T/F: What makes a good plot twist

[DokiDokiTsuna]

"If fans guess your plot twist, it means you've laid the groundwork for it to be believable. The point of a twist is to enrich a story, not feel superior for outsmarting your audience."

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I can see both sides of this, but honestly I'm more inclined to agree with the above quote than not.

Firstly, because everyone's mind works differently: if you have a large enough audience, the odds that not even ONE of them will have any idea what you're gonna do next are ridiculously small. Some may just be clever enough to read the subtle clues you leave along the way; some may just go "hey, you know what'd be cool" and guess it by chance. Stories are based on logic, not randomness; there are only so many directions they can take and still make sense...

All that is to say, there's no such thing as a foolproof plot twist, so there's nothing wrong with someone being able to guess it. As long as they're in the minority, not the majority...y'know, so it can actually qualify as a plot twist.

Secondly..."un-guessable" plot twists aren't always all they're cracked up to be. I recently re-watched a series that ended with a plot twist so insane it fooled me the second time, too. The events of the entire episode ended up being just a ruse to trap the main antagonist...and at the end they actually went back through the story to show the viewers how it really went down.

That's supposed to be the fun part, right? Looking back at the story and seeing the clues you didn't see the first time...but, at least in this instance, I didn't like what I saw.

The 'tricks' just felt too unfair...sure, the MC was acting out of character, but not totally out of character...there was at least one episode a season where she got vindictive and the other characters had to talk her down; why should we be suspicious of this behavior now??

Sure, we never actually saw the deaths of the characters that were "assassinated", but what we saw looked enough like death to fool anyone (that was the whole point). Guy gets strangled and passes out, guy gets his throat slit and collapses, guy is forced to drink poison, convulses, coughs up blood and goes limp...how are we supposed to think "oh, they're not actually dead?" Like, how??

It felt like a series of instances in which the camera just conveniently switched scenes to keep us in the dark (aided by the introduction of a couple new death-faking gadgets apparently created specifically for the episode...god knows where the characters even got them from), not a trail of clues that anyone could reasonably be expected to follow.

Like any good story element, I really think a plot twist needs buildup: you gotta have at least one moment where the viewers go "wait a minute...that's kind of weird" that they can use to seed a reasonable doubt.

[IdiotWithPencil]

"If fans guess your plot twist, it means you've laid the groundwork for it to be believable. The point of a twist is to enrich a story, not feel superior for outsmarting your audience."

somebody pass this on to D&D, after what they did to GoT they need all the writing help they can get

[vothnthorvaldson]

I'd say it's mostly true, for me.
I think the good compromise is to make it possible to guess, but only to careful readers. If it's very very obvious then that's not a twist. And depending on circumstances, it can even be bad storytelling.

But if the twist is coming out of nowhere... well, there are circumstances that makes it work. There are events that cannot be predicted, and if one try to foreshadow them, it may feel artificial or tacky.
But most times, it possible to let a few hints for careful readers.

(That's my feeling as a reader. As a creator, I'm not really doing large plot twists).

[Iris-Grimoire]

You can't be TOO obvious to the point the reader feels they've already thought of the whole story already, but yeah, it's more important to be a believable twist rather than... ugh... subverting expectations. Someone who thinks their entire story hinges on a gotcha moment really hasn't taken an honest look at their fans or the stories that they like themselves; sometimes knowing that X will reveal themselves as the villain makes the emotional engagement even stronger, as the audience cries that their heroic favorite is walking into a trap but can't reach out and tell them.

[IndigoShirtProd]

"If fans guess your plot twist, it means you've laid the groundwork for it to be believable. The point of a twist is to enrich a story, not feel superior for outsmarting your audience."

I agree with the second sentence of this quote. The first sentence is debatable. If your fans have guessed your plot twist, it could mean you laid the groundwork and made it believable, but it could also mean the twist was so telegraphed that it would be more surprising if people didn't guess it.

I like the plot twist where a throw away line or scene is the only tip off. It allow for more than enough surprise, but also a reasonable explanation.

[DiegoPalacios]

In my opinion a good plot twist should give a "yes" to both of these questions:

1-Does it makes the story better?

