is about love is a "romance" novel, if it centers on a relationship that has an unhappy ending, it is a tragedy or a drama or maybe just simply a "contemporary" novel. As soon as you slap the "romance" label onto such a story, you're going to disappoint readers. It's like having a perfectly good juicy red tomato and then trying to pass it off as a red apple when selling it - the buyer who falls for it and bites into that thing expecting the taste of a sweet apple will not think "oh my, what a delicious aromatic tomato", he will think "WTF is this sour squishy piece of garbage!"
@@swaenwall it reminds me of the Cozy Mistery genre. I don't know how many years it's been a thing but they're usually murders, but with very light themes, include family, friendship themes and romance with happy endings, but solving the mistery is the main plot. So of course they didn't fit in the mistery genre and they added the Cozy.
Mystery stories are basically as interactive as a linear story can get without breaking the 4th wall. The audience is playing a game against the detective to see if they can work it out before he does. And like all games, it’s not fun if it’s not fair.
The old Ellery Queen novels used to have Ellery Queen, the main character, address the reader directly at one point in the novel and let them know that they now know everything relevant that he knows, so they should be able to solve the mystery. It worked because the conceit was that Ellery was writing up the mysteries he solved. They're a fun read if you can get your hands on them.
One of the reasons I love foreshadowing so much is making the story better to re-read, as you can notice things you didn't before and there's now an explanation, you can just go like "ohhh", it's great
You can come up with a plot twist late in the game, then go back and plant Hansel und Gretel's yummy little breadcrumbs. Agatha Christie worked backwards, remember. Her meticulous planning stemmed from knowing the detailed ending first, then back-stepping. It works well. As to overly-complicated twists, there are stylized mysteries and thrillers that use complication layered on complication as a gloss, an expected flight of fancy. / I'm just nattering, as you know, Jenna. You da best.
This. This is the other reason that I'm writing my entire fanfic before posting it. (The first reason is that I hate abandoned fics, and don't want to do the same myself.) There have been a couple times where I have been writing along, something will just randomly pop up out of nowhere that makes perfect sense with the rest of the story...and now I have to go back and tweak a couple minor things, or plant breadcrumbs. And planting breadcrumbs is one of my favorite things to do. XD
Oh good, I don't write linearly at all. I write in zigzagging flights of fancy back and forth like a crazed 3D printer. Good to know there is some precedent for that.
My teacher's definition is my favorite: a plot twist should be unpredictable when you're reading/watching and unavoidable when you look back. And by "unpredictable", he really meant not telegraphed, bc, as you said, there are genre requirements.
"Number one, foreshadowing" Me, who mentioned an evil ex here and there throughout the eight first chapters of my story, only to make her suddenly appear out of nowhere in the chapter nine, wreck the social life of the main protagonist thinking she was out of his life for good, and twisting the second half of the book into a totally new direction : gniak gniak gniak gniak... gooood.... gooooooood...
I did it, sort of. A character got a letter with her twin sister's name instead of hers. The character had trinkets in her living room that belonged to her sister. Later, a picture of the two girls together shows up. These were planted waaaaay in the beginning, and were at the time used to paint a picture that the living twin was a foil to the main character, who was *also* missing a relative. This was done to undertone the overall theme of a story where characters went missing and their living relatives were left to pick up the pieces. Then the missing sister shows up as a ghost towards the end, at a time where the audience has long since forgotten her as part of the story's backdrop, but on a re-read, she's always been there, hidden in plain sight beyond the letter, trinkets, and pictures.
They usually aren't, which is the problem--as with any other relatives appearing out of the blue. If the estate lawyer is the sibling kidnapped at age 5, that kidnapping should still affect the family now. Guilt-ridden parent(s) barely talking about it, or a character finding out they didn't imagine a younger sibling and the effects of that. Then, when the lawyer's relationship/motive is revealed, we aren't rolling our eyes all the way around.
It's definitely possible to come up with a pot twist as you go, figure it out while you're writing. That's the advantage of novels is you can add foreshadowing in your second draft
3:50 Imo you can make them up as you go, HOWEVER they can't be random. Like, if you just realized a plot twist actually works with the story in general, go back and add the foreshadowing etc. But it still has to make sense. As in, if you realize halfway through that the bad guy and hero are both orphans, imo you can afford to give them both white hair and have a plot twist in which they turn out to be brothers. But then you have to make sure it wirks with the story + makes sense to the reader + actually has a use In short, yeah, don't wing it. You can improvise, but don't wing the improvisation. Know why you're putting it there
So much good advice here. I may or may not have fallen into the trap of not leaving enough bread crumbs when writing my first novel lol. Luckily, my trusted critique sources helped with some tips to subtly drop some hints along the way. My favorite tip that I got is to drop a breadcrumb then immediately distract the reader with something else that requires immediate attention. Best way I can think to describe it is a magician's redirection. You show something relevant for a quick second then distract them with some fancy movements, then 20 chapters later...boom, plot twist lol.
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard: "if you think your story is good, spoil it. If knowing the twist ruins your story, then it's not a good story."
2 is fine for the first draft - sometimes the story has to come together as you write it. But afterwards you *gotta* edit it and insert foreshadowing prior to the twist.
One Evil Mastermind Monologue that I actually liked was in the underrated movie Hoodwinked, when the baddie details his entire plan, complete with a detailed Powerpoint presentation and song-and-dance number. As scuffed as the animation is in that movie, the writing was top-notch.
The best plot twists I ever read were in Shingeki no Kyojin because the plot twists changed paradigm of the story and allowed you re-read the story completely differently. Even the signification of certain scenes changed
Example from my planned plot twist: Have the scene where a character throws themselves in harm's way to save another, and it's no clear if they'll survive or not. Wrap up the action scene. Cut to that character recovering in the hospital. The twist? The character in the hospital? A changeling who replaced the character (who is indeed dead). How do I plan on making this work? - Foreshadowing highlights how suspicious he's being. After the whole risking life thing, betrayal probably isn't on the mind. Unless it's to save a loved one or something. - It's got a big impact on the plot. The goal was to get everyone out alive, and now the goal is get everyone out without any more deaths. Furthermore, the loss of his particular skillset and connections make that harder. - On the character side, there's a recurring motif of grief and survivor's guilt. So as setup for a darkest hour, this is good for seeing a lot of backsliding in character growth and testing how far they've come.
This video makes me feel proud because the plot twist in my story wasn't introduced for the drama at all. I realized that the story wasn't going in the direction I wanted and decided to change the ending. It is an "animal farm" kind of story, that is, it will have a revolution that isn't actually good, just a change of power. Every character (or at least the most successful ones) is supposed to be morally ambiguous and/or a jerk. I was planning to make the main character join the leader of the rebels to make a revolution, and then they would rule the kingdom together in the end, like a couple in mad love. But the readers would see this as a success (the mc got what he wanted after all), and I couldn't do that - it defeated the whole point of the story. Instead, I decided to make the leader of the rebels a traitor - he still held grudges about the main character, and only engaged in wild sadomasochist sex with him because he actually felt good about hurting the mc and needed to use him to get revenge on everyone. My story became the story of this character's revenge.
Very wise advices. I write and read crime fiction and I think many stories can be spoiled by either too many or too radical plot twists. We often forget thar readers want a certain predictability in certain genres. They don't only read a book for the mystery or the big reveal, but also because of the characters, places and tropes.
#4 reminded me of the plot twist in Squid Games. *SPOILERS BELOW* . . . . . . . . In the last episode it's revealed that the old man who was one of the initial players was the mastermind behind it all. First, it defeated the purpose of the games, that everyone is equal. He was above everyone and never in any danger of being killed, when he lost they faked his death. Second, the twist didn't change the story in any way. It didn't push the story in any direction. It made the main character pretty upset, but he would probably have been upset when meeting a master mind who was a stranger too. He could have come to the same resolution in the end anyway.
As a Kishotenketsu writer, thank you so much. The plotting structure I use requires a plot twist, so I definitely need to know if mine are garbage. Amazing quality as always.
i remember once reading a fantasy romance and the main girl dies at the end, even though the main theme of the book was hope and love >:( i was so angry! and the second book apparently is about the boy who was left behind trying to recover (i didn't read it) all that felt so cheap and like a betrayal :/
I know this isn't from a book, but it's from a series that is an adaptation of a book series ... Well it has a really good plot twist when it comes to a romance historical novel, actually, the book series has many good plot twist and it's just a joy to read. The lovebirds are already married, but ever since then both of them have been through a lot, one of them was kidnapped, the other was tortured and r*ped, and during all of this the female character was shown a few times to throw up, and the clever bit is that she was only shown doing this after something shocking or painful was revealed and the readers/watchers assumed it was the stress of it all that she made her throw up, but later on, at the end of the book, she reveals to her husband that she is pregnant and then you realize the sickness was due to the pregnancy as well as the stress.
Ok so about the romance twist and them not getting together, there is such thing as romantic tragedy. I think that second tag is just as important as the first when writing your book if it’s needed
Except for the fact that most stories that do this twist aren’t tragic stories, they are romance stories in label. And real romantic tragedies have more crap that happens in them then “they don’t end up together.” Not ending up together isn’t a tragedy nor is it romantic. So, your point means nothing when most writers don’t know how to write within their genre.
@@klausd.6285 I get it, and you’re right, but it’s not fair to say you HAVE to let the characters get together is just wrong. The rest of the stuff that gives it context I do agree with.
