How to hide plot twists from both your readers and your characters in a way that is not frustrating or annoying.
So I was watching a book review for a book that I liked but both loved and hated some of the plot twists. Of course this got me thinking about plot twists and why they work for both readers and the characters that are falling for these plot twists.
Readers
The key is to control the information that your readers have. Your readers aren’t going to consider an option unless (1) that twist is really common for your genre and that reader has read that genre a lot and will therefore be expecting it or (2) you have very obviously given them the specific information nessesary to unintentionally figure out the twist before the characters.
Why does this information stand out, you may be wondering. It is because there is nothing else going on to distract away from a piece of information that can seem meaningless with the right context.
Most of the time, if you’re not writing a very specific plot line with a very specific genre, your reader isn’t going to immediately know where the plot is going so they may not be looking out for the information relevant to a later plot twist, so as long as you justify an informational choice that explains a later plot twist in a way that covers a variety of basis, they’re probably not going to pick up on the one piece you left out, aka what is going to make this twist fun.
This piece of information should be something small and unassuming. It can be magical, but if you’re writing fantasy that magic has to be hidden really really well. I find that a plot twist works the best when the piece of information that is missing is something you wouldn’t really think about, like the reason a prince was able to infiltrate a prison and hide his identity was because he had his cousin standing in for him and we don’t know that this cousin existed and knew the limits of that world’s magic (this is actually a plot twist that fooled me btw despite how obvious at sounds now).
A good plot twist that fools the reader relies on twisting the information that the reader has and therefore twisting how they think the story will go.
Midway sidenote: not every plot twist needs to exist to fool both the reader and the character, sometimes it is really fun to watch a character fail because of something inherent to that character.
Characters
Remember how I said sometimes it’s really fun to watch a character fail. That only works sometimes.
It is more annoying to figure out a plot twist that is really obvious and then have the character miss it because the author said so.
So how does a writer pull this off?
Be intentional. Have an idea in mind of when you want the reader to figure it out and ask your beta readers when they figured out your plot twists to control that as much as you can.
Your character does not know which genre they’re in, so you have to both get inside the character’s head and take the reader along with you so they understand why this character is making these poor choices and missing the most obvious villain in the room.
Why would a character miss a plot twist?
They are distracted or delusional. Characters have goals and they may ignore their better judgments to achieve these goals based on their personality. Put more emphasis on your character’s motives to hide information that may make plot twists more obvious. Also, your characters may use information about their world to explain their motives and this information may also be vital to understanding a later plot twist
The average person does not go around thinking everybody around them is out to get them especially if those people seem incapable of that through the pov character’s ego or the other character’s demeanor. If your character has known somebody for a really long time or knows a piece of information that is vital to the worldview they’re probably not going to immediately discard it. Fun fact: in the real world, when people have their views disputed, even with very good evidence, it can make them more likely to hold on to that old belief.
Expectation of harm. Different characters have different experiences with shape how bad they think things can get. For example, if a character has never experienced something, they may not know what can lead to that thing. (FYI older characters are more likely to know more things so be careful with this one.)
The Twist
For a twist to work, it must make sense with both real world and in world knowledge as well as common sense, so keep this in mind as you plan.
Conclusion
This isn’t comprehensive because good plot twists require a lot of information to make them work and that’s makes them very specific. While I would love to explain why different plot twists work, part of them working is them fooling you and hindsight bias is kind of a thing.
Keep writing. If a plot twist just isn’t working either scrap it or let it sit until you have the information to build reasons why it should work.
I've recently finished my first draft and I'm ready to get to work on the second.
My autism makes it hard to use those "tips and tricks" people usually have, so I thought about working out a step by step for myself instead, but I have no clue where to start?
Hope you can help or point me in the right direction, as I'm at my wits end.
I don’t have any grand secrets, unfortunately. I’ve attempted to read many, many books on editing, trying to discover the secret that I appear to be missing, but none of them really helps. Note the big changes first, they say. Fix the little things after.
But when everything seems like it’s a mess, I don’t know how to distinguish between big fixes and small ones. In the end, everything needs to be fixed, and I just have to slog through. However, there are some things that work for me, as frustratingly slow as they can be:
First make sure you’re ready to edit.
Sometimes you have to trunk that book for a lot longer than you think. You have to give your brain a long enough break from it in order for new ideas to be formed. Put it away, as long as you can, and give your brain a break. Coming to your story fresh is the best way to start.
