The Killer Twist

To paraphrase Dwight Schrute from The Office: I prefer the denouement to be the one I most medium suspect.

That is, not a twist for twist's sake, nor the most obvious conclusion. I like an ending where I close the book and think, "Yep, that made perfect sense." Where I can look back and appreciate how the dominoes were set up and see all the little hints dropped along the way.

I don't need a twist. I just want satisfying.

I'm in the No Twist Necessary camp. It's the reason I've gone completely off Jeffery Deaver. Way too many of his twists seem forced or contrived.

The problem with twists, as I see it, is that the reader can end up feeling that he/she has been duped. Characters/suspects are presented one way - and the reader has come know and accept them - then the character does something very 'out of character' or there's a sudden reveal of facts or circumstances that were never alluded to in the story and you're left feeling disoriented and that you, as a reader, must have missed something. To me, that's as bad as deceiving a reader with a dream sequence.

GailD said:

The problem with twists, as I see it, is that the reader can end up feeling that he/she has been duped. Characters/suspects are presented one way - and the reader has come know and accept them - then the character does something very 'out of character' or there's a sudden reveal of facts or circumstances that were never alluded to in the story and you're left feeling disoriented and that you, as a reader, must have missed something. To me, that's as bad as deceiving a reader with a dream sequence.

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Oh yes, this. This is why I, as a reader, don't like unreliable narrators. I'm a big fan of Agatha Christie but the one time she truly lost me was that one book where the first person-narrator was the murderer and you only found out at the very end. It made some scenes quite impossible like the murderer-narrator having internal monologues where he was actively trying to work out inconsistancies related to the murder. Since he had done the murder, those inconsistancies should have been clear to him. Now if he had handled those questions out loud with other characters, that would have made sense as he was trying to hide his own hand in the crime. But internally? I did feel duped.

I don't mind twists and being put on the wrong path, but I don't like it when the writer looks like they are lying to me to keep to me clueless. Writers never should have to lie, the story is in their hands, they have all the material to build whatever crazy or convoluted reasoning, red herrings and dead ends they like.

I am not a fan of twists. I do like a sense of enlightenment - of understanding things I hadn't previously connected - but trying too hard to "surprise" me is just annoying. I want revelations, not shocks.

I do like a good twist, but it has to be done well. (There ya go, HJ, I'll start the chorus. )

Very rarely does an author pull it off well, but when they do...

Like others have said, I hate to feel manipulated. Turns me right off a story, and an author!

I think it takes a real master to pull off the twist and me consider it well done. I sometimes feel cheated when I read a book by someone less than a master (and maybe I think that way because they tried to pull off the twist!) and I'm feeling good about things and bingo, there is a twist at the end that surprises me and sometimes does feel contrived. I feel cheated because I wonder if they couldn't find a way to end the book and had to use trickery.

muse said:

I do like a good twist, but it has to be done well. (There ya go, HJ, I'll start the chorus. )

Very rarely does an author pull it off well, but when they do...

Like others have said, I hate to feel manipulated. Turns me right off a story, and an author!

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This.

I love a twist too, as long as it's not off the Grand Canyon.

My WIP1 has a surprise--I wouldn't call it a twist--but it's set up to end that way.

This immediately made me think of all those blogs, tweets, etc. by agents asking for mss "with a twist".

IDK if it has anything to do with it, or not.

As a lawyer, I have to ask: how are we defining the word "twist"? I happen to like them, when done well they can impress me greatly, as a reader and a writer. But... is a twist merely the presentation of the murderer, and we didn't see it coming? Or...? I"m asking because I don't know if my books contain twists, or surprises (or neither?!?!). An interesting subject, to be sure...

MarkEsq said:

As a lawyer, I have to ask: how are we defining the word "twist"? I happen to like them, when done well they can impress me greatly, as a reader and a writer. But... is a twist merely the presentation of the murderer, and we didn't see it coming? Or...? I"m asking because I don't know if my books contain twists, or surprises (or neither?!?!). An interesting subject, to be sure...

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I'd define it as a surprise, not necessarily good or bad. A good twist is one where you can look back at the earlier parts of the book and think "I should have seen that coming," because it's telegraphed once you know what to look for. A bad twist is one that is not justified by previous events in the story.

lizmonster said:

A good twist is one where you can look back at the earlier parts of the book and think "I should have seen that coming," because it's telegraphed once you know what to look for. A bad twist is one that is not justified by previous events in the story.

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Nicely put.

Gah, twists. The way people react to them is so subjective. My book has a couple, and some readers consider them way, way too telegraphed, while others say they were genuinely baffled about certain things till the end.

