And lo, dear Gidsciples, Gideon U. Eklund has returned again! And, much like a wise man, or shaman, or great Dalai Lama, I descend once more from my Golden Pedestal to bring you wisdom and greatness.
You’re welcome.
I also bring my laundry, because I’ve been up there on the Pedestal for a while, and shit’s getting rank. Would you mind washing these for me? Great. Most of this stuff smells like fish. (Red Herring, actually.) While you do that, let’s talk about something that you weren’t expecting:
PLOT TWISTS!
SURPRISE, SUCKER! THIS POST WASN’T ABOUT DOING MY SMELLY, DISGUSTING LAUNDRY AT ALL!
(…Please still do my laundry, though. It’s pretty bad.)
I’m willing to bet that you didn’t see that plot twist coming at all. Why? Because I’m fucking good at what I do, people. Seriously. I don’t call myself a writer because I’m a painter, or some… stairs… fixing… stair guy.
Author’s Note: If I were a stairs-fixing stair guy, I’d probably have a lot more money than I do as an unpublished writer-slash-humorist-slash-egomaniac. But, what I do is infinitely cooler than stairs-fixing. Also, if you tell that to your stairs-fixing stair guy while he’s fixing your stairs, he will leave mid-stair-fix, and then you will be blamed for the un-fixed stairs, like it’s your goddamned fault he left or something!
Now, being the super-famous, immeasurably popular, High-Brow Book Scientist that I am, (patent pending,) I do have a particular problem when I’m trying to enjoy a good story. That problem is that—accidentally, or without making an effort to—I frequently ruin plots to films and stories for myself, because I accidentally figure them out WAY too early. It’s a curse passed down from my mother.
Since we’re going to discuss plot twists, I feel I should give you some kind of spoiler alert in advance. From this point on, I will be discussing twists, endings, and reveals in stories. I will try to be as subtle about it as possible.
Now it’s time for an unexpected rant! …PLOT TWIST!
BRUCE WILLIS WAS DEAD THE WHOLE TIME IN THE SIXTH SENSE, AND IT MAKES ME SO FUCKING ANGRY, I STILL FOAM AT THE MOUTH WHEN I THINK ABOUT IT, TWENTY YEARS LATER.
…Okay, so subtlety isn’t my strong suit on this one. I get it. Before many of you say, “But The Sixth Sense is a classic! It’s a great film! How can you be so angry with it? It had a brilliant twist!” I ask that you hear me out, because this is a point of contention between myself and many of my fellow movie buffs, because NO, fellow movie buffs—it was not a ‘brilliant twist.’
“But why do you say that?” I’m sure you’re wondering. “We saw it. We know it’s good.” I hear this a lot, and this question makes me wonder if we were even watching the same film.
When I went to see it, I had been told that there was a brilliant twist, and nobody would tell me what it was. I got two equally excited friends to go, and spent about thirty dollars in hard-earned 1999 money (In today’s money- more like $50,) to pay for three people to see this movie everyone was talking about, (by not talking about it at all, ironically.) We all sat down, and started watching this “amazing film” with the “mind-blowing plot twist,” and I was—as I frequently tell all of you to be—strapped in for greatness, kiddos.
…I should have been strapped in for bullshit.
To be fair, at this point, I should explain that I spent the entire movie thinking that “Dr. Bruce Willis is a ghost” was the plot of the film, and that we all knew it. I am, to this day, completely baffled that anyone thought otherwise while watching this movie. They claim it was brilliant, and I claim that most of the people who claim it was brilliant are not.
In the completely stupid film which I saw, Bruce Willis gets shot in the stomach by a crazy Donnie Wahlberg, and bleeds out at the beginning of the movie. Seriously. The first thing we see is his murder. Shot in the stomach, bleeds to death on his bedroom floor. Boom. First five minutes of the film. Many people say, “Well, we didn’t see him die, Gideon. He could have lived. Keep your opinions to yourself, you devastatingly handsome High-Brow Book Scientist.”
First off, thank you—I am very handsome, and that’s nice of you to point out. Secondly, NO. That is TOO MUCH BLOOD from a gut shot wound for a man to live, without some follow-up scene where someone at a hospital declares, “It’s a miracle that you survived, Dr. Bruce Willis!”
