@mercblues asks:
@VikRubenfeld what's the best way to introduce a plot twist without giving too much away? #mycurrentproblem
— Amy H (@mercblues) August 5, 2015
I asked:
@VikRubenfeld Yes, I'm trying to set up main character w/some mystery to who he is for the reader but not a mystery to the other characters
— Amy H (@mercblues) August 5, 2015
I replied:
@mercblues This is an excellent question. Since u hashtagged #mycurrentproblem, here is an immediate answer—>#amwriting
— Vik Rubenfeld (@VikRubenfeld) August 5, 2015
@mercblues —>You must of course intro the facts that make sense of the twist.—>
— Vik Rubenfeld (@VikRubenfeld) August 5, 2015
@mercblues —>Each of these facts must be introduced as having a completely understandable reason for being in your story—>
— Vik Rubenfeld (@VikRubenfeld) August 5, 2015
@mercblues —>So as to not give away that they're setting up a twist.—>
— Vik Rubenfeld (@VikRubenfeld) August 5, 2015
@mercblues —>E.g. in Sixth Sense, twist that main char turns out to be a ghost is set up by many previous conversations—>
— Vik Rubenfeld (@VikRubenfeld) August 5, 2015
@mercblues —>he has with people in the movie that are perfectly justified as being in the story when they happen.—>
— Vik Rubenfeld (@VikRubenfeld) August 5, 2015
@mercblues —>When twist comes, looking back on those conversations, we see nobody was aware Bruce was there at all.—>
— Vik Rubenfeld (@VikRubenfeld) August 5, 2015
@VikRubenfeld Thank you for the answers… this helps ALOT.
— Amy H (@mercblues) August 5, 2015
You’re very welcome, Amy!
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2 Comments on “How to Set Up a Twist Without Giving Too Much Away”
You should also notice that the clues aren’t delivered in the same scene. Introduce things in different chapters.
Suppose you intend to introduce a superstorm as your twist. Try and offhand comment: “We always have calm weather in Littleville” in chapter one. In chapter four, yYour MC glances over the headlines, including, “Scientist claims supercells could form in the midwest.”
Shortly before the storm, a conversation:
MC: Maybe you should take your umbrella. It smells like rain.
Friend: I heard it on the radio, sunny with clear skies for the next week. He’s never wrong.
I usually break a “set-up”statement into the elements that form the whole so that the reader/viewer must assemble the pieces of the set-up themselves. This gets them into the story on a more personal level as they decipher the clue(s).An easy, but in-your-face example would be a character putting chemicals together over several scenes and finally realizing the combination is a bomb. Add a time constraint and you’ll have some great Hitchcockian suspense.