From Jane Friedman:
When mystery, thriller, and suspense authors plot their stories, one of the biggest consistent hurdles is designing twists that work. I’ve written previously about how thinking about your villain’s motivations can unblock a climactic scene in a thriller. But what if we’re still in the planning stages of our novel, and we feel stuck as to how to make the story fit the modern thriller convention of “twisty”? What if we’ve written our story, but our beta readers are seeing our twists from much too early on, or we keep getting feedback that the story is too predictable? How do we ideate twists that work?
These questions come up every time I teach and coach thriller writers, and they’re good questions. First, let’s define a few things:
What is a villain?
Mystery, thriller, and suspense (MTS) stories are the villain’s story, as told and perceived by the protagonist. As such, villains are equally, if not more important to figure out, than the protagonist. In MTS, the villain is the character doing the Bad Thing, and the protagonist is the person trying to stop the Bad Thing. The protagonist may or may not know who this person is, but as the story unfolds, they get closer and closer to the truth, ultimately uncovering what’s actually going on. The villain in these types of stories is sentient, and will go to equally great lengths as the protagonist to achieve their goal. This villain may frame other people to look like the real villain to the protagonist, or may be pulling the strings behind the scenes. Most importantly though, this person has their own wants, needs, motivations, and desires, and they are the person with whom the protagonist will have an ultimate face-off in the story.
What is a twist?
The protagonist’s journey in both thrillers and mysteries is effectively the unveiling of the villain’s plan, as experienced by the protagonist. The protagonist is our (the reader’s) “guide” through the story, because the protagonist is the character leading the reader along as they uncover what the villain was/is ultimately up to. As such, I like to define twists as follows:
Twists are the reveal of the villain’s truth. This truth feels “twisty”, because the reveal of the truth is unexpected to the protagonist.
What makes a twist satisfying?
Satisfying twists are the only logical answer to a puzzle that seemed seemingly impossible to solve as the reader/protagonist moved through the story. Satisfying twists are unexpected, but do not appear out of nowhere. They make perfect sense when the reader looks backwards at what they’ve already been shown on the page via the protagonist and what the protagonist saw, but aren’t easily guessed until they’re revealed because the protagonist led us astray. All the clues were “on screen,” i.e., on the page for us to see the correct answer (the villain’s truth), but those clues were seen (but ignored), or seen (but misinterpreted), or seen (but overlooked) by the protagonist throughout the story.
In other words, the protagonist was dead sure up until the reveal of the villain’s truth that the answer was something else. And because the protagonist was so sure, the reader will be happily led to that same conclusion. These clues were there for the reader to pick up on (and sometimes we do, which is part of the puzzle MTS readers love), but because readers tend to go along with whatever the protagonist thinks/sees/feels about a mystery, by deliberately designing our stories so that our protagonists ignore/misinterpret/overlook clues, the end result is a delightful manipulation of what the reader thinks as well.
By contrast, twists are unsatisfying when they’re predictable, convenient, or feel “unearned,” as they feel when the clues were not on the page for the reader or protagonist to pick up on. For example, if the protagonist has no way of knowing what’s really going on because the villain hasn’t been on the page at all, it can feel very unsatisfying. We (the reader) want the chance to be able to figure out the mystery along with the protagonist, to solve the plot problem, and to see and interpret the clues.
Of course, the flip side of this is if there are too many clues on the page or the villain is predictable, we won’t find the reveal of the villain’s truth twisty at all. It will fall flat. Predictability can take many forms: it can show up when our villain is too obviously evil and therefore easy to guess. It can appear when we lean into tropes in the genre (i.e., the spouse did it), without playing with or changing up motivations. (Pro tip: A trope can become fresh if the reader thinks, via the protagonist, that the answer is obvious, and then the true answer is the villain is someone entirely different.
The key to achieving satisfying, balanced twists and clues is to remember that the protagonist is our guide to uncovering the villain’s truth. Because the protagonist is the character leading the reader along as they uncover what the villain was/is ultimately up to, we as the author have ample opportunity to mislead the reader via the protagonist’s misinterpretation of the clues. Twists feel “twisty” because we (the author) have carefully engineered the story to mislead the reader via the protagonist’s journey and their assumptions.
As such, I recommend keeping the protagonist (logically) convinced about a plausible other solution right up until the point they face the truth. This applies to all the main twists: the midpoint twist (at 50%, where the story takes a turn), the climactic twist (at roughly 85%, where the protagonist faces the villain themselves or the person they think is the villain, and restores order) and the final twist (at roughly 98%, where the protagonist uncovers something unexpected, sometimes facing the true villain).
Link to the rest at Jane Friedman