We aren’t even told he survived a fatal gunshot! Why? Because he didn’t. Strike one, The Sixth Sense.
For the rest of the movie, I’m watching as nobody acknowledges Dr. Bruce Willis’ existence, save for the kid—the same kid who sees fucking ghosts—who meets Dr. Bruce Willis after Dr. Bruce Willis is murdered, right in front of the audience. (It’s not a subtle film.) He talks to people, and they don’t reply. His wife ignores him during dinner, and she walks away before he can touch her hand, (and accidentally realize he’s a ghost, obviously.) He literally chases a car pulling away from his house, yelling and calling out to it, and is completely ignored. This sort of shit happens throughout the whole film. I’m not kidding.
At this point, the movie is completely boring, but I’m sticking it out. Sure, my brain was melting from all the long, boring tedium which Shyamalan loves to weave into his films, (which I didn’t yet realize would be a thing he does in all of his future films,) but I’m committed. I’m wondering how Dr. Bruce Willis hasn’t pieced this together yet. When his wife pulled her hand away at dinner, I was thinking, “Ah! Damn. He almost figured out he was a ghost—but then we’d have no movie, I guess. So close!”
There’s a scene where the kid says something to the effect of, “some dead people don’t know that they’re dead,” and I’m sitting there thinking, “See, Dr. Bruce Willis? He’s trying to catch you up to the rest of us. Take the hint, already. Jesus.”
So, I’m sitting in this darkened theater, wondering just when and how Dr. Bruce Willis is going to catch a clue and figure out that he’s a ghost? For a brief moment, I thought to myself, “…and at what point is this fucking plot twist going to show up?” I thought maybe the twist would be that he’d be revealed to be alive, or something; or maybe the kid is also a ghost? Oh, man—what could it BE?
Author’s Note: The following is is a completely true account of what went down in that moment of excited gasps and whispers, at my local Cineplex Odeon movie theater, in August of 1999:
Eventually, his wife drops the ring, he realizes he can’t open the basement door because there’s a shelf in front of it, and people start gasping, and going “Oh! What? OH!” and I genuinely think that I’m missing something. Everyone around me seemed very surprised by something, and I had no idea what I’d overlooked.
I turned to my friend and whispered, “What is it? What’s happening? Am I missing something?”
“He’s dead!” she whispered back.
“Right, but what am I missing…?”
“That’s it! He’s been dead the whole time!” (She said this in complete surprise for some unfathomable fucking reason.)
I turned to the movie, and my eyes have never been wider with unabashed fury. I was so deeply, deeply enraged that I should have developed heat vision right then and there, to burn that entire theater to the fucking ground.
Now, to be perfectly clear: I believe that the rule of being quiet during a movie should be a law punishable by death. But not that day. That day, I would stand and let my voice be heard. “OH, FUCK THIS MOVIE!” I shouted, in full-blown rage. It was the first time I’d ever yelled out loud in a movie theater, in my life. It was also the first time a movie had made me that angry.
“Shh!” people hissed.
“NO!” I shouted back, “WE WATCHED HIM DIE AT THE BEGINNING! FUCK THIS STUPID MOVIE! FUCK THIS STUPID FUCKING MOVIE STRAIGHT TO FUCKING HELL!”
Spittle flew from my mouth as I yelled. My vision reddened. I had just dumped $50 on a plot twist so unsurprising and bad that I thought it was the premise of the film. I was so enraged that it took both women accompanying me to shut me up long enough to finish watching the film, and avoid getting kicked out by an usher.
I left that movie completely dumbstruck by the American Moviegoer, and public opinion in general. I felt betrayed by my fellow film buffs. I also felt annoyed outrage that this ‘twist’ was receiving as much critical acclaim is it was.
In the time since, I feel I’ve given M. Night McDickbag’s films a fair shake; but unfortunately, I have yet to see one that didn’t make me say, “Jesus Fucking Christ! I’m never getting that time back! I’m that much closer to death, with nothing to show for it, all thanks to M. Night Shyamalan and his stupid fucking bullshit!”
…And that’s been my opinion of The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan, and his entire filmography ever since. Eventually, I stopped giving him second chances.
