Message Board Topic 12/17

[Comsie]

One of the things that I love about some of the stories I've read in the past, is the sudden surprise of the plot taking a completely unpredictable turn. Whether it be for the worst or the best, these twists and turns in a storyline can really make for an exciting read. It's something that I try to put in my own stories as well when I can manage it.

 

But, while the idea of surprises in a story are fun to think about...they can be very diffiult to pull off sometimes. First of all, the said 'twist' can't just come completely out of left field, or it might come off as confusing. There has to be some kind of set up that leads the reader to a certain point where you can 'pull the rug' from under them. However...the set up has to be subtle enough to make the pay off somewhat unexpected. Otherwise, most readers will see it coming a mile away.

 

This week's question is, how does an author go about creating an unpredictable storyline? Even without the big shocks or giant twists, how can someone write a 'boy meets boy' story without it following the same formula as the billions of stories that came before it? And, if you can, give us an example of an unpredictable plot point that you truly enjoyed. (Online stories, books, movies, tv series, whatever.)

[Graeme]

I believe that one of the best ways to create an unexpected/unpredicted storyline is to play on people's assumptions.

 

I've personally done this a few times. In my first story, I'm sure most people would have read it assuming that the narrator was going to turn out to be gay -- the fact that he wasn't was the first surprise. It was a surprise because the target audience is made up of mainly gay readers -- they weren't going to be expecting a story that's not centred on a gay character. Another example is my short story Ambush but I won't ruin that one by saying what assumption most readers would have made.

 

The mark of a very good short story is the twist at the end that makes the reader go back to the start of the story and revisit what they've read because they realise they've made some basic incorrect assumptions. Two examples of that from recent anthologies would be Bardeara's It's Time To Go and C James's Category 5. Both of these show how a reader can be led to make assumptions, and then be shown that those assumptions have been incorrect -- and hence resulted in an unexpected/unpredicted change in the story. Extending that out in a novel is more difficult, but achievable. I believe I did that in part two of my novel Heart of The Tree where I carefully led the readers into making assumptions, only to find out that they'd made a mistake.

 

I don't believe you can create an unpredictable storyline without a completely outside incident taking over, because that assumes that no reader will pick up on the preceding events. Taking a real life example, 9/11 was unpredicted by the vast majority of the world, but there were a few people for which is wasn't a complete surprise because they had been expecting something. In a story, however, that is close enough to a completely outside incident that for most people it's just setting up an environment for the story to continue in a new direction.