Good point, "Romeo and Juliet" has been popular for over 400 years. The play starts out as a comedy and ends up a tragedy. "Love Story" was a big hit when it came out. My English teacher had to grade over 100 book reports on it. "Titanic" broke the box office record, largely because many teenage girls saw the movie many times.
I've had the opposite happen to me. The story was all angsty, full of demons, possessions, tragic backstories. In the end, the main couple (a witch and his lover/assistant, who is a demon in human form) defeat the evil guy, a coward and hypocrite priest. I kind of enjoyed the ending because I liked the couple, but tbh, I was kind of disappointed. It was such a dark story, it didn't make sense to end in the way it did. By the way, the same story has an awesome plot twist. That's when the readers find out the Witch's assistant was actually the demon all along. It was kind of predictable, but it was still incredibly interesting to read.
The plot twist I have in mind for my fan-fic series doesn't really impact the story, just makes you see the characters in a different light. Classmate M spends half the semester chasing after the protagonist, who falls for classmate J instead. After graduation, all three take an over-seas trip to protag's hometown where they find out M's parents were raised by his grandma, making them cousins in a sense.
Luke Skywalker and Lea kind of thing hahahahah I think the way you did it is okay because it doesn't affect the story, the romance was already over. But I hate this plot twist in Star Wars! Just because you find out that someone you feel in love with is your sibling, it doesn't make any of your feelings less real.
One of my favorite plot twists is in Star Wars. You know the one. And, in hindsight... it had no foreshadowing. It does seem to come out of nowhere. Yet, when you rewatch the films after learning the twist, you suddenly gain a new perspective on... everything. Vader's behavior in Empire Strikes Back goes from "villain obsessed with the hero" to "father desperate to be united with his son." It also puts everything else said about Anakin into a whole new perspective; a hero who's fallen far from grace.
I just found this channel a little under a week ago, and you're quickly becoming one of my favorite youtubers ever. Congrats on your new book, I'm defiantly looking forward to being able to read it, especially if it's as helpful and fun as your channel is.
I can;t remember who it was that wrote it, but this reminds me of a similar list of twists to avoid in writing,. No long-lost, unmentioned twins of the protagonist secretly being the killer, and so on. No lying through an unreliable narrator. One of the rules aged like milk, as 'No Chinamen' was on the list, but, heart was in the right place, as he was pushing writers not to make the villain a minority just because they are so commonly vilified in media of the time. Will try to find out who it was, but I know they were and still are a name people recognize.
I read a book recently where there was a kinda cool plot twist but then I ended up being told more by side characters and I just ended up thinking that that plot twist would've been cool to see from that particular character's POV instead first :/
I dunno if its a good idea or not, but while listening to this I had an idea for a romance plot twist where there's a love triangle, and instead of choosing the one that seems most likely, they all get into poly relationship. I'm not a reader of romances, so I don't know if that's already a thing, or if that would ruin people's days, but I know in a bunch of the romantic *movies* I've been forced to watch that had a choice between two partners, I've thought 'you all have chemistry, be poly'. It could be a twist that's both unexpected *and* satisfying, maybe? For some people, it would absolutely ruin the book for other people.
A good plot twist should be predictable if you're paying enough attention to me It's more interesting for me to see how it develops or see all the foreshadowing come together, it's so cathartic to me Also, the ones that recontextualize other parts of the story are all the mlre interesting, like damn, they really thought everything through
Plot twist tip: If you write a plot twist - your readers don't have to know about it until it happens. I read a lot, and the number of books I read that have a major plot twist is surprisingly low. Unless you state or hint at it in the blurb, your readers probably won't know what is coming. If you make the rest of your story interesting enough, the readers' attention won't be lost, and if the plot twist is the entire hook of the story, you should probably write a more interesting story. And even if the plot twist is predictable, or someone guesses it, if the story is still enjoyable, it doesn't matter. And even if the readers already know about a potential plot twist, if you make the story interesting enough, they'll be too invested in the story to think about the plot twist too much, and won't figure out the plot twist.
absolutely agree with #1. If a movie has a great plot twist, for many people they re-watch it to see if they can find the hints. In your book, if the plot twist lands, many will want to re-read to catch all the small nods and hints to said plot twist. Also, if a plot twist is not hinted at, then comes out of the blue most people will likely see the twist as weak or a cop out because of no tangible yet subtle evidence that this was going to happen. And one last thing. WHY ARE WE TRYING TO OUTSMART OUR READERS!? like seriously, are you trying to prove you're smarter than everyone because you stumped them on your plot twist? As a writer you should want to entertain and engross your readers in the world you created and the characters inhabiting it. It should be flattering that readers pick up on the plot twist because you hooked them with your story, world building and complex characters. If you get your readers to obsess over the tiny details then you have done your job right, not wrong. to use your analogy Jenna, if you leave no breadcrumbs for the reader to follow then at the end of the book everyone is lost and have no way out of the forest.
In terms of the breaking tropes I think there are exceptions. Breaking a promise to the viewer can be even more impactful if it is done right. An example of this is from final fantasy 7 spoilers I guess for the biggest plot twist in video game history. About half way through the game Aerith dies. This is something that completely goes against everything we were ever told to believe about this kind of character. She’s like a Disney Princess, she DOESNT die. Not only that but she had a huge role going into the final act as the only remaining ancient. And her death isn’t special or necessarily to achieving the goal. She could do what she did alive or dead. But she dies. It’s unexpected and tragic. With cloud even trying to make sense of it by using it as motivation to track down sepheroth but it doesn’t work sephiroth actually gets what he wants and cloud only made things worse. Heck even afterwards we see characters try to make sense of her death but tifa shuts that idea down saying that it wasn’t a sacrifice she wanted to keep living she wanted to keep going. She was killed and that was it it wasn’t heroic it was somber and sad. And is one of the most remembered and spoiled plot twists in the entirety of video games.
That’s not breaking a promise to the audience, that’s subverting audience expectations, which is what a good plot twist is suppose to do. In an adventure story there’s no inherent promise that any character will survive until the end, only an expectation that the main ones will. Identifying audience expectations and subverting them without ruining their enjoyment, (i.e. not lying to them about the type of story they picked up) is the main difficulty of building a good plot twist.
#5: When Supeman comes into contact with red kryptonite, which affects him differently every time, he becomes suddenly immune to green kryptonite; and grows a mustache.
My favorite show most likely did the "plot twist for the sake of it" during its last two seasons - in Season 8, the child was the villain for no real reason that I can see, other than it being shocking (and it explained nothing about why she was evil or how her family fit in, or even where her family are.) In Season 9, the main villain was one of the "good" characters the entire time (which believe it or not was still done as a good character's act - he wasn't secretly evil or anything, even though he started out as a Season 2 villain.) Also, that thing about killing off the lover in a romantic story? My favorite sitcom did that, and it was pretty controversial, I'll admit, but I think they personally did it well - mainly because it was meant to show us that if a good thing ends badly, it is still a good thing (i.e. they had their time together, and that won't be taken away from them - he'll always remember his time with her), which I found a beautiful message. Not saying that this excuses it all the time, and I understand your point, and will likely follow it (as much as I loved that ending, it was still controversial to others, so they definitely took a gamble using it - and I wouldn't have minded if they'd just stayed together, either.)
i’m gonna distract readers with one more predictable plot twist so they don’t notice the real twist which is what that first twist needed to be revealed
_BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER_ TV SHOW SPOILERS The Buffy's sister, Dawn, addition wasn't contrived. There are moments before Dawn's introduction that set her character up. Once Dawn was on the show, the writers dedicated time to getting to know her before giving exposition to how she was possible, and then tied Dawn to the arc of the season's story arc, and made it possible for her to continue past said season. Dawn Summers is a bad example that followed the rules Jenna laid down. As well as TV rules which I don't think Jenna worries about as much as book rules.
I love Cixin Liu, but there's so much of #8 in the Three-Body series. It's hard/impossible to avoid blatant exposition in such hard-leaning sci-fi, but that should be kept to the science & tech of the worldbuilding, and only as relevant (in which case, us hard sci-fi fans are here for it). But monologuing is an outright part of the Wallbreaking process.
About No 9 (predictability of the plot twist): I'd go one step further and say the plot twist being predictable is not only not the greatest sin, it isn't a sin at all unless the twist becomes so painfully obvious that it makes your characters look dumb for not figuring it out sooner (or makes the reader bored because he gets tired of the heroes investigating red herrings that are obviously irrelevant). As long as it is still enjoyable to watch the heroes struggle and there are still some real stakes in their actions when you know of the plot twist, figuring it out in advance is not a problem. It's great when your reader slaps their brow and thinks "OMG, it all makes sense now, how could I have missed that!" when the plot twist is revealed, but for the reader, it's at least equally satisfying if they can instead think "Hah! I knew it!" in that moment. This is especially true for plot twists that the reader doesn't guess because of in story logic, but because of story and genre expectations. E.g. if you have a seemingly obvious suspect in a murder mystery early on, the reader will always expect them to NOT actually be the murderer, because murder mystery stories are required to be tough to figure out for the detective, so the real villain cannot be someone whom we'd immediately suspect because of overwhelming evidence that points in their direction. But we wouldn't fault the hero for suspecting that guy, because the hero doesn't know he's in a murder mystery story and in real life the obvious suspect in most cases actually is the culprit.