Author’s Note: Trees convinced me to do it, through tree pollen magic.
END OF RANT.
In my anger from recalling that past event, I think I’ve lost track of what we were talking about…
Oh! Plot twists! So, yes. Plot twists can be great, when done well. However, I have trouble knowing if a plot twist is good or not, because I figure them out WAY too early.
My girlfriend and I had to stop watching Mr. Robot before we’d even finished season one, because I said, “You know what? I don’t think Christian Slater’s character is real. Nobody talks to him but the main guy,” and I’d seen this kind of shit go down before, so I knew what I was talking about. When it turned out I was right, she was angry that they ripped off Fight Club, and I was mad that I accidentally figured out the whole reveal, and soured it for us both. So, that was the end of Mr. Robot for us.
We put a rule in place from then on, where I am not allowed to say out loud what I thought the twists or plot reveals may be in things we were watching together. I could, however, write them down, and show her after, so that I could be smug about how smart I was, and she could be exasperated by it, and sometimes ask “How do you always know?!“
One day, fairly recently, she said, “I have a movie you won’t figure out. I’ve seen it a bunch, and it’s really good. You will watch it alone, and I want to see how that goes without me being around to give you any accidental clues.”
So—intrigued by this proposition—I sat down to watch Sinister, with Ethan Hawke. (I mean, he was the star. He wasn’t watching it with me.) About 45 minutes or so into the film, my girlfriend walked by and said, “So, do you think you’ve figured any of it out yet?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “…To be fair, the movie hasn’t given me much to go on yet. It’s pretty vague.” I could have (and should have) stopped there, but being me, I quickly added, “…I mean, I’m pretty sure that all of these missing kids from these murders are the ones who killed their families, because they’re possessed by this ghost monster guy Ethan Hawke is finding clues to everywhere, but I could be wrong.” I looked over to see my beloved suddenly throwing me the most exasperated scowl I’d seen in a while, as she walked out of the room, shaking her head at me. “…What?” I asked, as she went to her room, and left me to finish. “God damn it, am I already right?!”
By the end, I discovered I was right all along, and had ruined yet another movie for myself.
I think part of my problem is that I look at narratives from the point of view of someone who tries to create these narratives for a living. I subconsciously break them down and analyze them from a writer’s perspective, instead of the perspective of the audience, and notice things like:
“They are awkwardly tap-dancing around using this person’s gender, using pronounces one doesn’t organically use, unless instructed to. Oh, it’s probably going to be a gender we aren’t already expecting. We think it’s a man, it’s going to be a woman.”
“They are using some very specific phrasing over and over on this prophecy. It’s probably been misinterpreted; which means this other thing it could mean is probably going to happen instead.”
“Haven’t seen that one supporting character in a while; they’re probably going to swoop in and save the day.”
“This character was briefly pointed out earlier in the film for no reason, and never mentioned again… Oh- that’s probably because they’re the murderer.“
“They’re sure working hard to make me believe that this extremely shady character is the most obvious suspect. Why hide showing us on the screen who the killer is, if it’s going to be this obvious character anyway? Clearly it’s going to be someone else.”
Now, while doing a little research on the subject, I’ve found a few excellent tips for writing a good twist, and I’d like to expand on them. So, here they are:
GIDEON U. EKLUND’S SIX-SUGGESTION GUIDE FOR PLOT TWISTS!
1.) Test your twist. You may not realize it’s painfully obvious: One of the best pieces of advice I’ve found about writing a plot twist is to look at it from the reader’s perspective. Put yourself in their shoes. If it seems too obvious, it’s not a plot twist, it’s just bad writing. Maybe bounce this twist off a few test readers, and see if it fools them. If it doesn’t, you need to take it back to formula.
One of my manuscripts has an element in the fourth chapter that changes the entire context of the story; but if the readers go back and re-read the first three chapters, you can see that I dropped very small clues about it throughout those chapters. I deliberately wrote it so that it could be re-read, and make sense in a new way. That twist really worked. I got many, many text messages of disbelief from my test group.
