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| snakey, hissy, twisty, tricky! |
Twist Endings
I do so love a sparkling, unexpected twist at the end of a novel, don't you?
However, reading it is one thing but writing it is quite another... And handling that surprise well - and let's face it, in real life twists rarely happen as they do in books - is as tricky as holding a slippery snake. But, when it works well, the twist ending lifts the story right off the page!
And I know it is much more difficult to do in a full length novel but relatively easy in a short story... So for me, the writer who pulls it off in a novel-length story has my total respect.
However, reading it is one thing but writing it is quite another... And handling that surprise well - and let's face it, in real life twists rarely happen as they do in books - is as tricky as holding a slippery snake. But, when it works well, the twist ending lifts the story right off the page!
And I know it is much more difficult to do in a full length novel but relatively easy in a short story... So for me, the writer who pulls it off in a novel-length story has my total respect.
Thrillers especially, I feel, benefit from a strong twist ending – as long as it is carefully done and arises naturally from the story. I don’t usually plan twist endings but they often occur to me a as I am writing the story and I get very excited at the thought of tailoring my story somewhat so they fit nicely. And there is no better comment from a reader than them saying they never saw it coming.
Of course, to work properly the twist must not be evident to the reader until well into the story - if not actually at the very end. In fact, if it is obvious early on, it can totally destroy the rest of the tale! So twists have to be handled with a great deal of care.
The setup for the twist must come well in advance so the ending is not suddenly manufactured for the express purpose of the surprise/twist. If the reader has to go back and figure out ‘how the heck did that happen?’ and they can then see that the story had not misled them, then that is quite acceptable but the author has to be very careful that it all makes sense to the reader. Confusion at the end is an absolute no no...
There are those who say a good thriller story ought to be one twist after the other from beginning to end with surprises coming by the bucket-load in order to escalate tension and increase suspense. Not easy if you are to hold it all together. But iIf you can do this then the story never stalls and is never dull.
In thrillers, the suspense must be maintained right up until the final moments of the story, so to have a twist right at the end and keep the reader on the edge of his seat, especially if it has been one surprise after another right the way through, is not easy. I guess that’s why they call a good thriller story a breathless read.
Do you find twist endings easy to write in full novels? Have you ever read stories with twists that fail miserably?
