Make your readers turn the pages in your novel.
How can you do this?
By including unexpected plot twists in your story.
In this article, we share 6 tips on how to write unexpected plot twists that will delight your readers.
1. Misinform through narration
Use the narration to misinform the readers. In first and third person limited point of view narration, you are essentially narrating the story as if the protagonist is telling. This means that you can use the protagonist to misinform the readers. Instead of getting proper information that is always correct, the readers only get what the protagonist thinks they know.
So for example, a teenage protagonist might view their parents in a negative light – believing them to be strict, overprotective, and with high expectations of their child. When the teen gets a low grade in school, they think they will be grounded. Instead, the parents react to the low grade completely differently, and it is revealed the teen almost died as a baby, which is why the parents were being overprotective and strict.
This kind of misinformation works for twists that have an emotional effect on the protagonist (and other characters too), and the fact that they are unexpected has the added benefit of helping you develop the protagonist’s character due to how they react to the surprising new information they learned.
2. Hide an important character
This type of twist is difficult to execute well. We all know about how often, the seemingly unimportant character who is just there (for almost no reason at all), turns out to be important.
For example, let’s say that a police detective is investigating a murder. A key witness in the murder is suspected to be the victim’s child, who has gone missing. Meanwhile, the detective’s wife is a social worker, and in passing, she mentions that her newest case involves a child who is filthy, has been through some abuse, and is refusing to speak. The readers learn this in the beginning of the novel, but then the child is not mentioned again, until the detective follows several leads that lead him to the child – and it turns out it was the child from his wife’s newest case.
How can you hide it? Well, if the narrative states that the wife often works with such cases, then her detective husband will not even imagine that the missing child from his case is the same child that his wife has been recently assigned to.
Note: this is not the twist of the protagonist’s hidden identity. That is the most common twist that there is out there (for example, the protagonist being secret royalty, or the chosen one due to mysterious parentage or circumstances of birth).
3. Write in a double plot twist
Some plot twists are expected. The idea of the double plot twist is to deliver the expected plot twist first, and then, deliver the second one. The way you do this is with a combination of misdirection and misinformation.
You make the readers create an expectation of a plot twist – you are telegraphing it before it happens. For example, let’s say that we have a theft mystery. The protagonist is investigating a series of clues. The clues directly point at a certain person (who is innocent), and indirectly, they point to another one. In other words, the protagonist expects the innocent to be guilty, while the readers are able to point their fingers at who they think was the correct perpetrator.
This sets up the expected twist – it wasn’t the directly obvious suspect, but the other one. And then, you can deliver the second twist (unexpected), the second suspect had an accomplice – and they are the true villain of the plot. This person can be the one who was eliminated as innocent, or even better, someone who was not a suspect at all.
4. Give a bang to a minor subplot
A novel is made out of the main plot, the major subplots, and minor ones that seem like filler or slice of life, and completely unimportant to the main plot – until something happens that makes the readers realize that this minor subplot was important after all.
These types of minor subplots would be related to characters in the novel that are not connected to the main plot, but they are connected to the protagonist, their family and/or friends.
For example, let’s say that the female protagonist in a romance novel is a pediatric surgeon. Her best friend has a one-year-old daughter, who has been a little fussy recently (in the beginning of the novel), and the mother feels inadequate because she doesn’t know why. The protagonist consoles her and moves on.
In the meantime, the male protagonist has finally convinced the female protagonist to go on a date with him. Unfortunately, on the evening of the date, her best friend’s baby has a seizure and needs to be immediately operated upon by the female protagonist. She misses the date with him, but saves the baby. This causes friction between the two protagonists.
5. Distract with major subplots
The major subplots in a novel should be connected to the main plot, but they can also be used to distract the protagonist from the major subplot. Dealing with minor subplots will make the protagonist miss things and make mistakes while trying to solve the main problem (of the major plot).
For example, let’s say that the main protagonist is a journalist who has been assigned a hot topic story and they have a deadline to meet in a week. For the story, they need to get an interview with an important man. However, he refuses the interview.
In order to gain access to him, the journalist tries to visit their home in person. They offer a bribe to the doorman, but he asks for a favor. While the journalist is off doing the favor for the doorman, they are able to discover details they need for the story, so they think it is fine to spend some time on that.
However, while they are off on the side-quest, the man leaves of the city. When the journalist finally enters the home, they find his wife alone in there. The doorman was manipulating the journalist and the man they are supposed to interview has left. This would be the first twist. Then, you can make it a double twist (as explained in tip 3 above), by having the wife be willing to talk about the topic.
6. Work backwards in the story
Each writer has a unique way of writing a story – some create an outline, others write the whole novel without a plan chronologically, others write out of order and then they arrange chapters and scenes, placing them in the correct spot.
When it comes to creating plot twists, you can have good plot twists that are not executed well, so the readers either feel cheated (the twist comes out of absolutely nowhere), or the readers are not surprised (because the twist was telegraphed throughout the story).
In order to create unexpected plot twists that still work, the twists need to fall somewhere in between – not too obvious so the readers will pick up on it, but not too hidden either so they feel cheated when the twist does happen.
The best way to do this would be during the outlining phase of writing the novel (when you plan each plot event ahead of time), or after you’ve finished the novel. Analyze the twists you have planned (or written already), and determine whether they are unexpected enough. If not, you can tweak the story, either by offering more hints about the twist if it’s too hidden, or hiding it more if it is too obvious.