Is there such a thing as twisting too far?

[LemonFresh]

Ok being a Huge manga reader im no noob the the concept of a plot twist. me i love a good plot twist you know what im talking about when you think youve just about narrowed it down in your head just how things are going to play out, and then you get blind sided with something you never even suspected but afterwards your like "wow it makes total and complete sense." now if you can pull it off you can really add an extra level to your stroy. how ever is thire such a thing as twisting the plot to much or to far?

 

Me i personaly think so, and on of the example i use (and get alot of hating for) is James Pattersens "Maximum Ride" series i made it to about the third book and gave up on it cause it seemed like every other chapter began skewing the story off into some completely randon tanget. honestly i think by that point James pattersen no longer knew where he was going with it.

 

I think haveing enough curve balls in the story so that you can keep the reader guessing it good but if you overdo it youll get to a point where not suprises the reader any more and they tend to not care about the plot anymore.

 

So whats your thoughts?

[John Doe]

Excellant topic and example. I stopped reading that series

when they (well not all of them if I remembered correctly, Angel got it first I think) developed gills...

it was so WTH moment that I just dropped the book right then and there... they are birds, not fish... This one was Final Warning I think, where they are at sea... I agree with your first paragraph... and I don't also mind the other type of blindsiding so long as it has an integeral (I probs spelt that wrong) and consistant part later on in the story and not just a surface moment to move the story along to its next point.

 

(I tried to edit to do a spoiler/hide thingy where it should hide part of the post and then is revealed if reader clicks on spoiler/hide button, but I'm not using the correct word I guess.... I've used spoiler and hide... can we not do that here?)

Edited August 26, 2012 by Cia

[JamesSavik]

Plot twists are like any other tool in our box: when used carefully, they can make a story.

 

Just like any other tool in our box: you can be entirely too cute with them for your own good.

 

Use the but don't abuse them. A precious few will take you a long way.

 

Dozens will leave your reader lost and confused.

[Cyhort]

It can be good but only if you're not just doing it for the sake of having a twist. I hate when I'm reading a story and it's going along and I have a pretty good idea where it's going and I'm really looking forward to it getting there and then BAM out of nowhere the story takes a total 180 and I'm sitting there like I just got slapped across the face with a wet fish going "WTF!?!?" The best example of that was the Last Herald Mage series.

The whole story seemed to be setting up these two young mage-in-training boys to be the main couple and go on adventures together for three books and then in the last half of the first book out of nowhere one of them gets killed off and the whole story changes.

I've never been so pissed off at a story in my life. Even thinking about it now makes me wanna hit something.

 

But if they're done right I like them. Especially the ones where when you go back and read it a second time you can see the subtle set up or little one off lines that hint about it and you get that "I can't believe I missed that!" feeling.

Edited August 26, 2012 by Cia

[Cia]

I like using twists. I love to do the unexpected, but I've found as a reader that more than one OMG! moment in a story tends to put me off as well. You can get away with it better in fantasy, I think, since the reader is expecting the fantastical. When you are writing a modern story and you mess too much with what the reader thinks they are getting, unless you are writing a mystery, they are going to get pissed off.

 

Btw, to create a spoiler is very simple. First you can write in the code you want to use like [spoiler ] your text here [/spoiler ] and it will hide the text between the two bits of code. Make sure you don't actually leave any space between the brackets and the word spoiler to get them to work, I left the extra space so you could see it and it wouldn't actually create a spoiler.

 

Another way to do this, and even easier, is to use the Special BBCode button. For me, it is the 3rd button from the left in the top row of the text editor. It looks like a rectangle with some green lines. When you click on that, you can choose several different options to change the code for you text. The most relevant ones for posters here will be spoiler, of course, and quote. Simply click on the option you want, and then put the text to be quoted or hidden in the box that shows up and then click 'okay'.

[Cyhort]

Thanks for editing that =D