(Immutable Moments: The Load-Bearing Beats of a Story.)

Instead of giving up, I decided to change how I approached writing. I renamed my failed manuscripts exploratory drafts and built the scaffolding of a crime novel to hold them up. The crime was surprisingly easy to incorporate into my otherwise upmarket novel. But to have a good crime or thriller, I needed some plot twists, too. Those were a bit harder to suss out, and took a lot of trial and error.

I’m going to save you some “exploratory drafts” with my five steps to sticking a plot twist.

STEP 1: BRAINSTORM YOUR TWIST

A good twist does not exist in a vacuum. It serves its plot. It isn’t there only to surprise the reader—it also needs to add a layer to your story.

To achieve this, start by considering your genre. What typically happens in novels like yours? What preconceived ideas will your readers bring to the book? What expectations will your audience have?

Now, think about your story in particular. What is unique about your characters, your setting, or your themes? How could these things interact with your genre’s conventions? Where is the overlap? Is there any way can you use the unique parts of your story to disrupt the conventions of your genre?

For instance, say you are writing a crime novel about a serial killer. You’d want to think about what serial killer tropes are common—the lone male criminal genius, for instance, with some twisted sexual motivation or satanic drive pushing him to kill. Your question should be: How can I flip that expectation on its head? Your answer—one of many—may be: I will make the killer an old woman.

STEP 2: FORM A PLAN

We aren’t talking about a premise here, though; we aren’t talking about a set-up, or anything that can be given away on the flap-copy. A twist requires that you subvert expectations in media res, which is trickier than nailing a hook.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a pantser or a plotter—to make the twist land in a satisfying way, you must make a plan. If you’re a pantser, the twist will probably come to you while you’re writing an exploratory draft. If you’re a plotter, it will come while you’re outlining. Either way, once you know what your twist is, you must consider where to put it. Is it a shift in perspective that changes everything? Maybe it’s the midpoint. Is it the solution to a mystery? Try it as the climax.

Rule of thumb: To give the twist maximum effect, withhold as long as you can.

STEP 3: LEAVE BREADCRUMBS

The best twists are those that readers call “surprising but inevitable.” This means that the twist cannot be something totally out of the blue. Nor can you outright lie to your reader. That feels like cheating. You, as an author, are in a partnership with your reader. You are playing a game with them, and if they suspect you’re cheating, they won’t play with you again.

In order to avoid such a misstep, you must know your twist at page one. Whether you’ve written 80,000 words to find your twist or have a detailed outline, you must make sure that the rest of the story adds up. Every line that comes before the twist has to work with the twist.

The answers, in other words, must all be hidden on the page.

Click to continue.

STEP 4: MISDIRECT

You cannot lie, but you must manipulate your reader. Think misdirection. Think distraction. Think magic. You must draw attention to one hand, while the other hand does the dirty work.

On an early episode of The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast, host Bianca Marais asked thriller writer Jeffrey Archer about misdirection. He gave away his “great secret:” “When you drop that line,” he said, “that’s going to tell you everything, make the next line so startling, they forget it… that’s the game you play with the reader.”

This means revealing the truth in such an offhand way that the reader practically ignores it. Let a bomb explode directly after the question is answered. Or a car accident. Or a confession. Any such upheaval will pull the attention away from what you just revealed.

STEP 5: SANDBAG

Sandbagging is when you play below your skill level in order to dupe your opponent to betting more. If you can manage to get your reader to believe that she has figured it out, just long enough to feel full of herself for her ingenuity. Then, you pull the rug out.

Ta-da! Gotcha.

Check out Laura Leffler’s Tell Them You Lied here:

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Trust me: The more we dig, the more sense it’s going to make.

Whether you’re watching The Sound of Music or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: a group of people come together, and as they interact, their emotions grow—until they boil over.

At which point, there is singing or there is fighting.

That emotional peak is like the crest of a wave.

Your pulse rises. Your senses are engaged.

Like all waves, it must recede, and the story dips down into the trough. That cooling off period is like a pressure release valve. The characters need it, but so do you.

Because there’s another wave coming.

That’s what waves do—they rise and fall, much like a story should. And in a really good story, those crests and troughs are going to get bigger as you go along, building to a climax: a soul-stirring song or a fight to determine someone’s fate.

Good fights and good songs are cool, sure, but they’re not there because they’re cool. They advance the story. They make you a promise. Most of all, they make the characters more accessible and draw you closer to them. On a technical level, these genres are great for establishing their authority. But on an emotional level, putting characters in a place of emotional or physical vulnerability makes it easier to identify with them—and to root for them.

It’s in recognizing these things that you can become a better storyteller.

World-Building

In the 1999 film The Matrix, humans have been enslaved by machines and stuck into a virtual reality designed to keep them docile. A group of rebels led by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) recruit Neo (Keanu Reeves), who they believe is the chosen one meant to free them.

Neo’s training begins, via virtual downloads, because the war will be fought on a digital landscape; in the realm of the mind rather than the physical body. After 10 hours of this training, Neo proclaims, “I know kung fu.”

Morpheus responds: “Show me.”

And they’re whisked into a virtual program, which Morpheus explains was designed to teach the rebel fighters that they’re only limited by their minds—some rules of physics can be bent, while others can be broken.

Then they fight!

Neo is bursting with excitement at his newfound prowess. Morpheus defends himself in a confident, almost detached manner. Neo grows frustrated, unable to land a single punch.

Morpheus chides him. “You’re faster than this. Don’t think you are. Know you are.”

