#writing twists

[kereeachan]

Since Game of Thrones has everyone talking about bad twists, I’d like to talk about a movie with some good ones I just experienced: Detective Pikachu.

The film has several twists, and before the big ones at the end everything is laid out on the table, so theoretically you could guess it. And for one of the two biggest, I did. The other one left me gobsmacked until I went “ooooh” when I realized how well it fit. So, Detective Pikachu Spoilers Ahead!

The two biggest twists are that Howard Clifford is the real Big Bad, not his son as we’d been lead to leave, and THEN that his son Roger, who we think we’ve seen being evil, isn’t evil at all and was being impersonated y his father’s Ditto.

It’s all done amazingly well. I guessed that Howard wasn’t as altruistic as he seemed (I mean, it is Bill Nighy) and was maybe the real Big Bad. However the Roger twist had me totally off-guard until it happened and only after the film did I realized that beforehand we’d been given all the pieces:

We see Howard has a partner Ditto that can shapeshift into a human, at the TV station when it does so to push his wheelchair.

We know Howard has a silent bodyguard/employee who wears sunglasses and has pink hair, who is the one who brings him Tim for their first talk. The only time she communicates with words, they’re texted, not spoken. Otherwise, all gestures.

Said employee is also the one who first alerts Harold about Tim and Pikachu.

When “Roger” is committing actual evil acts, he never speaks and is wearing sunglasses. We think is because he’s going to be outside and because he’s just doing things over a computer and thus doesn’t need to talk, but really it’s to hide the Ditto eyes.

Finally, the reason Roger acted like a dick when we (via Tim and Pikachu) meet him is because of his father’s egotistical sign-off line...which may have been there to provoke such a reaction when Howard noticed Tim was present. Even the first time around I thought Howard had laid it on a little thick, now I think he was manipulating Roger so Tim wouldn’t trust him.

Thus, it all comes together when Tim finds Roger tied up in a closet when Lucy just saw a sunglasses-wearing Roger outside, who now is standing behind Tim to attack. Oh. A Ditto all along! (tho they do rub it in a bit by having the Ditto reveal that, yeah, it was the bodyguard too).

And if you wonder why have the Ditto impersonate Roger, it’s so if anyone sees what’s going down they assume Roger’s the one behind it. Given Harold has already framed him to Tim, it makes sense Roger was the fall guy if just about anyone found out.

Like, THAT is how you do a good twist. Every twist in the movie has good setup--realizing that all three times we saw the crash we didn’t see all of it, but that during one of those three times Harold presented it as us seeing all of it. Realizing that we never saw what Tim’s dad looked like...leaving Ryan Reynolds to play him in the final scene for a comedic twist. The crazy Greyninja have exploding projectiles...that could also have been what knocked the car off the road, instead of Mewtwo. Lots of stuff all coming together.

THAT is how you handle twists. By planning things out beforehand so that when the truth is reveal or the big event goes down, it. makes. sense. The movie was so well written and I recommend it to anyone!

[catpella]

I have this pic saved on my phone and I can’t remember where I took it...

[zenthisoror]

Sex-repulsed, intimacy hypersensitive, raised in minimal body contact family, probably aromantic asexual writer: Writes scene with two characters, summer sun, sweat, hand-holding and lots of intense eye-gazing. Side-eyes characters as they talk: Are you guys...maybe not aro-ace?

[howtofightwrite]

Do you have any advice for using Red Herrings well? Are there any major gaffes often made by amateur writers that I should keep in mind?

Don’t let fear of the Red Herring’s discovery control you, your story, the Herring, or the logical progression.

In a well told story, the twist is inevitably cathartic and doesn’t feel like a cheat. In a poorly written one the twist is unsatisfactory. There’s a general belief that the catharsis with the reveal comes with the reveal itself, but it’s the set up that makes it. You need to set your Red Herring up in such a way that it makes logical sense with your plot and characters.

A good story will always be good and the Red Herring is only one part of the whole fabric. You want your audience to reread your story after you’ve finished. You want them to keep coming back to it. A story that is only a “Gotcha!” won’t have repeat customers. Once you know the answer to the riddle, there’s no reason to return.

Many writers who go on this path become overly concerned with the mystery and staying one step ahead of their readership, trying to ensure that they can’t figure it out on the assumption that it’s better if they don’t.

Don’t try to outsmart your readers. If you fool them, great. If you don’t, oh well. They’ve got a lot more time on their hands than you do and will, ironically, probably think about your story more than you ever will. Some of them will be smarter than you, or more familiar with the genre conventions than you, or just more practiced at putting together puzzles.

That’s fine.

Let them have their victory. In a well told story, it honestly doesn’t matter if the reveal gets blown before the ending. If it gets guessed. The Red Herring isn’t the whole show, it’s just one piece of candy in a whole bag of goodies.

The Red Herring must always serve the story.

Don’t get so wrapped up in the Red Herring that it ends up the other way around. It’s not worth sacrificing your story or your characters intelligence/integrity over. Remember that how these characters deal with the fallout of whatever is happening or act during the course of your story is just as interesting as the mystery.

Plenty of writers have ruined their stories by trying to stay one step ahead of their audience and becoming overly focused on it to the point they change their plans just for a “gotcha!” and the characters end up acting in ways that don’t make sense. It leads to terrible decision making. (See: 24 Season 3)

Never lose sight of the whole story and don’t build the entire thing on a single Red Herring. Instead, balance it with your characters and their development, establish your setting, include multiple plot twists, and pay attention to your pacing.

Your Herring is just one thread in the tapestry, don’t let over focusing on it unwind the whole thing.

-Michi

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