Twists

One of the things people talk about most frequently when it comes to their favorite stories is the big twist, or the many twists, or how the twists twist your expectations in twisted ways that twist your mind. There's something about something unexpected happening that changes the entire course of the story that grabs our attention and latches onto our minds, making it hard to think about anything else that happened in the story. Which is funny, because we only know that it's a twist because of the other things that took place in the story, because knowing the other events is what makes the twist that pulls the story in a different direction so shocking and memorable.

But twists have to be very carefully planned, which I don't think really occurs to a lot of people. That's why some stories are amazing because of how many twists they have, while others are terrible for the exact same reason. In essence, for twists in a story to work, a number of things have to occur with them. First of all, you have to look at the two sides of the twist as though they are two separate stories. As though they were written as such, and then fused together like two pieces of glass being melted and pushed together under the flame until they are seamlessly put together. And both of those stories have to be of a certain quality on their own. If one is significantly better than the other, than that fusion will only emphasize the difference, and make one piece worse by comparison.

Secondly, the transition from one story to the next must be done smoothly. I mean, there are a number of ways you can do it. Whether your twist is abrupt, long built up, well hinted at or out of nowhere, it really depends on your story. But the transition needs to make some resemblance of sense. It has to show how your stories are connected, or if you're going for more of a mystery, make your audience want to know how or why it occurred, rather than how or why you thought it was a good idea. There needs to be some level of mesh that makes it so your stories add to each other.

And that last sentiment is the most important. Your stories, when mashed together, need to add to each other. The changes that occur have to give some kind of meaning to the other events that have already been transpiring, or that transpired early on. To give meaning to things that didn't before make sense, or that you didn't even realize were important. That thing from way back then was all because of this? That's the kind of feeling you want your audience to have. And I feel like in most twists, that's something that the author goes for, but without really thinking it through. It doesn't actually make sense when you put it into perspective, which is hard to see as an author when you spend so much time in the story. It's something that you either really need to step back in order to see, or have someone else see for you.

Twists are hard. They're like trying to twist metal with your bare hands. It's really difficult, takes years of practice, is really impressive if you can do it, and everyone wants to be able to. But when someone tries to do it who doesn't know how? It can be pretty off putting, to put it mildly. Which is why we practice endlessly...