Any advice for my plot twist? It's sort of a murder mystery. The main character has a strange prophetic dream (happens a few times in the story) where he's being killed by an unknown attacker. He later finds the body of the second-in-command by the river, killed in the same way MC died in the dream. He realizes someone murdered the second-in-command. A few others blame him because he was the one that found the body, so he sets out to solve the murder to clear his name and prove himself as part of his clan. The suspects are this girl from another clan who was close friends with the victim, the victim's partner, the new second-in-command, and a highly respected member of the clan. In the end, it turns out to be the highly respected member, who is MC's teacher, as well as MC's best friend's dad. The problem is, he's supposed to seem charismatic, intelligent, and valiant despite having a fairly short temper. But the way I wrote him, he's just plain rude to MC immediately, doubting his ability. I want him to seem a bit annoyed by MC, while still seeming like someone MC could look up to (as MC sees him as a role model). I'm struggling to find that balance, and I'd love any sort of help!
I loved the plot twist in the Savior's Champion however I had seen that plot twist in other stories so I saw it coming but still loved how it came together
Yeah, it was a bit obvious from the start. My GF even picked it up from a 30 second synopsis I did of the first few chapters. There was only one moment of doubt later in the book... I think she have needed a few more false demonstrations of power early to send the reader away from the big reveal. That said, I still got the second one to see it all again from the other side. It was an interesting approach to the structure of the series, a little like an early Tarantino movie.
My strategy for the villain monologue: they're explaining their plan to try and convince the hero that the hero isn't in danger from it, thereby invalidating the hero's need to fight them (whether they think it'll work or not). Backup plan: knowing the villain's scheme doesn't help the hero stop it, and the villain's just tormenting the hero with that realization for da evulz.
"Did you think I'm some comic book villain? I wouldn't tell you my plan if there was even the slightest chance you could affect the outcome. I did it 35 minutes ago" -- Ozymandias. Paraphrased because I haven't seen the movie in over a decade.
Plot twist: the villain told them a fake plan knowing the hero will likely escape. Perhaps they even trick the hero into providing the needed ingredient for the plan to work... now they get to monologue for real.
I actually have a few plot twist in the series I’m writing, but as of me watching this video, I’m starting to notice a trend with my twists. Some of them involve villain reveals of characters related to the main cast. Like they’re deliberate and they have purpose aside from just shocking the readers and hurting the main cast, but it’s still pretty wild
You should also make sure the pay off in your "twist" is better then what your audience was originally expecting. A perfect example of this failing is the Last Jedi. The movie really builds up that Holdo is going to turn out to be a villain. This gets poe to send rose and finn to another planet to find a locksmith to seak on bord the enimes ship while Poe leads a munity. For a big chunk of the movie we spend a lot of time on a casino planet that dosen't add much to the story. All while building up that Holdo is evil and for big fight with her. Then in a "twist" not only dose the plan NOT work but Holdo was right whole time and poe was just an idiot. Making everything we watched pointless filler that wasted our time. In the same movie, fans had been waiting for decades to see luke skywalker fight at his full power. Many were also looking forward to seeing him play the part of a mentor to a new jedi. Instead, in a "twist", we see him mope around, drink alien t*t milk and when he finally dose fight it isn't actually him fighting. In both cases, many in the audience found themselves preferring what they were expecting in their heads then what was delivered to them. Leaving them feeling underwhelmed and disappointed. You never want to build up something that sounds more exciting then what your planning to give. That will piss people off and they might start to become better writers then you.
First off, what is the point in saying tit milk? Most milk comes from there unless it is from a plant. Second, that is the fans fault for expecting something that was never hinted at in the beginning. If Luke was going to do anything in the story, they wouldn’t of had him show up in the few seconds of the first movie. Which means what? He isn’t the main character of the story and means nothing. I have never read a story where the main heir of the story shows up nearly half way through the story. If anyone though Luke was still going to be the hero, they are the idiots for believing that when there was nothing there to suggest that he was. It was clear from the get go that he wasn’t. He left an incomplete map for people to find him and made that hard, he left and told no one where he was going, and he left when he knew things where going to hit the fan and washed his hands of it. This was made clear in the first movie. Luke was almost not in his prime either…. That was in whatever the name of the 3rd movie released was. So fans already fucking got to see him fight at one of his best. I’m not a SW fan and I know this shit. Only know it because my partner loves it, watches it, and tortures me with that poorly written thought out crap. I don’t get why everyone loves it so much. Every time I ever hear anyone talk about SW they almost never have anything good to say about it expect for the first movie ever released which gets mindlessly praised. Which I still don’t get. The romance was forced and gross, the pacing was terrible, acting was terrible except for 2 guys, the writing was cringe AF. The only thing it had was the graphics which was crazy for the time of it’s release. All it is is mediocre crap that for popular because of timing of release and graphics. People love it for the blind nostalgia they have for it and then wonder why everything else is just crap.
@@klausd.6285 Fans did not expect Luke to be the hero of the sequel story. They did expect him to be heroic though. This expectation is built up through the previous 6 movies, which is why a lot of fans missed the foreshadowing in episode 7. Yes, #7 did foreshadow Luke having given up. However, this violated the genre expectations that all fans had going in. A Star Wars movie is a space Opera about good space wizards being tempted to become evil space wizards and epic battles in space. There are expectations around what a hero or villai should be. Luke being a disappointment could have worked except that it is a terrible extension of Luke's character arc and does not fit the foreshadowing of the previous 6 movies. The audience expected Luke to be powerful. They could have accepted him cutting himself off from the rebels because he no longer believed in their cause. They could have accepted Luke becoming a sith lord and being stranded on the planet by a student who wished to save the galaxy from him. He disnt have to remain a good guy. But they expected him to be important and interesting. They were not prepared for a pathetic and weak Luke Skywalker. And this was intentional. Disney was intentionally mocking people like your partner for being immersed in the original trilogy. Teasing them for caring about a character. They intentionally made Luke act excessively childish just to hurt the fans as much as they could. This was not set up as a plot twist, this was set up as a cruel joke. Sure, Star wars has never been particularly outstanding in terms of writing and acting. But the original series writing is not "cringy AF", its at worse "generic". As for why Star Wars was popular to begin with? It was generic enough for everyone to relate to it. It had sufficiently interesting characters- Han Solo- as well as characters that people could relate to- Luke and Leia. There was mystery, there was romance. It had enough of everything that it was attractive to most people. It was also high fantasy. This is important. High fantasy was not really a thing taken seriously in Hollywood. It still isn't. To really understand what the high fantasy fan had to deal with you need to watch the 1978 Lord of the Rings movie and realize that was the best you could expect of medieval fantasy from that time period. If you wanted to see another world full of different nonhuman fantasy species you had to read a goddamned book and imagine it with your mind. Star Wars proved that a fantasy setting with real looking nonhumams could be popular. That was worth a lot back then. Edit: also, the logic detailing the setting between episode 6 and 7 was so poorly thought out that I think a lot of people just assumed that the hints that Luke was dropping were just part of the terrible writing rather than real foreshadowing. Things like the first order taking charge and having more resources after years of war, the Leia being a rebel leader instead of the leader of a major faction of planets, and stormtroopers not immediately taking care of a guy who is showing obvious signs of not being properly brainwashed all shatter the suspension of disbelief if you think about them amd kinda forced fans to not think about them so they could enjoy the movie. As for Luke's behavior being reasonable for someone in his position... that can be argued but there are some serious flaws with that argument. 1. Genre expectations. Luke had already passed the ultimate moral trial so it felt wrong for him to fail a second moral trial- plis it happens offscreen. 2. Bad writing. Luke's story didnt really fit with the actual setting of episode 7. How did incompetent Kylo Ren beat Luke and murder all the apprentices... but left Luke alive? Kid couldnt beat an untrained swordswoman who didn't understand the force. 3. Luke's personality. The Luke Skywalker we knew would have felt duty bound to fix his mistake and go kill Kylo Ren. Why is he letting his mistake threaten the galaxy rather than addressing it. The conclusion he seems to have come to was that there should be no Jedi... but he is suddenly a passive character who is unwilling to work towards any goals. 4. Time. Ok, so lets say Luke did mope around a bit... he should still have snapped out of it in the decade or more since the event. 5. Support group. Luke has the literal ghost of his mentors to talk to. All he had to do was talk to them once. The show writers had to make them disappear for his behavior to be even remotely possible. If he had the willpower to prevent yoda from appearing as a ghost why didn't he have the willpower to be active about any of his actual problems? In short, while it is possible for Luke to have become what he became in the sequels it was a highly improbable outcome that relies on him undoing his entire character arc and personality traits from the 3 movies he was in. He is no longer an active character. He no longer wants to be part of the rebellion. He no longer trusts the force. He no longer cares about people's suffering. He no longer is willing to risk himself to save his friends. He is no longer a jedi. He is no longer wise. He no longer has access to his mentor's ghost. The character was no longer the Luke Skywalker that people grew up with. And they were promised Luke would be in the films.
