People love to be surprised.
From the early childhood game of Peek-a-Boo to an unexpected bouquet of roses after a hard day at work, the pay-off, neuroscientists tell us, is a rush of dopamine, intensifying our emotions by as much as four hundred percent (https://www.melissahughes.rocks/post/the-science-of-surprise).
When the unexpected happens, we’re pulled into the moment, engaging with the world in an intensified and pleasurable way. I’m obviously not talking about an unpleasant shock. That also intensifies our emotions, but not in a good way. I’m talking about those unforeseen events in our lives that overturn our expectations and send our thinking in an altogether new direction.
In the book Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected, authors Tania Luna and Leeann Renniger outline four stages of the surprise response:
- Freeze—something unexpected stops us in our tracks
- Find—our brains focus on trying to understand what’s going on and why
- Shift—those new finds prompt us to shift our perspective in some way
- Share—we feel the desire to share our surprise with others
How do we use this human affinity for surprise in our mystery fiction? No mystery there. Overturning the expectations of readers, surprising them, is called a “plot twist,” that moment when everything the reader has been led to believe turns out to be wrong. A plot twist is the reversing of expectations. It doesn’t mean the reader has been fooled. That would be cheating. It means the author has led readers down the wrong path but has at the same time provided every clue along the way, telling them the path is wrong—if only they were paying attention. The secret is distraction, drawing the readers’ attention away from the real clues by laying out lots of shiny red herrings.
Here are ten crime-fiction novels with amazing plot twists (no spoilers!):
- The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
- The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
- The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
- The Likeness by Tana French
- The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
- The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
- The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
A great plot twist reveals the destination to which the book was always leading. The reader just didn’t know it.
The question authors want readers to answer isn’t “Did you like it?” but “Did you guess it?” We’re happiest when they answer, “No, but I should have because all the clues were there.”
What is your favorite fictional plot twist?
How could you use the four stages of surprise in your own writing?
I love Kate Morton. She is a master at plot twists. Homecoming was also great.
I agree. That was one that took me completely by surprise.
My book club consistently has something by Kate Morton on her reading list. I think the plot twist in the silent patient was one of the most unexpected ones I’ve ever read! Of course I enjoyed all of these! A great plot twist can really elevate a book!
The Silent Patient is the one Morton book I still haven’t read. Going to take of that this summer! Thanks.
Plot twists are great, but one has to tread lightly. One very famous author, whose books I devour along with everyone else, has a habit of using a character’s name as a plot twist. All through the story you think there’s two people, but it’s really one, except group A knows them as person A and group B knows them as person B and then, toward act 3, voila! The name twist is revealed. I’ve read some books where the author painted themselves so thoroughly into a corner, they had to resort to the supernatural as a plot twist… It’s hard being a writer!
This famous author “has a habit of…”??? The one thing I would never do is use the same plot twist twice! But painting oneself in a corner is something I’m familiar with, although I would never resort to the supernatural. Hmm.
Those are great examples of mysteries with strong plot twists! My favorite twists come from movies. Luke Skywalker discovers that Darth Vader is his father in Star Wars, and Dorothy learns that the Wizard of Oz is an ordinary man, then, that her entire adventure has been a dream.
Great examples from the movies! There are so many. I might have included the short story by Agatha Christie where she figures out that the murder she’s been asked to solve actually hasn’t taken place yet. Can’t remember the name of it. Wonder if there’s a list of possible plot twists somewhere like there’s a list of solutions for “locked room” murders. I should look.
Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca has one of my favorite plot twists, as well as one of my favorite first lines. In movies, I’ll second Mally’s Luke Skywalker reference and add Planet of the Apes. It scared me to death, the first time I saw it!