homunculus-argument:

The best way to write a plot twist to the end of a story isn’t to make one up at the end of your first draft. The best way to go around it is to write the first draft withouta plot twist, and then, starting from the beginning of the second draft, conceal one of the key elements of the ending. Don’t edit it out, just sweep it to the background, mentioning it in passing among a bunch of less relevant or completely irrelevant details that the reader won’t think about.

So while the first draft goes “so the protagonist and the Fire Prince figure that the demon can killed with silver or with fire. The silver didn’t work so the Fire Prince kills it with fire”, you could play down both sides of this, both the “demon can be killed with fire” and the “prince can do shit with fire”-thing the whole story, leaving both in a mentionthat this might be a thing, but never show it.

Andthenyou make it a dramatic reveal at the end. “Did you ever wonder why they call me the Fire Prince?” and holy shit that made sense all along from the start. That’s why they took that useless motherfucker with them on the journey to begin with.

THINGS WE MAY FIND OUT

Okay, for Better Call Saul…

#1.  What if Howard wrote Chuck’s letter to Jimmy?

I know I always said that Kim did, and she makes a lot of sense, but what if they tried to knock us back with a surprising twist? What if, after getting Howard shot, Jimmy finds out that it was him, not Chuck and not Kim, who penned the letter?

#2.  What if Lalo survives?

What if, instead of dying, Lalo picks up the phone and orders a “Dust filter for a Hoover Max extract pressure pro model 60?” It could happen. There’s no proof that he’s alive. The only people looking for him are Gus and Mike, everyone else thinks he died in Mexico. He’s safe from law enforcement, so long as he can get a new identity, and Gus never had a chance of finding him. No, it’s the other way around. Gus is playing a waiting game; waiting for Lalo to come to him! So if instead Lalo just buys that dust filter, he’s gone. Retirement is an option.

#3.  What if Howard lives?

People survive gunshots all the time. People even survive gunshots to the head! So there is a potential for Howard to survive. 

#4.  What if Jimmy dumps Kim?

No, I don’t mean that Jimmy distances himself from Kim to protect her. I mean, what if Jimmy decides, “Hey! This bitch is crazy!” I’m outta here.”

It could happen. Like I said previously, Kim is in this Walter White style downward spiral. 

Remember:  Slipping Jimmy scammed people for profit. It’s how he made his milk money. It was a means to an end. A short cut, yes, but simply his way of putting clothes on his back and food on his table. Kim seems to be doing the exact opposite. She turned away from her own goal, sabotaged her own “end” – the meeting about funding a Pro Bono law office – in order to get Howard. 

Remember Walter White? Remember how he was offered a great job and all his medical bills paid and he turned it down in favor of cooking up crystal meth? Well that was what Kim Wexler did. That is what she became. Like Walter White she walked away from the legitimate answer, THE CHARITY, and chose to go for it on her own, even if it wasn’t a legitimate means.

Might Jimmy see this? Might it scare him? And, no, it doesn’t follow that he would have to later spot it in Walter. After all, he wasn’t close to Walter. He didn’t know the whole backstory. He didn’t see all the opportunities that Walter walked away from. But he sees them with Kim. So maybe Kim doesn’t leave and maybe she doesn’t get killed. Maybe Jimmy dumps her.

NOTE:  Jimmy does mention his “Ex Wife” in Breaking Bad. Sure he had other ex wives, but maybe Kim is the one that left him feeling scorched.

#5.  The timelines cross

There’s no reason why the Better Call Saul timeline can’t overlap Breaking Bad. Saul Goodman doesn’t make his first appearance until episode 8 of season 2. Going by when the episodes aired there’s 15 months where the characters of Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul co existed in the same city with little or no knowledge of each other.

NOTE:  Jesse at least knows who Saul Goodman is, and it has been suggested by others he may have had contact with him prior to the Breaking Bad timeline.

old-screnwriter-deactivated2022:

a plot twist tip you don’t hear very often

Sometimes suspense is worth it, even if it means serving your audience the entire plot on a silver platter:

• In Romeo and Juliet, the audience knows Juliet isn’t dead. Romeo does not. It’s a tragedy.
• In the TV-show Breaking Bad, a DEA agent is looking for a crystal-meth producer who calls himself “Heisenberg,” not knowing that “Heisenberg” is his brother-in-law.
• In the play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus tries to expose the murderer of King Laius, not knowing that he himself is the murderer.

That my friends, is what we call dramatic irony. A literary device in which the audience’s understanding of certain events or individuals in a story surpasses that of its characters.

What I mean by that is simple — not every plot twist or plot line that occurs in your story has to come as a surprise to your audience.

It’s not in any way wrong to drop important information ahead of time. Sometimes the best way to tackle a twist is simply to let your audience in on what’s happening. Let them anticipate the emotional reactions of the characters. In certain cases, that can be torture. Which is a good thing. Storytelling wise.

You’ll still have your audience at the edge of their seats, not out of suspense of what’sgoing to happen, but out of fear, and excitement, of how the characters they’ve grown to love are going toreact to it.

For all they know, the plot twist, and I am using plot twist loosely, it can just as well be a secret big enough to destroy a relationship, but not something that is going to affect every character, could potentially ruin everything.

It can turn characters against each other, massive consequences to follow. Maybe a certain character is heading towards a certain death, maybe their partner is falling in love with someone else, unaware of their partner’s infidelity.

Maybe a character is enjoying a nice day out at the park, not knowing that previous night a herd of zombies marched through. Instantly alarm bells starts ringing — the apocalypse is upon us. When is the character gonna find out? How are they gonna to find out?

Worst part — a close family member of the character has already fallen victim to the undead, and now, having been missing for a couple days, is approaching said character from behind, reanimated as a zombie. We’ve already seen this person bitten and turned, but for the character, it’s a different story.

Your audience are emotionally invested in your characters. Use that to your advantage.

To haveyour audience sit on a a piece of information, not knowing how it’s going to affect their favorite characters and relationships, can have just as much of an emotional impact as a “regular” plot twist.

Keep reading

Misleading your readers can be super important in writing! Especially if you want a plot twist that works, sometimes foreshadowing can get a bit obvious but throw in some red hearings and you’re back on track. 

When it comes to unreliable sources, there are a ton, but it is preferable to choose one that your readers will believe. For this I mostly use characters, see, most readers will believe the protagonist or important side characters when they say something. They won’t even question it. But there’s a lot of reasons your main character may not be telling the truth. 

They might be retelling an explanation they made up in their head a long time ago and can’t even remember was made up. 

They might have been lied to. 

They might of misunderstood something they were told.

They might be talking to a child and simplifying or lying for their protection. 

Andif you don’t say anything, people will assume whatever they say is true. But characters are allowed to make mistakes. 

Remember, if you have an all knowing neutral narrator, they can’t straight up lie. But character’s aren’t all knowing and often think they are. 

Another form of unreliable information can be extracts from books, or essays. Books are full of misinformation! Either because of politics, interests or simply new evidence coming around. How many things were supposed to be true until proven otherwise? And students can be terrible! The amount of lies I’ve told in my essays purely from misinterpretation is terrifying. 

For both of these you have to be careful. If every time you pull out a book it’s all lies, well, readers aren’t dumb, they’ll pick it up quite quickly. If it is mostly true, with a couple of lies spread in between the pages, now we’re talking. 

You can also combine the two. A characters reads something in a book, tells others, they believe it and go with is as though true. Nobody ever corrects the misinformation. The reader certainly won’t be suspecting anything at that point. 

Anyway, I hope this was useful. 

As usual,  check out my book, stories I’ve written plus other social medias: here.

How have you tricked your readers?