Saturday 26 July 2014

The Secret Of The Plot Twist

The Twist

A twist is essential in a crime fiction novel. Well, that's my opinion, anyway!

Crime writers need to throw a twist, or two, into their tales. It's what the reader enjoys about the genre. Defying common sense and convention is always popular and readers like to read a bit of wit, intelligently applied to the page. Put your trust in your narrator. They can be unnamed or they can be your main character. If the twist involves the narrator, it will surprise your reader beyond their wildest dreams.

The other key ingredient for the crime novel is the red herring, and misdirection. Magicians use misdirection to distract the eye away from what's really going on. It's your classic trick but we've loved it for centuries and there's no reason why we won't continue to do so.




When the final solution, the truth, is revealed at the end, it should be satisfying for the reader. We've all been there, that feeling of yes of course, why didn't I see that coming?



Finally, a quick word on integrity. Whilst the reader often wants to be pleasantly surprised by the ending, they want to believe in it too. The villain needs to be in the novel, they can't be someone who waltzed in three pages before the end. Clues for the reader to solve the puzzle themselves should be there. It's the author's job to disguise the clues well enough, but it's unfair not to put them in at all.

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