I just read a suspense novel with twists that annoyed me. Basically, the book teased a mind-blowing twist — a supernatural antagonist, unreliable narrators — and then revealed that the antagonist was actually some regular dude we'd barely even met, who did not have especially well-thought-out motivations. The real twist was that the twist was dull.

So my feeling is, if you use all kinds of foreshadowing to lead the reader to expect something magical or weird, you need to deliver that. It has to be in keeping with the book's overall mood and atmosphere. Likewise, if you're writing a more grounded whodunit with no hint of magical realism, you want more prosaic, logical twists. It's all about satisfying the expectations you've set up. I'm fine with a twist I can guess ahead of time, as long as it makes sense in character terms and fits the book's general tone.

So what are some "good" twists, and what do we think makes them work? Obviously this will be spoiler-heavy.

I love surprises. I want the magician to amaze me and make me say, "How is that possible?" and then show me how at the end.

Of course, the surprise can be exciting and fun ("Surprise! Happy Birthday!") or not fun ("Your house is on fire!"). It's our job to make the surprises fun for the reader.

I liked the twists in Gone Girl and We Were Liars, but I was spoiled for both of those. I was impressed with the twists in The Darkest Corners, which I wasn't spoiled for. Presumed Innocent blew my mind with its twist back in the day. It was a little out there, but not ludicrous.

I associate "twists" more with psychological thrillers, and "solutions" more with traditional murder mysteries. The former are more about playing with the reader's head. The latter are more about showing how good detectives can find clues in seemingly random phenomena. Revealing the killer is only a "twist" for me if the killer's identity makes us rethink everything we thought we knew about this story. (That's why so many cheesy thriller movies use the device of having the killer turn out to be the detective's friend/colleague, absurdly unlikely as that may be.)

MarkEsq said:

As a lawyer, I have to ask: how are we defining the word "twist"? I happen to like them, when done well they can impress me greatly, as a reader and a writer. But... is a twist merely the presentation of the murderer, and we didn't see it coming? Or...? I"m asking because I don't know if my books contain twists, or surprises (or neither?!?!). An interesting subject, to be sure...

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Mark, your books contain good twists because the reader can go back and see how it all came to be in the end. When I think of twists I don't like, I think of the ending of Girl on the Train. I'm fine with not seeing it coming, but when what arrives is the result of authorial manipulation, I object. It is not good, no matter how shocking or surprising. Manipulating the reader = big no for me, both as a reader and as a writer.

As some other said, I don't mind a twist if there are some sprinklings of hints along the way. But I dislike twists when you've given not a clue, and somehow magically something totally different happens.

lizmonster said:

I'd define it as a surprise, not necessarily good or bad. A good twist is one where you can look back at the earlier parts of the book and think "I should have seen that coming," because it's telegraphed once you know what to look for. A bad twist is one that is not justified by previous events in the story.

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This.

I like a good twist -- The Sixth Sense kind of twist, where once you get it, you see how it was there all along. I really disliked Girl on a Train. I thought it was cheap and obvious.

Also annoying, imo, the multiple fake-out twist. I read the first Jo Nesbo that hit big here, I forget the name, and was very into it until the endish, when it dropped a 'it was him!.... no, wait, it's THAT guy! No, jk, it's actually... It turned me off the whole book and Nesbo. I'd been planning to get another of his, gave up.

GailD said:

I'm in the No Twist Necessary camp. It's the reason I've gone completely off Jeffery Deaver. Way too many of his twists seem forced or contrived.

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Abso-Freakin'-Lutely!

It's a rare mystery that can work with a twist the reader couldn't see coming. If the reader can't see it coming in at least a somewhat logical fashion, even if they missed the clues, then they're getting cheated. The few times I've seen it work is where the sleuth comes down to two potential suspects, one fairly strong and a weaker one and it turns out to be the weaker one because the sleuth misinterpreted a clue that a savvy reader might catch.

Jeff

Humm..."authorial manipulation" -- I'll drink to that. Cheers and the dude at the end of the bar done it....

noirdood said:

I'll drink to that.

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Oooo. Yes. Make mine a gin and tonic..... with a twist.



Sorry. Couldn't resist.

I recently read the Murder of Roger Ackroyd. In some ways, I say the twist coming but I have to tell you, it's a twist I longed for and had never read in a mystery and I was so pleasantly surprised. It is now my favorite mystery. I'd say the twist ending is imperative if you want people to read more of your work. When you really spin their heads at the end, they think about it and most likely will read the book again and they'll take your work more seriously. it's an essential ingredient to winning fans over. I highly recommend working overtime on this.