Perfecting Problem Plot Twists
by JL Nich
Surprise, surprise!
Somewhere during the book, a change took place, and, oh boy, you were not expecting it. Does Science Fiction Fantasy have a plot twist? Let’s jog your memory. “I see dead people.” “Get away from her, bitch.” “Where’s the Goat?” Ok that last one was Jurassic Park. I love that missing goat scene.
Dragon Riders of Pern
An Unexpected Turn:
A plot twist is an unexpected turn of the ongoing plot leading the reader into another more dramatic and exciting place. The twistier the better, right? Do you remember the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey? This creative author put her plot twist into a dragon-filled world that took her readers on a voyage to a new world called Pern and gave it a weather antagonist of the deadly thread-filled skies. She genetically altered the indigenous winged miniature dragons to create giant dragons that bread in clutches, were ridable, and pair-bonded with the human rider who used his dragon to protect civilization. And oh, yes, she had other unique plot elements in her books, as well. The killer falling thread, a weather antagonist that only happened every 100 years, just long enough for humans to feel safe or forget the threat. Or, how the riders of the dragons were found and chosen, many humans having a natural empathic ability to talk to the dragons mentally. Plus, she took a technologically advanced humanity and forced them to survive in a non-technological new world, which over the course of the series lead back to rediscovering the technology that had disappeared thousands of years before. Simply put, Anne McCaffrey was a plot twisting master. And her readers ate it up.
I’d say there are many, many authors that build twistier plots of SFF Fantasy arena but the ones that really rocked boats were and are obviously tantamount to genius for the SFF Fantasy genre. Books that left us gasping and tortured until the next book arrived. Books that were adapted to mega-million movie series. Books that held up over time. And the ever-present books that surprised us. Yes, the unexpected plot twist.
Eye of the World
by Robert Jordon
(Book 1 of Wheel of Time Series)
Lord of the Rings Series, Harry Potter Series, The Wheel of Time, Dune are all phenomenal. And some others I have read and cherish gave the reading public SFF Fantasy convulsions of joy. Books like Enders Game, I-Robot, Jurassic Park, and On Basilisk Station gave us new realms and fantasy fodder to indulge in. And all of them have a twist in the plot and grabs the reader to shake them. Shake them hard.
Jurassic Park
by Michael Crichton
Just look at Jurassic Park. A Michael Crichton thriller of a unique theme park featuring genetically engineered dinosaurs. He twists the plot to include cloned dinosaurs and industrial espionage and then things really get out of control. Clearly a scientific advancement cautionary tale with an awesome plot twists of breeding in the wild, raptor hunting, the most vulnerable humans (the kids) taking on the deadliest dinosaurs, the velociraptors. This world was flipped upside down taking the humans back into prehistoric times against every precaution accounted for and we all loved it. It was an epic book and terrific film.
Enders Game
by Orson Scott Card
Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, contains mind-bending plot twists. Ender lives in a future in which very young children are recruited to fight a hostile alien species. He is a misfit boy who after being subjected to a brutal, manipulative training regimen, becomes a consummate leader and military tactician to kill the ‘buggers’ species from attacking Earth again. Plot twists of Drone technology, preemptive attacks, bullies, post-traumatic stress disorder, and a mind-body separation during dreams and psychological testing veer this story into the realm of deep thinking and compelling conquest and defeat.
My Personal Example
While I attended a writing club this year, we did a writing prompt to give a new take on an old story….so I chose Great Expectations and rewrote today’s version. Let’s see if you can determine the ‘plot twist’.
Today’s Great Expectations
Pip woke up to sunshine and the fresh smell of toast popping out of the toaster.
“Good Morning, sweetheart. How do you feel today?”
“I’m glorious, Estella, darl’n. My head feels much better today. My headache is completely gone. Perhaps I won’t spend so much time at the screen today. It was a really great book though. Great plot twist and all.”
“Well, don’t over do it today. I have a bunch of to-do things on your list and we need to knock some of them off.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Let me get my list. First, you need to check on our neighbor. Ms. Havasham was expecting you yesterday. She needed some help getting her wedding dress down from the attic. God knows why she wants that thing. It must be over 50 years old now.”
“Well perhaps she is cleaning it up for you to wear. We were planning this wedding event, right? The big to-do? The epic wedding scene. Which reminds me, I need to call Uncle Abel and ask if he can attend.”
I’ve taken care of that. Along with notifying Mrs. Joe. Although, I haven’t sent her a formal invitation yet.”
“See, I knew you were perfect. Make sure my clothes are paid for and delivered today. And pay the utility. I don’t want to have you shut off in error.”
“No, we don’t want that Pip.”
Pip pushed the covers back and kissed his palm then touched the electronic Dot speaker beside his bed.
While the entire skit was reminiscent of the original Great Expectations, the last sentence was actually the plot twist. This is much less dramatic than “I see dead people” but it is no less, not expected.
Dune
by Frank Herbert
Things that can affect a plot or How To Twist It.
Think of your favorite plot of science fiction. Maybe its Dune. The technology advancements, the environment adaptability, the voice weapons, the ‘weirding way’ of movement were all plot twists that made this story unbelievably attractive. Even the language and Fremen people were twistier than usual.
So lets examine the twists a bit deeper. Anne McCaffrey used weather as monumental plot twist. We’ve seen this in a few books: Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordon, The Martian by Andy Weir, The Day After Tomorrow movie was based on The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, and don’t’ forget Dune by Frank Herbert. An entire planet constrained by the lack of water.
What about the plot twist of a disappearance? The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells, Lord of the Rings when wearing the ring Frodo ‘disappears into the darkness’, Harry Potters invisibility cloak.
What about appearance? In Avatar Jake Sully takes on the Na’vi form, for reals ya’ll. The War of the Worlds aliens invade but the plot twist is how they actually are conquered by death.
Perhaps Mood is the plot twist. Remember Enders Game is treated as a game, but is it?
Or the key strength of the character becomes a key weakness or the reverse, such as Supermans Kryptonite or Neo from The Matrix has to learn to control the matrix.
Planet of the Apes. Astronauts crash-land on an unknown planet ruled by an advanced society of talking apes. Their discovery of the remains of the Statue of Liberty clues them into the realization that they are in the future and that it was Earth all along.
Most of the plot twists we’ve seen are foreshadowed. Check out my LGBT Books and Foreshadowing article for tons of examples and some of the popular LGBT book styles, as well.