well, i think that’s the problem with quests in my book 😅 i haven’t planned them from the very beginning so i threw shitty plot twists in them… so i’ll take note of this and try to improve it 😅 (i’m now halfway through my first book’s story and it’s improving at a fast rate ! i think it will not release as soon as i planned but it will definitely… even if it could take years because of the amount of mistakes i have to correct before publishing it [especially in the first chapters]… so i’m trying hard to make great character plot twists and side quests {because this is how the story will progress the most in the first half… that’s why i’m struggling with that part 😅} but now i’m geared up to correct what i messes up, thanks a lot. without help my book wouldn’t be as great as i wanted it to be, and even if i started ambitious i’m going to work it through and through until it is finally great. i already have so many ideas for the future chapters and the ending will definitely be something… that’s what i was good at in the first place 😅 i mostly struggled with the place between the beginning and the middle because i had to introduce too many things to get to the real point of the story and many things got out of hand quickly… so yeah 😅 i have work to do but i’ll do my best… i don’t want to miss the potential of it so i have to get as much advice as possible for the first half)
I'm writing a fic in the Transformers universe where the main character is a Blacksmith. Her workshop appears to be in a cave inside a mesa. But little hints dropped here and there point to the twist: she actually built her workshop inside sub-space. It's just anchored to the cavern so she has access to the Energon below. She can pull the anchor and put it anywhere she likes, or simply leave it free-floating in wherever sub-space sits. However...you don't find this out until Pt 4. 😂
One of my favourites is the double plot twist, that is way more harder to do, more and less, the reader is directed to certain direction or character, and you think that the antagonist, to then, after the story seems to be finish the protagonist realise that a piece is missing, and then the whole puzzle is reveal, and the real antagonist appears. A good case of this is The Usual Suspects, where the writing goes to Keaton being Keyser Soze only to reveal that Verbal King was Keyser Soze the whole time.
4:07 Obviously one can both leave breadcrumbs and "make shit up as one goes" by the expedient of writing chapters between those already there. And (perfectly doable on the internet) re-writing chapters prior to the twist which were already there prior to thinking of it. Plus, in a fan fic, like the one I'm making, I can profit from CSL's breadcrumbs.
Was doing a fanfic thing and going through how all of the characters reacted to a thing. One of them piped up with "and then I stab them in the back!" and I'm like wtf, you can't... oh, oh no... Had to figure out a reasonable reason why they would do that, figure out how to imply it without directly stating anything that could be steam rolled later by future cannon, and then seed the entire thing with stuff implying that that character was up to something and involved the other character they were going to shiv, without out and out showing that they were planning something like that, so the entire thing didn't just drop out of the sky like a giant alien space flea from outer space. I'm told it actually worked, but it was a lot of gray hairs getting there.
In the words of TWA aka Terrible Writing Advice (aka don't use this): "Do I foreshadow this plot-twist at all? No, because then the audience might see my plot twist coming and that's bad because then I won't get to show them just how smart I am."
Best plot twist of all time? Found in the novel 'Ender's Game.' Honorable mention plot twist? Who the half-blood Prince was in JK Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.'
My bread crumbs in my movie at the start of the movie, our friend dies in a car crash, but she has scissors in her pocket and then later in the movie she comes back at the killer So shefake her death, and she used the scissors in her pocket
The first piece of advice is probably the best one in my opinion. One book I was reading had the biggest fucking plot twist I’ve ever seen and they kept giving hints, but the thing is the hints they gave didnt make it predictable. (Tgcf black water arc)
I have a story I'm writing. Where there is obviously something up with the MC. But she doesn't know herself since she doesn't remember (not obvious amnesia since the memories are from childhood and she didn't notice she lacked them) and I am dropping hints though they are not enough to lead to a clear conclusion just the assumption that she is not who she thinks she is. But there is another plot twist coming. Because once she figures out what she is missing and remembers, she will think. That her entire og family is dead (grief and anger enssues) but suddenly the bad guy reveals that he is (possessing -evil entity like-) one of her thought dead family members. I don't know how much I want to hint towards that second plot twist...
Would it still be a romance story when the first plot twist sees a death, then a few chapters later, the remaining person(s) of the romance traveling to the afterlife to reconnect?
The entire video I was screaming Pretty Little Liars (the tv show at least, I haven't read the books yet) but seriously all of these apply to PLL... And it still had me gripped 😅😂
I hate it when a creator finds out people have guessed their plot twist and then change it just because of that. Like yeah, now people don't know the twist, but also the reason they guessed it was because it made sense, and changing it midway is going to make it completely nonsensical.
Oh, I hate that so much! To this day, I'm still 100 % convinced that the plot twist of Red John's identity in The Mentalist was changed half-assedly when people guessed it right. I'm still bitter.
Agreed. It's so much fun when your reader is going along for the ride. It's not always bad when the reader can guess.
Yeah before it was revealed some fans had already guessed the twist in gravity falls that Stan has a twin brother. Gravity falls would have been way worse if the writers had paniced and changed the twist. Same with Garnet in Steven Universe being a fusion.
And than we have Alex: who leaks a fake leak to get fans of his trail
Agreed. When I'm writing I get a rush when people either see it coming or guess it just before it happens.
It means I did my job.
"A plot twist is like a fart. If you gotta force it, it's probably sh_t" Delightful metaphor 😍
And fits so many other scenarios is life too. It's a great expression I intend to steal.
🤣 I spit my coffee when I read your comment!😝
@@samvanvugt5145 🤣🤣I’d buy it! Lol
🤣
Motivational poster designer: Write that down! Write that down!
Jenna: A lot of writers say 'every story has to have a plot twist' and that's a big, fat lie.
M. Knight Shyamalan: *_Heresy!_*
Excellent plot twist: The Sixth Sense
Sucky plot twist: The Village
R. L. Stein : heresy again!
SHYMALAN IS MY NIGHTMARE 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢
I WAS FORCED TO WATCH THAT DUMB ALIEN MOVIE WHEN I WORKED AT A CHURCH CAMP
@@cringemeister04 But if your Church said "it's because they're really demons" if he leaned heavier into the subtext on that the movie would have made more sense. In Signs, they're really demons - which should have been explained better, as it is a niche belief within Christianity.
The "sister we never heard of before" in the Buffy series actually turned out to be a genius plot twist, because when the character Dawn first showed up, we all thought it was a cheap retcon that didn't fit the prior seasons at all because she seemed to come out out nowhere and then the actual plot twist of the season was that she REALLY in-story came out of nowhere in the episode she first appeared, because she wasn't a real human, she was an entitiy created to hide the dimension key (and placed close to Buffy so that she would protect the key without being aware who or what the key is) and the memories of Buffy, her mother and others who would have known the sister were altered to fit her in. Well, it still sounds a bit contrived, but by the time we got there we were already so mad at the writers for the seemingly dumb retcon that it was a marvellous twist to have it actually make sense.
Plus there is light foreshadowing of her coming. Like when Fatih and Buffy are talking in the dream they actually say little sis is coming and something about the Dawn.
That was also ment to be the last season so they wanted to kill off Buffy and give her a huge hero send off. The network however ended up wanting more suddenly and they were pushed into making another 2 seasons. Which is why the following season bad guys were just lame dorks since they had no plans for after Buffy died.
@@arymillarosewood8774 Buffy's two additional seasons were because the original owner (The WB) killed it, then the new owner (UPN) wanted more. After 2000, The WB and most television executives lost all business sense. UPN outbid The WB for Buffy and Roswell. UPN then promptly canceled everything viewers liked. Roswell had surprise cancelation just after the "we want you very much" show of faith. Buffy ended because Sarah Michelle Gellar quit. Spin-offs Ripper and Faith were expected. But stupid TV executives.
@@solprovider5385 VPN?
I know, it's a typo, just being playful.
@@Eidolon1andOnly Thank you. I have every spellwrecker disabled on my phone, and still discover words changed. I am top software expert so use VPN much more than UPN. I check everything before submitting. Something still wrecks spelling during submittal. I want access to Alphabet/Google/Android/RUclips source code so I can fix.
Isn't there a difference between what can work in a long running TV series, a trilogoy book series, and a single novel?
The ideal plot twist hits you if you didn't know and makes you anxious if you did. Basically, it's impactful and can't be ruined by spoilers.
Yeah, sometimes knowing the ending makes reading the book that much enjoyable because you just wanna know how did they arrive to that point.
I remember a plot twist in “One Piece” involving the identity of a traitor. After they were revealed, readers looked back and found a list of foreshadowing events as long as their arms. It still worked as a plot twist, though, because the character in question looked to be a secondary joke character.
Oda is just on another level
@@Elisandro2cool fairy tail did a similar thing with Leo. He seems like the most interesting thing he’d have going for him would be becoming sort of a rival love interest to Natsu, but his twist is actually super interesting.
That reminds me of the big plot twist in Black Butler, where a bunch of fans were like no this came out of nowhere, the author only just recently started hinting at it, but when you reread the story you realize the author has been foreshadowing it since the first chapter.
@@Rhialia It's crazy how well foreshadowed the twist was. It was so obvious, especially in Book 3, but we were like, nahhhh.
Yeah, that black butler twist was huge but really well foreshadowed
One of my favorite plot twist I've ever read was that the protagonist of a book was actually the Chosen One. I know it may sound stupid, because *of course* the protagonist is the chosen one, why wouldn't she be? But the book does a very good job convincing you that she's just an ordinary girl and her *mom* is the chosen one, and literally all characters in the book believe this as well.
However, this was the mother's plan in the first place; pretending she was the chosen one, so that the bad guys wouldn't go after the protagonist, and if you reread the book, all the clues pointing to this are extremely obvious, but the first time I completely missed them.
oh my, that sounds really cool!! what's the book called?
