- Hello everyone my name is Mandi Lynn.
I'm the author of the fantasy novels Essence and I am Mercy
and thriller novel She's Not Here
as well as the creator of AuthorTube Academy
and today we're gonna be talking about
how to write a plot twist.
(gentle music)
So first of all, what is a plot twist?
A plot twist is basically
when your readers are expecting one thing
and something completely different
ends up happening instead.
Now while plot twists aren't necessary in novels
they certainly make it a lot more fun.
That is how you get the readers hooked in
not only to that one book
but they also tend to get addicted
to your writing style as well.
So if they see a great plot twist done in one book
they'll be more tempted to read another book by you
just because they know that you know
how to manipulate a plot twist.
So how exactly can you accomplish a plot twist?
Well there's a few different ways you can go about it,
sometimes they are planned
and sometimes they happen on accident
when you just start writing your story.
So the planned version is when
you're sitting down to outline your novel
and you know the plot twist from the beginning,
so you're able to set things up so there's that mood,
you tend to lead readers into one direction
when you know something completely different
is gonna happen instead.
You can foreshadow things that you know aren't gonna happen
and you can just give them
every scenario in the book as a possibility
except the one that's actually gonna happen.
What you basically wanna do is that
you wanna make readers feel safe in one scenario.
You wanna make readers feel like that one scenario
or maybe a handful of scenarios
is the only scenario that is possible for the book.
You wanna lead them astray as possible,
so the way you do that is
with just little nuggets of information,
a little bit of false foreshadowing
and just do it very subtly,
because if you do it too much
and you force this information on a reader
a lot of readers are able to catch on
and realize that something's not quite right
in that what the author wants them to think
isn't what is actually gonna happen.
So there's a very fine line in terms
of how much information you can give.
An example of a plot twist that you can give
is a reverse role in characters.
So if you have someone who throughout the whole book
has been a hero, you can make them turn into a villain.
This is kind of a classic case
so it's a very hard sometimes
to do it successfully in a book
because it's become a classic plot twist
is that readers are sometimes able
to predict it from a mile away.
But if you do choose to go with this plot twist method,
do make sure that no matter what
you give your characters motivation.
If they are good, why are they suddenly turning evil?
If they are supposed to be evil, why are they good?
Always think of a reason.
No one acts without reason
and even if you do successfully make this plot twist,
if it's not done with proper motivations,
the reader will not like you for it.
Another plot twist you can try out is killing someone.
Kill someone who is thought to be untouchable.
Now a good example of this I would say is The Walking Dead.
There's a lot of characters on there
a lot of people thought of as untouchable.
So now I'll admit I haven't watched the recent seasons
but I did watch the season where,
spoiler alert, Glenn was killed.
Now Glenn has been almost killed multiple times
so when he almost gets killed
people expect that he won't get killed,
he's from season one, he's untouchable.
Anyone who is a fan of The Walking Dead learned the hard way
that there's no one untouchable in The Walking Dead.
And that honestly is sometimes what's so great about it
because you really don't know what's gonna happen next
and that's the best part of a good plot twist.
So to develop a good plot twist
the best thing you can do is
to get into the head of your reader.
Now this is difficult to do
because you are stuck in your head very much,
so in your head it's very common sense
for the plot twist to be what's gonna happen.
So it's very hard to separate yourself
and try to predict the unpredictable.
So what you wanna do is that you wanna take a step back,
read your manuscript and try to get as ignorant as you can.
Try to get into the head of the reader
who knows nothing about this world
except what you write on that piece of paper.
And you want to think in terms of,
if I was the reader of this book,
if I was experiencing this story for the first time
what do I expect to happen next?
Now take the expected
and flip it 360 degrees into the unexpected
and that is how you create a good plot twist.
Now once you've created your plot twist
and you've finished your manuscript
or at least you feel you've finished your manuscript,
what you wanna do is take that manuscript
and give it to your beta readers.
Now beta readers are readers
who are just sample reading the novel
to kind of give feedback.
So what you wanna do is have them read it
and then when they're done reading it
ask them did you expect this to happen?
And if they say no, you've done a good job.
If they say yes, you need to do some tweaking
and maybe figure out how to make them think
that something else is gonna happen instead.
Anyways that is it for today's video.
I hope you guys enjoyed learning how to write a plot twist.
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Otherwise be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel
and I'll see you guys next time.
Thank you for watching.
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