None of them felt like this was obvious, or forced, or shoehorned in. The twist made sense, and I think that’s the most important part of a good twist. If it’s illogical, or can be deconstructed upon even the slightest examination, it’s not a good twist. If a character is revealed to be the masked killer, but was being chased by the killer earlier in the film, (and there is only one killer,) that is not a good twist, unless you can explain how it happened. IF YOUR MAIN CHARACTER IS MURDERED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FILM, IN FRONT OF EVERYONE, AND THE TWIST IS THAT HE’S A GHOST IN A MOVIE ABOUT GHOSTS, THAT IS NOT A GOOD TWIST.
Author’s Note: I admit it, I’m still not over that shit. Judge me all you like.
2.) Steer the reader away from the twist: This sounds pretty obvious, but it can be tricky, because you have to handle it with kid gloves. Readers can be quite perceptive, and spot that they’re being steered. Regardless, if you drop false clues, red herrings, and dead leads into your story, it can really throw off what your twist could be.
“Look, Detective Haberdasher! The victim was shot by a hunting rifle, and his greedy uncle just happens to manage a wildlife hunting safari tour company! But then again, his jealous ex-wife also is an active member of the NRA, with an extensive gun collection.”
Author’s Note: That’s right; Detective Haberdasher of the Hat-Related Murder Division is back on the case! PLOT TWIST!
But surprise! The real killer was the butler all along, who’d purchased an identical rifle, because he wanted to frame the uncle! He hated the uncle for leaving him! THEY WERE SECRET LOVERS ALL ALONG! The uncle also criticized his incredibly meticulous buttling! (Or whatever butlers call what they do.) You do NOT mock how a butler buttles. Belittling a butler’s buttling is bad business, buddy.
3.) Give Plot B a twist, too: Set up multiple unrelated plot threads which do turn out to amount to something, but that something is completely unrelated to what they thought it was when the clues were found. Make it as mysterious as plot A, though, because you don’t want people saying, “Well, it’s a little too obvious that it’s the ex-wife, so she can’t possibly be the real killer,” and automatically remove her from their minds as a suspect. Try something like:
“The victim’s ex-wife was channeling money into a slush fund like you suspected, Detective Haberdasher! But it wasn’t to pay off the blackmail her lover was going to threaten her with, she was going to use it to set up an orphanage for lost puppies! …LOST PUPPIES WHO ARE ALSO HEROIN ADDICTS AND BEING USED AS DRUG MULES TO PUSH HER SECRET SUPPLY OF MEXICAN BLACK TAR HEROIN!”
Author’s Note: …God damn, Detective Haberdasher gets some seriously dope cases. (Get it? Dope? Because of the drug puppies? Man, I wish you were laughing as hard as I am as I type this.)
4.) Don’t be afraid to break tradition: This is a good rule for writing in general, not just plot twists. Don’t be shy about ditching clichés and tropes. One of my favorite horror franchises is the Scream franchise. Judge me all you like, but the reason I love it so much is that I really enjoy self-referential things, (when done well,) and I did not accidentally figure out who the killer was in any of them. (I figured out season 3 of the TV series by episode two, however, but that’s not really relevant.)
The reason for this was because they had two masked slashers, which had never really been done before, (as far as I’m aware,) and it also served to misdirect the audience. Every suspect had an alibi, but also didn’t, which was beautifully pointed out by Jamie Kennedy, who literally shouts, “EVERYBODY IS A SUSPECT!” in their local video store, during a glorious freak-out that also made him look pretty unhinged, adding yet another layer of misdirection. (See ‘Steer the reader away from the twist’ above, in case you forgot a paragraph you just read.)
Two killers meant you could have every character get chased by the killer at some point, eliminating the ‘process of elimination’ trope entirely.
An additional break from tradition was that the number one suspect is normally never the killer; so when the killer (who we think is a lone murderer) shows up and kills the number one suspect, Billy Loomis, there was no reason to suspect, “Oh, he’s one of two killers, and has faked his own murder right in front of his girlfriend to divert suspicion,” because that shit never really happened in a slasher flick before.
5.) Foreshadowing is your friend: As I mentioned before, handling a twist with kid gloves is key to that twist’s success. As I’d mentioned previously, one of my manuscripts had a twist that changed the entire story by the end of chapter 4; but it wasn’t just a simple bomb-drop. I had peppered hints of this twist throughout the first four chapters, right up to the reveal. Particular phrasing, little hints here and there, all of these things can make a twist seem more plausible, because you’ve actually laid the groundwork for it early on.