@@siobhra9643 The war of witches, by Maite Carranza
3:05 just to add even if you’re plot twist is done right and an observant reader figures it by finding the clues we feel smart.
And if you think you know whats coming, sometimes its even more exciting because you get excited for how the characters are going to react. Guessing the plot twist doesnt mean you no longer care about it
I once told a writer I predicted the plot twist and she told me I was the only one that figured it out. I felt very smart indeed 😂 but to be fair, I suspected it more in the beginning. As the novel went on, my suspicions lowered, only for me to find out I was right all along haahaha
I remember I guessed that one of the characters in a book we were reading in class was pretending to be a boy. Was so happy when it turned out I was right.
To add to your comment, when readers feel smart and you follow through with a great plot twist, they become more emotionally invested in the story
@@amyalcorn2032 After figuring out the Jon Snow thing, I can vouch for that XD
Your plot twist being predictable is honestly not a problem for me, as a reader, because I'm pretty good at picking out foreshadowing. What's far more interesting is what happens _after,_ how the story changes, how the stakes change.
Jenna : romance novels are required to have a happy ending
Angst writers : let us introduce ourselves
Love interest: Dies
MC: Well, luckily I was dead all along!
Ghost romance part X: Should have seen that coming
Yes, but those "angst writers" would usually not label their genre as romance, at least not if they know what they're doing. Not every story that is about love is a "romance" novel, if it centers on a relationship that has an unhappy ending, it is a tragedy or a drama or maybe just simply a "contemporary" novel. As soon as you slap the "romance" label onto such a story, you're going to disappoint readers. It's like having a perfectly good juicy red tomato and then trying to pass it off as a red apple when selling it - the buyer who falls for it and bites into that thing expecting the taste of a sweet apple will not think "oh my, what a delicious aromatic tomato", he will think "WTF is this sour squishy piece of garbage!"
@@chrisrudolf9839 I labelled mine as both heartwarming and drama. and yes, if you label it solely as romance it wouldn't fit the story very well.
Romeo and Juliette both died.
@@swaenwall it reminds me of the Cozy Mistery genre. I don't know how many years it's been a thing but they're usually murders, but with very light themes, include family, friendship themes and romance with happy endings, but solving the mistery is the main plot. So of course they didn't fit in the mistery genre and they added the Cozy.
Mystery stories are basically as interactive as a linear story can get without breaking the 4th wall.
The audience is playing a game against the detective to see if they can work it out before he does. And like all games, it’s not fun if it’s not fair.
The old Ellery Queen novels used to have Ellery Queen, the main character, address the reader directly at one point in the novel and let them know that they now know everything relevant that he knows, so they should be able to solve the mystery. It worked because the conceit was that Ellery was writing up the mysteries he solved. They're a fun read if you can get your hands on them.
One of the reasons I love foreshadowing so much is making the story better to re-read, as you can notice things you didn't before and there's now an explanation, you can just go like "ohhh", it's great
You can come up with a plot twist late in the game, then go back and plant Hansel und Gretel's yummy little breadcrumbs. Agatha Christie worked backwards, remember. Her meticulous planning stemmed from knowing the detailed ending first, then back-stepping. It works well. As to overly-complicated twists, there are stylized mysteries and thrillers that use complication layered on complication as a gloss, an expected flight of fancy. / I'm just nattering, as you know, Jenna. You da best.
This. This is the other reason that I'm writing my entire fanfic before posting it. (The first reason is that I hate abandoned fics, and don't want to do the same myself.) There have been a couple times where I have been writing along, something will just randomly pop up out of nowhere that makes perfect sense with the rest of the story...and now I have to go back and tweak a couple minor things, or plant breadcrumbs. And planting breadcrumbs is one of my favorite things to do. XD
Oh good, I don't write linearly at all. I write in zigzagging flights of fancy back and forth like a crazed 3D printer. Good to know there is some precedent for that.
My three reactions to plot twists are:
1. Ah, I knew it! (Good, usually)
2. That's so dumb (bad)
3. I'm so dumb (good)
"You just dropped a bomb on your readers. That's not shocking, It's stupid."
Out of context it sounds hillarious.
if I drop a bomb, i expect things to explode ... messily ... possibly even the heads of my readers. I am an evil writer.
Plot twist: These are actually amazing tips and you should definitely use them all. ✨😌/s
Such a bad twist, no setup at all.
@@bjp4869 It was so predictable 🙄
My teacher's definition is my favorite: a plot twist should be unpredictable when you're reading/watching and unavoidable when you look back. And by "unpredictable", he really meant not telegraphed, bc, as you said, there are genre requirements.
"Number one, foreshadowing"
Me, who mentioned an evil ex here and there throughout the eight first chapters of my story, only to make her suddenly appear out of nowhere in the chapter nine, wreck the social life of the main protagonist thinking she was out of his life for good, and twisting the second half of the book into a totally new direction : gniak gniak gniak gniak... gooood.... gooooooood...
I actually think if the "long lost sibling trope" is foreshadowed correctly and hinted at it can be done well and provide a good plot twist.
I did it, sort of.
A character got a letter with her twin sister's name instead of hers. The character had trinkets in her living room that belonged to her sister. Later, a picture of the two girls together shows up. These were planted waaaaay in the beginning, and were at the time used to paint a picture that the living twin was a foil to the main character, who was *also* missing a relative. This was done to undertone the overall theme of a story where characters went missing and their living relatives were left to pick up the pieces.
Then the missing sister shows up as a ghost towards the end, at a time where the audience has long since forgotten her as part of the story's backdrop, but on a re-read, she's always been there, hidden in plain sight beyond the letter, trinkets, and pictures.
They usually aren't, which is the problem--as with any other relatives appearing out of the blue. If the estate lawyer is the sibling kidnapped at age 5, that kidnapping should still affect the family now. Guilt-ridden parent(s) barely talking about it, or a character finding out they didn't imagine a younger sibling and the effects of that. Then, when the lawyer's relationship/motive is revealed, we aren't rolling our eyes all the way around.
The best I've seen "recently" was The Good Place, which kept changing the plot and the goals in brilliant ways.
It's definitely possible to come up with a pot twist as you go, figure it out while you're writing. That's the advantage of novels is you can add foreshadowing in your second draft
3:50 Imo you can make them up as you go, HOWEVER they can't be random. Like, if you just realized a plot twist actually works with the story in general, go back and add the foreshadowing etc. But it still has to make sense.
As in, if you realize halfway through that the bad guy and hero are both orphans, imo you can afford to give them both white hair and have a plot twist in which they turn out to be brothers. But then you have to make sure it wirks with the story + makes sense to the reader + actually has a use
In short, yeah, don't wing it. You can improvise, but don't wing the improvisation. Know why you're putting it there
So much good advice here. I may or may not have fallen into the trap of not leaving enough bread crumbs when writing my first novel lol. Luckily, my trusted critique sources helped with some tips to subtly drop some hints along the way. My favorite tip that I got is to drop a breadcrumb then immediately distract the reader with something else that requires immediate attention. Best way I can think to describe it is a magician's redirection. You show something relevant for a quick second then distract them with some fancy movements, then 20 chapters later...boom, plot twist lol.
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard: "if you think your story is good, spoil it. If knowing the twist ruins your story, then it's not a good story."
2 is fine for the first draft - sometimes the story has to come together as you write it. But afterwards you *gotta* edit it and insert foreshadowing prior to the twist.
One Evil Mastermind Monologue that I actually liked was in the underrated movie Hoodwinked, when the baddie details his entire plan, complete with a detailed Powerpoint presentation and song-and-dance number. As scuffed as the animation is in that movie, the writing was top-notch.
The best plot twists I ever read were in Shingeki no Kyojin because the plot twists changed paradigm of the story and allowed you re-read the story completely differently. Even the signification of certain scenes changed
The villain's monologue is best when it is delivered by the hero. Every mystery reader/writer knows this.
Example from my planned plot twist:
Have the scene where a character throws themselves in harm's way to save another, and it's no clear if they'll survive or not. Wrap up the action scene. Cut to that character recovering in the hospital.
The twist?
The character in the hospital? A changeling who replaced the character (who is indeed dead). How do I plan on making this work?
- Foreshadowing highlights how suspicious he's being. After the whole risking life thing, betrayal probably isn't on the mind. Unless it's to save a loved one or something.
- It's got a big impact on the plot. The goal was to get everyone out alive, and now the goal is get everyone out without any more deaths. Furthermore, the loss of his particular skillset and connections make that harder.
- On the character side, there's a recurring motif of grief and survivor's guilt. So as setup for a darkest hour, this is good for seeing a lot of backsliding in character growth and testing how far they've come.
Congrats on your writing craft book! I can’t wait to buy for the whole writing group!
This video makes me feel proud because the plot twist in my story wasn't introduced for the drama at all. I realized that the story wasn't going in the direction I wanted and decided to change the ending.
It is an "animal farm" kind of story, that is, it will have a revolution that isn't actually good, just a change of power. Every character (or at least the most successful ones) is supposed to be morally ambiguous and/or a jerk.
I was planning to make the main character join the leader of the rebels to make a revolution, and then they would rule the kingdom together in the end, like a couple in mad love. But the readers would see this as a success (the mc got what he wanted after all), and I couldn't do that - it defeated the whole point of the story.
