The Plot Twist

Photo by Jane Slack-Smith on Unsplash

Here Comes The Twist

It’s a feeling we’ve all had. The increasing uneasiness, followed by a mysterious uncertainty. The knowing that something is coming. And the fear that you can never quite guess what it will be.

It’s a natural part of life. One minute you’re riding high, enjoying a beautiful day, savoring the sun, the fresh air, noticing the smile on all the faces of everyone you meet. Then, your phone buzzes at the wrong time. You’re in your car and you steal a quick glance at your phone. Unable to stop yourself. Thinking, it can’t hurt.

Cue the sudden brake lights from the car in front of you. The crash. Not enough to injury anyone or ruin anyone’s life. But enough to ruin your day, your week, your month.

And just like that your wonderful, carefree day is gone. The sky isn’t as blue as you thought, and now that you’re really looking carefully you notice that no one’s actually smiling at you. They’re all just squinting to keep the sun from their eyes.

And, the worst part is, you never even saw it coming.

A Long-ish Anecdote

Of course, this can happen on a larger scale as well. About two years into college, I though I might want to be a teacher, but, like most college kids, I just wasn’t sure. So, I went to see a guidance counselor.

She asked me a bunch of questions, gave me a career aptitude test, which I took begrudgingly. The truth is, I never liked those types of tests because everything has to be answered on some sort of scale that allows for very little nuance. And, on top of it all, I’m extremely indecisive.

The next day, she called me back in to reveal that the test indicated I would be a great small business manager. I told her again that I wanted to be a teacher, and she asked me if I liked planning, if I was a well-organized person. The answer to both of those questions was, “no.”

She slid the test over to me and told me I should take a few days to think it over. The next week, hit with confusion and shame, I declared myself a business major and moved on with my life.

I started my business classes, was happy enough. Then, I saw a flier advertising a semester abroad in Milan, the business capital of Italy. This was my chance to see the world, to claim my place in the business field, once and for all. I had a week to decide before the application deadline. So, I spoke with my parents, talked through the details. It could work they said. It could work I told myself.

Then came the twist. The next day in economics the professor launched into a speech about opporunity cost and lost potential and he called us “businessmen.” And when I heard the word, I felt myself flinch. Felt that nervous flutter in my stomach. And I looked around the room, noticed all the hopeful faces and wondered what people would see when they looked at my face. Would they see a flash of the future businessman to come? Or would they see a scared kid, pretending to like the thing his counselor and some lame aptitude test told him he’d be good at?

That day I left school with pain in my stomach. That night in bed, I thought about the opportunity to study-abroad in Italy. I’d have to give it up if I gave up business. It seemed like an impossible choice. But hours later I awoke in a cold sweat with the sudden realizition that I wanted Italy more than I wanted business. So, I had my answer.

The next day I researched teaching programs, and knew that the time had come to switch schools and start over in a new place with new guidance counselors. I enrolled in a new school, finished out the semester because it seemed the right thing to do.

A month later, I was enrolled in a new college, and I had officially begun my journey to becoming a teacher.

Fast forward to today. I’ve now been teaching for over fifteen years, and I’ve loved every minute of it. And, no, I didn’t go to Milan. But I did go to Venice and Rome and a handful of other cities around the world.

So, for me it all worked out in the end. But, the truth is, I never saw each twist coming. I never would have thought that business would have called my name, and I certainly didn’t forsee a potential trip to Italy being the thing that woke me up to my real desires.

And the thing I never expected in a million years was to meet a guidance counselor (at that transfer school) who would hold my hand and walk me though the teaching program, who would come to my rescue again and again when I had issues with classes and teachers and the bursar’s office. I wouldn’t have made it through the program if it weren’t for that guidance counselor.

These are life’s little plot twists. And we hardly ever see them coming.

The World of Fiction

Like life, stories need a plot twist. And the best twists are the ones the reader—sometimes even the writer—never see coming.

Of course, discovering plot twists authentically is the real challenge for every writer. We often try to plan for them, to force the twists at certain predetermined points in the plot. This can occasionally work. However, more times than not, it feels forced and the writing leading up to the twist feels stiff or false in some way.

So, the real trick is writing from a place of inspiration. If you’re a pantser, this is writing as usual. But if you’re a plotter or someone that falls somewhere between writing from a strict outline and writing from the seat of your pants, which often requires going off script and giving yourself the opportunity to write whatever pops into your head. This means giving yourself permission to write into a corner.

I call it, “Writing into the unknown.” And it’s simultaneously exciting and terrifying. Because you never know what you’ll find. Sometimes, you’ll discover that you’ve reached a dead-end and have to turn back. At other times, you’ll find that the writing is sparking. Each moment is triggering the next organically. The tension is building. The stakes are rising.

You lose track of time. You don’t know what day it is or how long you’ve been writing. Because you’re in the story and their world is your world. And you fall into a scene, a spontaneous, unexpected moment you never could have dreamed of.

Eventually you pull yourself away from the writing desk in a daze. And two hours and thousands of words later, you realize you’ve just stumbled into the perfect plot twist.

It’s the kind of twist that shakes it all up. That changes everything. And not just for your characters, but for you as well. The kind of twist that renders your outline pointless, that forces you to change the ending. The kind of twist that forces you to reevaluate what the entire story is all about.

The Wrap

In real life, sudden plot twists happen, and we can’t control them. When they’re wonderful, we raise a drink or say a prayer of thanks. When they’re awful, we hang our heads and just do our best to roll with the punches.

But fiction is an entirely different thing. We writers get to to create stories that encourage the most unexpected twists. And we get to decide if we want to use them. For instance, one might reject a plot twist, only to come up with a better one. And, in some cases, rejecting a plot twist might cause the writer to reconstruct a character or earlier scene from the story in order to build to a more satisfying twist.

Either way, the twists in novels are well within our control. It gives the writer agency, and, for the unfortunate few who’ve suffered at the hands of one of life’s unwanted twists, it can help to restore a sense of justice to the world.

Then, of course, there’s the simple fact that crafting a story that contains an unforgettable turn or two is one of the most satisfying parts of the writing experience.

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