This doesn’t sound like it works, and believe me, the temptation to dive right back into the book after a week or so is high, but give yourself decent break. Read some books, watch some movies. Shake up those weary creative drives in your brain for up to a month or more before you take another crack at it.
(If you’re not tackling a large product, you can wait for a shorter period of time, probably. The longer the book or novel, the more of a rest you should have. If you’re writing a fanfic chapter by chapter, the temptation to post immediately is high. Don’t do it! Let it rest for a couple of days before reviewing it. You’ll thank yourself later.)
Have an outline.
If you didn’t start with an outline while drafting, laying out your plot where you can see it will really help you figure out what threads need strengthening. My favorite technique is flashcards and sticky notes that have a short summary of the chapter or scene. Both can be easily rearranged, removed, or shuffled about.
If you have a multiple POVs, color-coding your chapters can help you lay out how much progress each character has made and what areas of the story might need shoring up.
Another thing that can be of help is reworking character sheets or notes. I’ve been struggling with a particular character who I adore, but who’s motivation I’ve been having trouble nailing. For this draft, I’ve been able to figure out what the thorn in their side was and write a much stronger story for them as a result.
Slog through from the beginning.
Yes, some people can dive right into those problem areas. Boo to those people, I say. Boo. For me, the only thing that works is to start from the beginning and work through each chapter at a time. Yes, this does involve getting stuck on how to fix things. There is a lot of dramatic lying on floors and pestering my completely bewildered cat when I hit a wall.
But starting at the beginning allows me to see where I need to slot in elements I only started to figure out later in the book. It allows me to weave in foreshadowing and pick up subplots at the right places, rather than throwing them in when I think of them. This method may mean you’ll have redraft a few times, and yes, I have to start from the beginning each time. But it does work, even if it takes time.
Just don’t ask how many drafts I’ve done of this damn book I’m working on.
violets-are-the-answer: by “big things” people usually mean plotholes that have been previously overlooked and the little things are weak paragraphs and grammar. the reason it’s in this order is because if your plothole requires you to rewrite a chapter, you want to wait to edit the grammar of that chapter until after it’s been rewritten, lest you edit the whole thing twice.
I mean I get this, and I’m pretty sure the @jisabeau does too, but quite unfortunately, it’s not how my brain works. I may be able to figure out where those plotholes are with an overview glance, but I won’t be able to fix them unless I go through the book page by page, chapter by chapter - and while I’m doing that I can’t not fix bad grammar or tweak a sentence, even if I will throw it out later.
And maybe that is how a lot of people edit! I cannot be sure I am not doing things very differently than other people, it just seems that way. I just know with writing advice, the most important kind is what works for you. If the wide circle, overhead approach to editing is the better way to do it, great! I will plod along with my color-coded notes, because they work for me. Whatever gets you a finished novel!
I’d also add that the best way to edit for your will depend on the sort of thing you struggle with in your writing.
For me, one of my biggest issues is pacing, which is at least in part because I rarely outline before/during my first draft. And so one of my first steps when editing is often to reverse outline my novel so I can see how it looks pacing-wise. I do this in Word with bullets, because that’s how my brain works, but you can do index cards, etc.
If you’re not sure if you’ve dropped plotlines or arcs, you can map out each arc separately. If you’re not confident in the timeline, you can try to map it out that way.
On the other hand, if you’d be best served by doing a full read-through of your document to start, you can do that. Sometimes I’ll do that and leave in-line comments to myself on any sort of thing I flag, big or small, without letting myself start making language changes. That lets me gather the totality of my thoughts and let me make a plan for what to update before I start going down a road of making changes I might need to delete later.
women should lift weights because it prevents osteoporosis in old age and makes you a more capable person in everyday life please shut up about butts and waists and hourglasses i’m going to fucking kill
;___;♡♡♡♡
genuine question from someone who would rather chew their arm off than go to a public gym, and also doesnt have a lot of money: how do you safely get into strength training? are there youtube channels, apps (android), etc anyone recommends that makes it approachable and don’t lean into diet culture / body shaming?
also the biggest thing that keeps me from working out is that I already have joint and spinal issues and moving the wrong way can fuck up a knee or a shoulder or my spine for days. I really don’t want to injure myself, and have unwittingly done so before. resources that are extremely clear on exactly how to move and offer gentler / alternative ways to move for people with limited range are vital.