Instead, I decided to make the leader of the rebels a traitor - he still held grudges about the main character, and only engaged in wild sadomasochist sex with him because he actually felt good about hurting the mc and needed to use him to get revenge on everyone. My story became the story of this character's revenge.
Jenna: "Because I'm tired of reading shitty plot twists, I'm breaking down the worst-"
Me: Hold on, how did she get ahold of my writing?!
Very wise advices. I write and read crime fiction and I think many stories can be spoiled by either too many or too radical plot twists. We often forget thar readers want a certain predictability in certain genres. They don't only read a book for the mystery or the big reveal, but also because of the characters, places and tropes.
#4 reminded me of the plot twist in Squid Games. *SPOILERS BELOW*
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In the last episode it's revealed that the old man who was one of the initial players was the mastermind behind it all. First, it defeated the purpose of the games, that everyone is equal. He was above everyone and never in any danger of being killed, when he lost they faked his death. Second, the twist didn't change the story in any way. It didn't push the story in any direction. It made the main character pretty upset, but he would probably have been upset when meeting a master mind who was a stranger too. He could have come to the same resolution in the end anyway.
As a Kishotenketsu writer, thank you so much. The plotting structure I use requires a plot twist, so I definitely need to know if mine are garbage. Amazing quality as always.
i remember once reading a fantasy romance and the main girl dies at the end, even though the main theme of the book was hope and love >:( i was so angry! and the second book apparently is about the boy who was left behind trying to recover (i didn't read it) all that felt so cheap and like a betrayal :/
I know this isn't from a book, but it's from a series that is an adaptation of a book series ... Well it has a really good plot twist when it comes to a romance historical novel, actually, the book series has many good plot twist and it's just a joy to read. The lovebirds are already married, but ever since then both of them have been through a lot, one of them was kidnapped, the other was tortured and r*ped, and during all of this the female character was shown a few times to throw up, and the clever bit is that she was only shown doing this after something shocking or painful was revealed and the readers/watchers assumed it was the stress of it all that she made her throw up, but later on, at the end of the book, she reveals to her husband that she is pregnant and then you realize the sickness was due to the pregnancy as well as the stress.
Ok so about the romance twist and them not getting together, there is such thing as romantic tragedy. I think that second tag is just as important as the first when writing your book if it’s needed
Except for the fact that most stories that do this twist aren’t tragic stories, they are romance stories in label. And real romantic tragedies have more crap that happens in them then “they don’t end up together.” Not ending up together isn’t a tragedy nor is it romantic. So, your point means nothing when most writers don’t know how to write within their genre.
@@klausd.6285 I get it, and you’re right, but it’s not fair to say you HAVE to let the characters get together is just wrong. The rest of the stuff that gives it context I do agree with.
Good point, "Romeo and Juliet" has been popular for over 400 years. The play starts out as a comedy and ends up a tragedy. "Love Story" was a big hit when it came out. My English teacher had to grade over 100 book reports on it. "Titanic" broke the box office record, largely because many teenage girls saw the movie many times.
@@rsacchi100 exactly my point, sometimes it doesn’t always work out. The advice is solid though. The reader wants and expects it to work out
I've had the opposite happen to me. The story was all angsty, full of demons, possessions, tragic backstories. In the end, the main couple (a witch and his lover/assistant, who is a demon in human form) defeat the evil guy, a coward and hypocrite priest.
I kind of enjoyed the ending because I liked the couple, but tbh, I was kind of disappointed. It was such a dark story, it didn't make sense to end in the way it did.
By the way, the same story has an awesome plot twist. That's when the readers find out the Witch's assistant was actually the demon all along. It was kind of predictable, but it was still incredibly interesting to read.
The plot twist I have in mind for my fan-fic series doesn't really impact the story, just makes you see the characters in a different light. Classmate M spends half the semester chasing after the protagonist, who falls for classmate J instead. After graduation, all three take an over-seas trip to protag's hometown where they find out M's parents were raised by his grandma, making them cousins in a sense.
Luke Skywalker and Lea kind of thing hahahahah
I think the way you did it is okay because it doesn't affect the story, the romance was already over. But I hate this plot twist in Star Wars! Just because you find out that someone you feel in love with is your sibling, it doesn't make any of your feelings less real.
Wonderful like always!
One of my favorite plot twists is in Star Wars. You know the one. And, in hindsight... it had no foreshadowing. It does seem to come out of nowhere. Yet, when you rewatch the films after learning the twist, you suddenly gain a new perspective on... everything. Vader's behavior in Empire Strikes Back goes from "villain obsessed with the hero" to "father desperate to be united with his son." It also puts everything else said about Anakin into a whole new perspective; a hero who's fallen far from grace.
Well, that's because Vader was not suppose to be Luke's father in the new hope.
@@legrandliseurtri7495 Yeah, and yet it all falls into place so perfectly.
I just found this channel a little under a week ago, and you're quickly becoming one of my favorite youtubers ever. Congrats on your new book, I'm defiantly looking forward to being able to read it, especially if it's as helpful and fun as your channel is.
I can;t remember who it was that wrote it, but this reminds me of a similar list of twists to avoid in writing,. No long-lost, unmentioned twins of the protagonist secretly being the killer, and so on. No lying through an unreliable narrator. One of the rules aged like milk, as 'No Chinamen' was on the list, but, heart was in the right place, as he was pushing writers not to make the villain a minority just because they are so commonly vilified in media of the time. Will try to find out who it was, but I know they were and still are a name people recognize.
I read a book recently where there was a kinda cool plot twist but then I ended up being told more by side characters and I just ended up thinking that that plot twist would've been cool to see from that particular character's POV instead first :/
I dunno if its a good idea or not, but while listening to this I had an idea for a romance plot twist where there's a love triangle, and instead of choosing the one that seems most likely, they all get into poly relationship. I'm not a reader of romances, so I don't know if that's already a thing, or if that would ruin people's days, but I know in a bunch of the romantic *movies* I've been forced to watch that had a choice between two partners, I've thought 'you all have chemistry, be poly'. It could be a twist that's both unexpected *and* satisfying, maybe? For some people, it would absolutely ruin the book for other people.
A good plot twist should be predictable if you're paying enough attention to me
It's more interesting for me to see how it develops or see all the foreshadowing come together, it's so cathartic to me
Also, the ones that recontextualize other parts of the story are all the mlre interesting, like damn, they really thought everything through
and I love a well laid bread crumb foreshadowing, especially on a re-read to savor these little details now that I know.
Plot twist tip: If you write a plot twist - your readers don't have to know about it until it happens. I read a lot, and the number of books I read that have a major plot twist is surprisingly low. Unless you state or hint at it in the blurb, your readers probably won't know what is coming. If you make the rest of your story interesting enough, the readers' attention won't be lost, and if the plot twist is the entire hook of the story, you should probably write a more interesting story. And even if the plot twist is predictable, or someone guesses it, if the story is still enjoyable, it doesn't matter. And even if the readers already know about a potential plot twist, if you make the story interesting enough, they'll be too invested in the story to think about the plot twist too much, and won't figure out the plot twist.
absolutely agree with #1. If a movie has a great plot twist, for many people they re-watch it to see if they can find the hints. In your book, if the plot twist lands, many will want to re-read to catch all the small nods and hints to said plot twist. Also, if a plot twist is not hinted at, then comes out of the blue most people will likely see the twist as weak or a cop out because of no tangible yet subtle evidence that this was going to happen. And one last thing. WHY ARE WE TRYING TO OUTSMART OUR READERS!? like seriously, are you trying to prove you're smarter than everyone because you stumped them on your plot twist? As a writer you should want to entertain and engross your readers in the world you created and the characters inhabiting it. It should be flattering that readers pick up on the plot twist because you hooked them with your story, world building and complex characters. If you get your readers to obsess over the tiny details then you have done your job right, not wrong.
to use your analogy Jenna, if you leave no breadcrumbs for the reader to follow then at the end of the book everyone is lost and have no way out of the forest.
In terms of the breaking tropes I think there are exceptions. Breaking a promise to the viewer can be even more impactful if it is done right. An example of this is from final fantasy 7 spoilers I guess for the biggest plot twist in video game history.
About half way through the game Aerith dies. This is something that completely goes against everything we were ever told to believe about this kind of character. She’s like a Disney Princess, she DOESNT die. Not only that but she had a huge role going into the final act as the only remaining ancient. And her death isn’t special or necessarily to achieving the goal. She could do what she did alive or dead. But she dies. It’s unexpected and tragic. With cloud even trying to make sense of it by using it as motivation to track down sepheroth but it doesn’t work sephiroth actually gets what he wants and cloud only made things worse. Heck even afterwards we see characters try to make sense of her death but tifa shuts that idea down saying that it wasn’t a sacrifice she wanted to keep living she wanted to keep going. She was killed and that was it it wasn’t heroic it was somber and sad. And is one of the most remembered and spoiled plot twists in the entirety of video games.
That’s not breaking a promise to the audience, that’s subverting audience expectations, which is what a good plot twist is suppose to do. In an adventure story there’s no inherent promise that any character will survive until the end, only an expectation that the main ones will. Identifying audience expectations and subverting them without ruining their enjoyment, (i.e. not lying to them about the type of story they picked up) is the main difficulty of building a good plot twist.