“Detective Haberdasher noticed that the locked door was ajar, but he hadn’t seen anyone come or go from the room,” seems like a small detail to mention, but it could be several chapters later that someone had been laying in wait from inside the room the whole time, and slipped out from inside when everyone believed the door to be locked throughout the story! The Bowler Hat Slasher was still on the loose!
Author’s Note: The Bowler Hat Slasher is Detective Haberdasher’s greatest foe. He may never be caught at this rate, and his acts are both grisly and stylish.
Kid gloves, again, are important. You don’t want your little detail to go unnoticed, but you also don’t want it to be so big that it ruins your surprise later down the road.
6.) Have a “pointless” sub-plot suddenly become very relevant: A lot of narratives have sub-plots and side stories, as any reader or writer will tell you; these serve many purposes: comic relief, a break from a particularly focused main plot, or simply to tell a smaller, somewhat associated story that wouldn’t need to be entirely dedicated to a book of its own.
But what if that side plot turned out to be very important to the story? What if Detective Haberdasher was trying to find a case of stolen, jewel-encrusted hat pins worth millions, while his plucky sidekick, Terwillagar B. Trilby, was busy dealing with a hilarious stolen car case that he just can’t crack?
…Oh, Trilby. You try so hard.
But then, lo and behold, while Detective Haberdasher deals with dangerous, shady fiends, and political assassination attempts as part of the complicated hat pin case he’s become dangerously embroiled in, Terwillager B. Trilby finds the stolen car, wrecked in a ditch, with two dead men inside, and a ruined engine. He thinks the case is solved, only to discover the car was stolen because the case of jewel-encrusted hat pins was locked in the trunk all along!
Now, Trilby not only has a target on his back, but he’s become part of the main story, and Detective Haberdasher finds himself in a race against time to save Terwillager B. Trilby from certain death!
Author’s Note: I’m kind of pissed off I’m not writing this story right now. Hot damn; Detective Haberdasher gets into all sorts of high-octane, hat-related murder action!
7.) HA! It’s a seven point list; not six! …PLOT TWIST! Sometimes it’s not over, right when you think it is. So, your story is nearing the end, and you’re looking to finish with a bang, huh? Well, what if your story wasn’t over? What if it only seemed to be over? This is one that gets used fairly commonly, but not without good reason. Here’s another example:
Detective Haberdasher has caught the assassin, saved Terwillager B. Trilby, and secured the hat pins. As they laugh to each other about their adventure, (and how stupid those hat pins looked—because really,) they pass a pay phone, and Detective Haberdasher calls his police contact to inform him that they’ve handed the culprit and hat pins over to Sergeant Snapback, and the sergeant has driven away.
“But, Detective Haberdasher, Sergeant Snapback was found murdered in his apartment not one hour ago!” the contact shouts. “…You’ve handed everything over to an impostor!“
Gasp! Suddenly, the chase is on, as Detective Haberdasher and Trilby race to catch up to the nefarious fiends, before they can escape to Martinique- or, wherever the hell hat pin thieves escape to. (Somewhere with no hat-related extradition, I’d imagine.) Now you’ve just opened a window to a thrilling last chapter chase, or perhaps set the hook for a sequel, where Detective Haberdasher has to survive on his wits alone in the mean streets of Martinique!
Author’s Note: I’ll bet M. Night Shamalamadingdong didn’t see THAT one coming. Fuck you and your ghosts, sir. Also; how do you screw up Avatar: The Last Airbender, you unforgivable fucking monster?
…And that’s the list. I hope that you’ve all found it somewhat helpful and informative, or at least entertaining, even if you already knew most of this shit, which I’m going to assume at least some of you did. Until next time, my amazing fans, I remain your humble, lovable, ultra-famous writer extraordinaire, Gideon U. Eklund.
HA! I’M NOT HUMBLE AT ALL! I’M FUCKING AMAZING! I’VE FOOLED YOU AGAIN! …PLOT TWIST!!
I’m not kidding about that laundry, though. Don’t forget a dryer sheet too, huh? That shit is getting ridiculous.