Sting in the tail -- how do you do it?

Hello,

I've just spent some quality time searching the Net, but I haven't found anything about plotting the sting-in-the-tail kind of short stories. The thing is, I love reading stories with a surprise in the end but I can't for the life of me come up with anything of the sort. Just the other day I got the following critique of a story of mine: "The writing is so good that I can easily forgive the story's predictability for its style and voice". Yeah great, thank you very much! Predictability! So I decided to try and learn how to plot surprises in the end... but I can't! I'm totally handicapped in the plotting department!

Do you guys use any techniques for plotting? Or does the story just come to you in a flash? Maybe you know some sort of book to recommend? I want to learn to bloody plot! :x

Thank you!

Fresie, most of the time I don't plot in advance, but let the characters tell me what they want to do. This might be even better in short fiction format if you really want to avoid predictability. Most plots are about decisions, action and consequences. The way to come up with something unique and unpredictable is that when your characters are presented with a choice, pick the option that is the most unlikely (but still within grasp as far as the character is concerned. Obviously, a single mother of three is not going to decide to jump off a building as one of her options). I mean, let's say you have five options for every decision, action and consequence, there are 5x5x5 = 125 possibilities. Pick one that is most surprising to you, as the writer. I think your readers will find it surprising too.

Then surprise leads to more surprises... there, you have an unpredictable plot.

Fresie,

I haven't read any books on plotting, but I'm not sure surprise endings can be plotted, per say.

I think there is potential for every single story to have a surprise ending, it's just a matter of if that's where you want your story to go. Suppose I'm writing a crime short. Who is the last person I would think to be the killer? The detective, perhaps, and he's been gearing the evidence on the protagonist the whole time. Or maybe the protag really did do it.

Since I don't know your plots, I can't really say how easy it is to twist things around like that. But I just look at the plot as a whole and ask myself questions like that. You can't just throw in a surprise at the end (which I'm sure you knew) but it has to be there from the beginning of the story, unbeknowst to everyone else.

And one last thing - you can't force a surprise, either. Anyway, if I do come across any books/articles/etc. (which probably make sense than my own advice!) I'll be sure to let you know.

Oh, wow, that's something I never even thought of... thank you, maestro and macalicious! You see what I mean? -- I never even tried to think in the terms of choices, as maestro suggests. And I'll have to think about this "least possible choice", as macalicious suggests, too. I'll try both tonight on my current story -- I want it so much to be a real, unpredictable story.

Personally I always backwards plot from the surprise ending, much in the way that mystery writers often do.

Backward plotting can work too, if you already have a surprise ending in mind. Then in your story you just leave crumbs (one thing the readers would hate is an ending that comes out of nowhere and doesn't make sense to the story they just read...)

Let's say your ending is that readers finds out the good husband is the serial killer. So you work up from that ending... same old choices, action, consequence deal, only backward... in order to hide the surprise, you'll need to not let the readers suspect anything about the husband... BUT, you have to leave crumbs so that the readers would say "ah, now I get it" instead of scratching their heads with a "huh?" And a very smart readers will probably guess it... still, it would be a pleasure for them to say, "aha, I knew it!"

Fresie said:

You know what, guys? I've just realised that all this time I didn't really know what short story writing was about. It's not so much about telling a story as it is about manipulating the reader's perception. And that's where the true mastery is needed!

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Oh, no! No, a short story is definitely about telling a story. It's not just the twist in the end that makes or breaks a story, but the way you get there. If you pay attention just to the twist, the story might suffer. (Although if the story is really short, such as a flash story, it's often hard to build on elements other than the twist to carry it.)

In fact, twists of the kind you mentioned can be annoying. A reader who has invested some emotion in the success of the protagonist might get annoyed that the protagonist turns out to be the bad guy. There's a strength to a story that comes full circle.

The way I see "not predictable" is not in the ending (although that's one point of breaking predictability), but in a story that doesn't follow a well trodden path. If your character doesn't fit a stereotype, and events don't follow the most banal way they could follow, then you're already a good way into making the story not predictable. Of course, that's easier said than done.

Of course, if you do like twist endings, go for them. But I'd suggest studying some short stories that you like, and seeing where they surprise you. Often it's inventiveness that isn't limited to the ending.