@@FireFog44 ah that is true. Guess I misunderstood that
#5: When Supeman comes into contact with red kryptonite, which affects him differently every time, he becomes suddenly immune to green kryptonite; and grows a mustache.
My favorite show most likely did the "plot twist for the sake of it" during its last two seasons - in Season 8, the child was the villain for no real reason that I can see, other than it being shocking (and it explained nothing about why she was evil or how her family fit in, or even where her family are.) In Season 9, the main villain was one of the "good" characters the entire time (which believe it or not was still done as a good character's act - he wasn't secretly evil or anything, even though he started out as a Season 2 villain.)
Also, that thing about killing off the lover in a romantic story? My favorite sitcom did that, and it was pretty controversial, I'll admit, but I think they personally did it well - mainly because it was meant to show us that if a good thing ends badly, it is still a good thing (i.e. they had their time together, and that won't be taken away from them - he'll always remember his time with her), which I found a beautiful message. Not saying that this excuses it all the time, and I understand your point, and will likely follow it (as much as I loved that ending, it was still controversial to others, so they definitely took a gamble using it - and I wouldn't have minded if they'd just stayed together, either.)
i’m gonna distract readers with one more predictable plot twist so they don’t notice the real twist which is what that first twist needed to be revealed
_BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER_ TV SHOW SPOILERS
The Buffy's sister, Dawn, addition wasn't contrived. There are moments before Dawn's introduction that set her character up. Once Dawn was on the show, the writers dedicated time to getting to know her before giving exposition to how she was possible, and then tied Dawn to the arc of the season's story arc, and made it possible for her to continue past said season. Dawn Summers is a bad example that followed the rules Jenna laid down. As well as TV rules which I don't think Jenna worries about as much as book rules.
I love Cixin Liu, but there's so much of #8 in the Three-Body series. It's hard/impossible to avoid blatant exposition in such hard-leaning sci-fi, but that should be kept to the science & tech of the worldbuilding, and only as relevant (in which case, us hard sci-fi fans are here for it). But monologuing is an outright part of the Wallbreaking process.
About No 9 (predictability of the plot twist): I'd go one step further and say the plot twist being predictable is not only not the greatest sin, it isn't a sin at all unless the twist becomes so painfully obvious that it makes your characters look dumb for not figuring it out sooner (or makes the reader bored because he gets tired of the heroes investigating red herrings that are obviously irrelevant). As long as it is still enjoyable to watch the heroes struggle and there are still some real stakes in their actions when you know of the plot twist, figuring it out in advance is not a problem. It's great when your reader slaps their brow and thinks "OMG, it all makes sense now, how could I have missed that!" when the plot twist is revealed, but for the reader, it's at least equally satisfying if they can instead think "Hah! I knew it!" in that moment.
This is especially true for plot twists that the reader doesn't guess because of in story logic, but because of story and genre expectations. E.g. if you have a seemingly obvious suspect in a murder mystery early on, the reader will always expect them to NOT actually be the murderer, because murder mystery stories are required to be tough to figure out for the detective, so the real villain cannot be someone whom we'd immediately suspect because of overwhelming evidence that points in their direction. But we wouldn't fault the hero for suspecting that guy, because the hero doesn't know he's in a murder mystery story and in real life the obvious suspect in most cases actually is the culprit.
Thank you so much for this🤣
Any advice for my plot twist? It's sort of a murder mystery. The main character has a strange prophetic dream (happens a few times in the story) where he's being killed by an unknown attacker. He later finds the body of the second-in-command by the river, killed in the same way MC died in the dream. He realizes someone murdered the second-in-command. A few others blame him because he was the one that found the body, so he sets out to solve the murder to clear his name and prove himself as part of his clan. The suspects are this girl from another clan who was close friends with the victim, the victim's partner, the new second-in-command, and a highly respected member of the clan. In the end, it turns out to be the highly respected member, who is MC's teacher, as well as MC's best friend's dad. The problem is, he's supposed to seem charismatic, intelligent, and valiant despite having a fairly short temper. But the way I wrote him, he's just plain rude to MC immediately, doubting his ability. I want him to seem a bit annoyed by MC, while still seeming like someone MC could look up to (as MC sees him as a role model). I'm struggling to find that balance, and I'd love any sort of help!
I loved the plot twist in the Savior's Champion however I had seen that plot twist in other stories so I saw it coming but still loved how it came together
Yeah, it was a bit obvious from the start. My GF even picked it up from a 30 second synopsis I did of the first few chapters. There was only one moment of doubt later in the book... I think she have needed a few more false demonstrations of power early to send the reader away from the big reveal.
That said, I still got the second one to see it all again from the other side. It was an interesting approach to the structure of the series, a little like an early Tarantino movie.
I love the language you use in your videos! It seems more like a friend offering advice, rather than a stuffy professor giving you a lesson!
My strategy for the villain monologue: they're explaining their plan to try and convince the hero that the hero isn't in danger from it, thereby invalidating the hero's need to fight them (whether they think it'll work or not). Backup plan: knowing the villain's scheme doesn't help the hero stop it, and the villain's just tormenting the hero with that realization for da evulz.
"Did you think I'm some comic book villain? I wouldn't tell you my plan if there was even the slightest chance you could affect the outcome. I did it 35 minutes ago" -- Ozymandias. Paraphrased because I haven't seen the movie in over a decade.
Plot twist: the villain told them a fake plan knowing the hero will likely escape.
Perhaps they even trick the hero into providing the needed ingredient for the plan to work... now they get to monologue for real.
@@GnarledStaff Oh I like this!
I actually have a few plot twist in the series I’m writing, but as of me watching this video, I’m starting to notice a trend with my twists. Some of them involve villain reveals of characters related to the main cast. Like they’re deliberate and they have purpose aside from just shocking the readers and hurting the main cast, but it’s still pretty wild
Puffin Forest: It was... Some other guy! Yeah this sounded a lot better in my head than it did when I did it.
Am sick right now and got so much comfort from your initial hello. Promises I am about to watch a great video.
You should also make sure the pay off in your "twist" is better then what your audience was originally expecting.
A perfect example of this failing is the Last Jedi.
The movie really builds up that Holdo is going to turn out to be a villain. This gets poe to send rose and finn to another planet to find a locksmith to seak on bord the enimes ship while Poe leads a munity. For a big chunk of the movie we spend a lot of time on a casino planet that dosen't add much to the story. All while building up that Holdo is evil and for big fight with her. Then in a "twist" not only dose the plan NOT work but Holdo was right whole time and poe was just an idiot. Making everything we watched pointless filler that wasted our time.
In the same movie, fans had been waiting for decades to see luke skywalker fight at his full power. Many were also looking forward to seeing him play the part of a mentor to a new jedi. Instead, in a "twist", we see him mope around, drink alien t*t milk and when he finally dose fight it isn't actually him fighting.
In both cases, many in the audience found themselves preferring what they were expecting in their heads then what was delivered to them. Leaving them feeling underwhelmed and disappointed. You never want to build up something that sounds more exciting then what your planning to give. That will piss people off and they might start to become better writers then you.
First off, what is the point in saying tit milk? Most milk comes from there unless it is from a plant. Second, that is the fans fault for expecting something that was never hinted at in the beginning. If Luke was going to do anything in the story, they wouldn’t of had him show up in the few seconds of the first movie. Which means what? He isn’t the main character of the story and means nothing. I have never read a story where the main heir of the story shows up nearly half way through the story. If anyone though Luke was still going to be the hero, they are the idiots for believing that when there was nothing there to suggest that he was. It was clear from the get go that he wasn’t. He left an incomplete map for people to find him and made that hard, he left and told no one where he was going, and he left when he knew things where going to hit the fan and washed his hands of it. This was made clear in the first movie. Luke was almost not in his prime either…. That was in whatever the name of the 3rd movie released was. So fans already fucking got to see him fight at one of his best. I’m not a SW fan and I know this shit. Only know it because my partner loves it, watches it, and tortures me with that poorly written thought out crap. I don’t get why everyone loves it so much. Every time I ever hear anyone talk about SW they almost never have anything good to say about it expect for the first movie ever released which gets mindlessly praised. Which I still don’t get. The romance was forced and gross, the pacing was terrible, acting was terrible except for 2 guys, the writing was cringe AF. The only thing it had was the graphics which was crazy for the time of it’s release. All it is is mediocre crap that for popular because of timing of release and graphics. People love it for the blind nostalgia they have for it and then wonder why everything else is just crap.
Great analysis & I totally agree, please ignore the extremely bothered dude above lmao
@@klausd.6285
Fans did not expect Luke to be the hero of the sequel story. They did expect him to be heroic though.
This expectation is built up through the previous 6 movies, which is why a lot of fans missed the foreshadowing in episode 7.
Yes, #7 did foreshadow Luke having given up. However, this violated the genre expectations that all fans had going in. A Star Wars movie is a space Opera about good space wizards being tempted to become evil space wizards and epic battles in space. There are expectations around what a hero or villai should be.
Luke being a disappointment could have worked except that it is a terrible extension of Luke's character arc and does not fit the foreshadowing of the previous 6 movies.
The audience expected Luke to be powerful. They could have accepted him cutting himself off from the rebels because he no longer believed in their cause. They could have accepted Luke becoming a sith lord and being stranded on the planet by a student who wished to save the galaxy from him. He disnt have to remain a good guy. But they expected him to be important and interesting.