Okay, so this may not technically be strength training, but muscles are dumber than bricks and cannot tell the difference between your own bodyweight and actual weights.
He runs a YouTube channel where he goes over how to work your way up to more complex exercises (for instance, his pull-ups videos start with using a door jamb and moving your weight back and forth) so it’s good for easing yourself into things.
I recently discovered laundry stripping and y’all, no matter how much of a crock of shit you think fast fashion is, you’re underestimating.
[image ID: a screenshot of the notes on this post, featuring several people indicating they want to know more. End ID.]
OKAY SO. You know how we talk about how one way fast fashion has made itself “necessary” is that the clothing looks like shit and feels horrible after just a few washes?
Let. Me. Tell. You. Something.
Laundry stripping is a process where you load your laundry into a tub or bin (I’ve been using my bathtub) with warm water, half a cup of borax, half a cup of washing soda, and half a cup of laundry soap (not detergent, SOAP, there’s a chemical difference). Leave it there for at least eight hours. I’ve been going for 12-24.
What you will come back to is a tub full of nearly-opaque black-gray-brown water that absolutely REEKS. This is normal. You are looking at (and smelling) hard water buildup, body sweat and oils that were embedded in the fabric, dead skin, and just regular grime.
Wring out your clothes. Throw them in the washer. (I like to do a spin-only cycle before going any further, because I have one of those washers that determines by weight how much water any given load needs.) Wash as usual.
You will notice I didn’t suggest any further pretreatment, and that’s because 1) you don’t want to layer too many chemicals on top of each other but also 2) you may not even need it.
When your clothes come out, check each one as it goes into the dryer, and if anything else s still stained, set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment. One of the sweaters I did this with apparently did need a second treatment…to deal with what appears to have possibly been a hot chocolate stain that was previously invisible due to “well, it’s old” dinginess. Iwasplanning to throw this sweater out. It looks almost new now. I need to wash it one more time for the probably-a-hot-chocolate stain, and then it needs to have the hem weighted to block it and bring it back to evenness, but dude. I wear my clothes to rags and I thought this thing was unfixable. “I need to reshape it” is nothing.
Remove clothes from dryer when done. Fucking MARVEL at the colors and how good the fabric feels. Give them a smell. Get righteously and royally angry that you can rejuvenate this stuff so easily, with a process that does take awhile but is 90% hands-off, but we’ve been trained to believe it’s all got to be binned once a year because discoloration and gross fabric is “normal wear and tear” and can’t be fixed.
It’s utterly unreal! I just pulled a seven-year-old work undershirt out of the dryer and this thing looks NEW!! It FEELS almost new!!! One of the shirts I hung up from the last load is older than some of the people on this site and it went from “I keep this to wear on laundry day, for sentimental reasons” to “I could actually wear this out of the house, it looks old but respectable”! The pajama bottoms I’m wearing were from Goodwill and they have BRIGHT YELLOW in them! I thought it was goldenrod!!
I do not know how often you’re supposed to do this (doing it every time can strip the dye out of your clothes, not to mention it’s way too much work to do every time), but once or twice per season seems respectable. I don’t wear white, so I can’t test the “it will make whites look almost-new as well” claim, but I’ve seen a lot of people on the cleaning subreddit attest that it works.
Just remember: WASHING soda. Not baking soda. I tried baking soda and a little bit happened, but not a lot.
Go forth. Rejuvenate your clothing. Strip your laundry.
I have a question about the “set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment” bit: What is your regular pretreatment?
For grease: Dawn dish soap and a toothbrush. For blood: soak in peroxide, rinse, apply more peroxide. For ink: alcohol. Rubbing alcohol is best, vodka is an acceptable substitute. Do not use colored liquor like tequila or whiskey. Aerosol hairspray will work in a pinch. For red wine or grape juice: white wine. For “what the fuck is that, anyway?” stains: OxyClean Max Force Gel Stick. For “oh shit, there was a red shirt in with my whites” stains: I’m very sorry. Try bleach?
Spot-apply all of these. In other words don’t just toss your period panties into a sink full of peroxide, pour some peroxide over the crotch. Apply alcohol with a cotton facial pad or, failing that, a washcloth or kleenex.
Let it sit for five to fifteen minutes, then throw it in the wash. Try to use cold water; hot water will set stains.