2-Does it makes sense in hindsight?

Foreshadowing is important for a twist to work. At the same time, it is a subtle interaction you have with your readers. Dropping those hints opens space for speculation and theories. If it is too on the nose, everyone will see it comming and may sabotage the sense of surprise, however, a lack of foreshadowing makes the twist feel unplanned.

[hannahlaine]

Ok so my vote is false but not because I feel like the author should feel superior for outsmarting the audience.
I feel like a good plot twist has tiny bits of foreshadowing leading up to it that usually go unnoticed by the reader. Then when the plot twist happens the reader is surprised by it but immediately looks back and goes "oh yeah!" occasionally, if the reader is looking for foreshadowing, they see the plot twist coming, or at least part of it. But some small portion of the twist needs to be a surprise.

I think the reader should have a sense of where the story is going, but it would be very boring to read something and already know what is about to happen.

However, if you are trying to just outsmart and feel superior over your audience, you have missed the mark completely.

[Iris-Grimoire]

Wait, but that's what OP is saying, you agree then.

I think a better term shouldn't be guess, but figure out. If I guess the mole because they keep questioning the hero's motives, and I'm not using a previous personality cue of a manipulative person, then I'm going off of tropes. If I figure out because they were previously seen as manipulative or we're told to be looking for the mole who'll discourage the hero and they fit that clue, then yes, the author laid the proper ground work.

Playing with expectations works on the guesses and assumptions, but not what's already there. Let's say, the whole story seems to say Bob is the bad guy, but as it turns out, the theme of the story is not to follow appearances - and while Bob hangs out in cemeteries and talks of nihilism, you should've been looking for Alice who wears pink pastels and loves kitties, while turning a little girl into a sobbing mess with gross bullying. The hints where always there, the writer didn't pull them out of a hat Game of Thrones style; but they set the bait for you to look for the wrong answers.

[AmysGames]

I think it's important to remember that it's not always a bad thing to have a plot twist that most of your readers can see coming. Like, obviously most people expect the good guys to win in the end, but it's not like every story would be better if the bad guys won just because it's less expected.

I think execution is crucial in any case. People like seeing things come together in a way that makes sense, regardless of if some of the twists were previously foreseen.

[rajillustration]

I think the trick is to bury the hints of the true plot twist under other plot twists. To leave red herrings. I can usually predict plot twists pretty good, but there's a few that really got me because the lead was buried sooo deep. Like Trigun, for instance, (look away if you haven't finished Trigun, it's like a billion years old so I'm just gonna spoil it right here)

Summary

did a pretty good job at hiding the twist that they were from Earth originally. The lead up to that feels so much like a western with sci fi details, that you do suspect that there were aliens who visited this planet at some point, and you do suspect that there's been a lot of history that has been lost but you get so caught up in the Western that it's easy to overlook. You spend so long with these western plotlines that you kind of forget the need to answer the plotline of how the world got to be the way it is.

Slowly, as they build on the more sci-fi aspects of the world, they start asking the question of "who were these people who had this crazy powerful technology." So, when they have the flashback where you find out that everyone comes from an Earth colony, and that humans were the ones who originally had this powerful tech, it doesn't feel that random. Instead, it feels like you've solved a mystery you've been trying to figure out for a while. It's a very satisfying reveal.

[Kiweevil]

I like plot twists that are actually hidden behind a more obvious and guessable plot twist. Like some people see what's coming, but then still get to be pleasantly surprised that it was different than they had expected

[BakedPotato]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[faisalhussein394]

Stay true to the plot twist even if the reader's theory is correct.

[MoonlitHues]

I love me a good twist, but it has to feel connected to the story and make some sort of sense when looking back. I especially love if, when re-reading the story, it makes me see things I may not have noticed before.

Whether you as a reader can see it coming or not isn't a deciding factor for me. It can still be satisfying that something you saw coming, happens. It's not much of a twist if it's the expected direction among like 100% of the readers though...

BUT... If the twist just there for a "BETCHA DIDNT SEE THAT COMING"-moment, no matter how disjointed it is from the plot, well... isn't it more for the author's enjoyment than the reader's?