They were not prepared for a pathetic and weak Luke Skywalker.
And this was intentional. Disney was intentionally mocking people like your partner for being immersed in the original trilogy. Teasing them for caring about a character. They intentionally made Luke act excessively childish just to hurt the fans as much as they could. This was not set up as a plot twist, this was set up as a cruel joke.
Sure, Star wars has never been particularly outstanding in terms of writing and acting. But the original series writing is not "cringy AF", its at worse "generic".
As for why Star Wars was popular to begin with? It was generic enough for everyone to relate to it. It had sufficiently interesting characters- Han Solo- as well as characters that people could relate to- Luke and Leia. There was mystery, there was romance. It had enough of everything that it was attractive to most people.
It was also high fantasy.
This is important. High fantasy was not really a thing taken seriously in Hollywood. It still isn't.
To really understand what the high fantasy fan had to deal with you need to watch the 1978 Lord of the Rings movie and realize that was the best you could expect of medieval fantasy from that time period. If you wanted to see another world full of different nonhuman fantasy species you had to read a goddamned book and imagine it with your mind.
Star Wars proved that a fantasy setting with real looking nonhumams could be popular. That was worth a lot back then.
Edit: also, the logic detailing the setting between episode 6 and 7 was so poorly thought out that I think a lot of people just assumed that the hints that Luke was dropping were just part of the terrible writing rather than real foreshadowing.
Things like the first order taking charge and having more resources after years of war, the Leia being a rebel leader instead of the leader of a major faction of planets, and stormtroopers not immediately taking care of a guy who is showing obvious signs of not being properly brainwashed all shatter the suspension of disbelief if you think about them amd kinda forced fans to not think about them so they could enjoy the movie.
As for Luke's behavior being reasonable for someone in his position... that can be argued but there are some serious flaws with that argument.
1. Genre expectations. Luke had already passed the ultimate moral trial so it felt wrong for him to fail a second moral trial- plis it happens offscreen.
2. Bad writing. Luke's story didnt really fit with the actual setting of episode 7. How did incompetent Kylo Ren beat Luke and murder all the apprentices... but left Luke alive? Kid couldnt beat an untrained swordswoman who didn't understand the force.
3. Luke's personality. The Luke Skywalker we knew would have felt duty bound to fix his mistake and go kill Kylo Ren. Why is he letting his mistake threaten the galaxy rather than addressing it. The conclusion he seems to have come to was that there should be no Jedi... but he is suddenly a passive character who is unwilling to work towards any goals.
4. Time. Ok, so lets say Luke did mope around a bit... he should still have snapped out of it in the decade or more since the event.
5. Support group. Luke has the literal ghost of his mentors to talk to. All he had to do was talk to them once. The show writers had to make them disappear for his behavior to be even remotely possible. If he had the willpower to prevent yoda from appearing as a ghost why didn't he have the willpower to be active about any of his actual problems?
In short, while it is possible for Luke to have become what he became in the sequels it was a highly improbable outcome that relies on him undoing his entire character arc and personality traits from the 3 movies he was in.
He is no longer an active character.
He no longer wants to be part of the rebellion.
He no longer trusts the force.
He no longer cares about people's suffering.
He no longer is willing to risk himself to save his friends.
He is no longer a jedi.
He is no longer wise.
He no longer has access to his mentor's ghost.
The character was no longer the Luke Skywalker that people grew up with. And they were promised Luke would be in the films.
“A plot twist is like a fart, if you’ve got to force it’s probably shit” 😂 iconique
The cat only lives with the grandma part time. That's why the cat has a neighbor who isn't the grandma's neighbor.
If you gotta force it, it's probably shit. 😂 That's actually hilarious.
well, i think that’s the problem with quests in my book 😅 i haven’t planned them from the very beginning so i threw shitty plot twists in them… so i’ll take note of this and try to improve it 😅 (i’m now halfway through my first book’s story and it’s improving at a fast rate ! i think it will not release as soon as i planned but it will definitely… even if it could take years because of the amount of mistakes i have to correct before publishing it [especially in the first chapters]… so i’m trying hard to make great character plot twists and side quests {because this is how the story will progress the most in the first half… that’s why i’m struggling with that part 😅} but now i’m geared up to correct what i messes up, thanks a lot. without help my book wouldn’t be as great as i wanted it to be, and even if i started ambitious i’m going to work it through and through until it is finally great. i already have so many ideas for the future chapters and the ending will definitely be something… that’s what i was good at in the first place 😅 i mostly struggled with the place between the beginning and the middle because i had to introduce too many things to get to the real point of the story and many things got out of hand quickly… so yeah 😅 i have work to do but i’ll do my best… i don’t want to miss the potential of it so i have to get as much advice as possible for the first half)
So excited for you Jenna so excited for you! Yay!! 💙
CONGRATULATIONS on New writing craft book!
Tysm I started rethinking some parts of a book I was thinking of making
OMG "A plot twist is like a fart..." I died! So awesome!
Thanks for this!
I'm writing a fic in the Transformers universe where the main character is a Blacksmith. Her workshop appears to be in a cave inside a mesa. But little hints dropped here and there point to the twist: she actually built her workshop inside sub-space. It's just anchored to the cavern so she has access to the Energon below. She can pull the anchor and put it anywhere she likes, or simply leave it free-floating in wherever sub-space sits. However...you don't find this out until Pt 4. 😂
One of my favourites is the double plot twist, that is way more harder to do, more and less, the reader is directed to certain direction or character, and you think that the antagonist, to then, after the story seems to be finish the protagonist realise that a piece is missing, and then the whole puzzle is reveal, and the real antagonist appears. A good case of this is The Usual Suspects, where the writing goes to Keaton being Keyser Soze only to reveal that Verbal King was Keyser Soze the whole time.
Thanks Jenna
4:07 Obviously one can both leave breadcrumbs and "make shit up as one goes" by the expedient of writing chapters between those already there. And (perfectly doable on the internet) re-writing chapters prior to the twist which were already there prior to thinking of it.
Plus, in a fan fic, like the one I'm making, I can profit from CSL's breadcrumbs.
Don't break this rule. Next rule.
Break the rules.
😂😂😂
Plot twist, made this video so you have to watch it 5 times 😂
I pre ordered Shut Up And Write the book! 😀
8:14 Just remembered Homestuck epilogues and later material, pretty much it. Great video!
Do you always need a plot twist? Cause I hear you can turn out like M. Night Shyamalan.
Plot twist: There *was* no plot twist.
@@therealmaizing5328 *dramatic chipmunk meme*
Thank you so much you're so help full
I love how the past three thumbnails our lil dogo is chillin in the bed
3:20 … readers hate that much of a plot twist . Same as movies
Was doing a fanfic thing and going through how all of the characters reacted to a thing. One of them piped up with "and then I stab them in the back!" and I'm like wtf, you can't... oh, oh no...
Had to figure out a reasonable reason why they would do that, figure out how to imply it without directly stating anything that could be steam rolled later by future cannon, and then seed the entire thing with stuff implying that that character was up to something and involved the other character they were going to shiv, without out and out showing that they were planning something like that, so the entire thing didn't just drop out of the sky like a giant alien space flea from outer space.
I'm told it actually worked, but it was a lot of gray hairs getting there.
I feel like I missed approximately half of the explanations because I was trying to see what the print on Jenna's shirt was... help? 😭
In the words of TWA aka Terrible Writing Advice (aka don't use this): "Do I foreshadow this plot-twist at all? No, because then the audience might see my plot twist coming and that's bad because then I won't get to show them just how smart I am."
Best plot twist of all time? Found in the novel 'Ender's Game.'
Honorable mention plot twist? Who the half-blood Prince was in JK Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.'
I think the surprise twin twist can be done well, but its very difficult. the only time I’ve seen it done well is gravity falls and black butler
8:20 LOLOLOL Someone reminds me of my sense of humor in high school.
My bread crumbs in my movie at the start of the movie, our friend dies in a car crash, but she has scissors in her pocket and then later in the movie she comes back at the killer So shefake her death, and she used the scissors in her pocket
Love your videos, you are amazing
The first piece of advice is probably the best one in my opinion. One book I was reading had the biggest fucking plot twist I’ve ever seen and they kept giving hints, but the thing is the hints they gave didnt make it predictable. (Tgcf black water arc)
I have a story I'm writing. Where there is obviously something up with the MC. But she doesn't know herself since she doesn't remember (not obvious amnesia since the memories are from childhood and she didn't notice she lacked them) and I am dropping hints though they are not enough to lead to a clear conclusion just the assumption that she is not who she thinks she is. But there is another plot twist coming. Because once she figures out what she is missing and remembers, she will think. That her entire og family is dead (grief and anger enssues) but suddenly the bad guy reveals that he is (possessing -evil entity like-) one of her thought dead family members. I don't know how much I want to hint towards that second plot twist...
Would it still be a romance story when the first plot twist sees a death, then a few chapters later, the remaining person(s) of the romance traveling to the afterlife to reconnect?
YAY SO EXCITED! 😀😀💓💓
The entire video I was screaming Pretty Little Liars (the tv show at least, I haven't read the books yet) but seriously all of these apply to PLL... And it still had me gripped 😅😂
'If you have to force it, it's probably SHIT".
Good advice!
Illustrating the "lost sister" trope with Buffy & Dawn is a heresy of highest degree. Dawn is a great subversion of that trope.