Quick Link: How to Write Mind-Blowing Plot Twists—Twisting is NOT Twerking

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Don’t you hate it when the surprise twist is some character who was never really involved at all? Or that had no real motivation for their actions, which were really out of character?  I always thought that was cheating. Kristen Lamb explains it better than I can, and helps you to twist your plot instead of twerking it.

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How to Write Mind-Blowing Plot Twists—Twisting is NOT Twerking

Kristen Lamb

Okay so on Monday I talked about 3 Mistakes that Will Make Readers Want to Punch a Book in the Face. One of the mistakes involved the twist ending. Very often a writer believes she has written a twist when in fact, it is NOT a twist at all, it is a twerk.

Twisting the reader? YES. Twerking the reader? NO.

You’ve heard the literary term MacGuffin? For the sake of a simple analogy, I’m adding a new one and it is called a MacGyver😛 .

How is a MacGyver a twist?

We know MacGyver is in a bad spot and he has two choices. The obvious one. A gun. Blast his way out. Or he has is det-cord, glitter, and coffee stirrers.

OMG! How can he ever survive?

MacGuyver uses what he is given and fashions the glitter, det-cord and coffee stirrers into a small incendiary device that creates the right distraction for escape. How? Because he paid attention in science class and knows that the components that make up glitter include copolymer plastics, aluminum foil, titanium dioxide, and iron oxides. He also knows the burn rate of det-cord and the tensile strength of coffee stirrers.

The cheap ones. Not the good ones we steal from Starbuck’s.