Neo takes a breath. He drops into a place of stillness. They engage again. This time, Neo is faster, more focused, and the fight ends as he nearly strikes Morpheus, his fist hovering a fraction of an inch from his mentor’s face.

What did we learn here?

The whole sequence lasts a little under five minutes, but we got some great world-building on the rules of the virtual world—dictated and simultaneously expressed through combat. We got a sense of both characters. We watched them emotionally develop, as Neo comes into his confidence, and Morpheus recognizes Neo’s aptitude. We got to cheer for Neo as he took another step toward the ultimate goal of saving humanity (something we all have a vested interest in, even in a fictional setting).

It’s the zenith of that old writing adage: “Show, don’t tell.” Neo telling Morpheus he knows kung fu is meaningless. He had to show him—and us.

Plus, we got a really cool sequence designed by the legendary fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping, because what’s the point if we’re not having fun?

After that, we take a breath. More world-building. More character stuff.

Until the next action sequence comes, which is slightly bigger, each acting as a plateau that drives the narrative to the next foundational level.

Character

West Side Story. A spin on Romeo & Juliet, set in the 1950s and featuring two rival New York City gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, both grappling for turf on the Upper West Side. For the sake of this exercise, we’ll refer to Steven Spielberg’s 2021 film version (there are clips of this song and the aforementioned fight scene on YouTube, if you want to follow along).

Ansel Elgort plays Tony, a Jet on parole, trying to live a more virtuous life. He meets and falls in love with María (Rachel Zegler), who is engaged to a Shark.

Things are not destined to end well.

Pretty early into the story we get “Jet Song,” which introduces us to, you guessed it, the Jets. The number starts with the gang discussing Tony: members are worried that Tony is out, but their leader Riff (Mike Faist) insists Tony is still one of them—through the power of song.

Riff learns about the Jets: their culture, their values, their hierarchy. It’s clear they consider themselves a family, and Tony leaving is a threat to their strength and identity. When we see the familial bond these characters have, we can better understand why they fight so hard for each other. We can all identify with the power of family—whether it’s the kind we’re born with, or in this case, the chosen kind.

And they don’t just tell us they’re a powerful unit by means of the lyrics—they show us through choreographed action. The gang dances in tandem through the streets, wandering into traffic as cars screech to a halt. People see them and recoil or run in fear.

The entire performance lasts less than three minutes, but in that brief time we got world-building, a musical dissertation on the stakes, and an introduction to one of the movie’s major factions. It established the gang’s bond, their tough-guy bona fides (as tough as a group of theater kids can be), and their technical proficiency as singers.

Structure

These are great scenes, but I doubt anyone would rank them as the best in their respective films. A good storytelling wave isn’t a horizontal line. It climbs, reaching its height at the climax.

Do you put the biggest and the best fight at the beginning of The Matrix? Nope! It comes at the end. Neo versus nigh-invincible computer programs in the form of black-suited agents.

“Jet Song” is a fine piece of singing, but it doesn’t carry the emotional weight of María singing over Tony’s dead body (that’s not a spoiler, the first production was in 1957, and anyway, I already said the story was a spin on Romeo & Juliet).

It’s important to think about this prioritization of impact when structuring your own narratives.

If you break it down, Spielberg’s West Side Story has 22 numbers, each one offering a crest, with a trough of character development and scene-setting and breath-catching in between. The Matrix has approximately seven major action set pieces (that’s if you consider set pieces within the last act as separate [the helicopter rescue, the subway fight], which, I do).

More than that, every song and every action sequence has to be relevant and transformational to the story.

Cool, but functional.

Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics for West Side Story, said that anyone can write a “bad song,” but even worse is writing a “wrong song,” one that doesn’t have any purpose or meaning.

And dancing is a little like fighting, right? Moulin Rouge! The Musical choreographer Sonya Tayeh said she watches shows “without music and [edits] accordingly, making sure every breath, every inch of movement is driving the story.”

You ever see a plot diagram? You can find one pretty easily online. It looks like a mountain, with the beginning, then a straight slope up, consisting of rising action, until you get to the peak—the climax. The slope down is the falling action, until you get to the end.

To my mind, the lines in the classic plot diagram are far too straight.

I believe a good storytelling line has little crests and troughs in them throughout—which tend to be much more apparent in genre stories, because of the expectations they set through the promises they make to the viewer: that some form of peril is imminent.

Pacing

Pacing is so important, and it’s everywhere. If you take a quick turn to Broadway, you realize how technical the format is. The ebb and flow of action and information is built into the foundational structure of many shows, so much so there are terms for them.

Most musicals have a big Opening Number, clearly establishing the world, the characters, and the show you’re about to see. In “Alexander Hamilton,” the first track in Hamilton, the whole cast comes out to tell you about the life of the play’s subject, and Aaron Burr literally tells you he’s going to shoot the guy (again, not a spoiler, because, history).

There’s the I Want song, where the protagonist literally tells us … what they want. In “The Wizard and I,” which Elphaba belts early in Wicked, she dreams about meeting the Wizard (of Oz) so she can find the love and acceptance and beauty she’s always craved.

And then there’s the 11 O’Clock Number, which comes toward the end of the show, and is meant to be a showstopper—a reward for an audience that stayed up late, but also, the culmination of the emotional journey. See: “Memory,” from Cats. I’m not entirely sure what the show is about, but it’s a really dope song.

I’m not saying all stories need to sound the same or follow the exact same format.

But I am saying that some things work because they work.

Head and Heart

We covered world-building, character, and structure. Just as important is the way these stories make a promise by creating a heightened sense of reality, and through this, establishing authority.

This is something Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk talks about. That once you establish authority, “the reader will trust you, believe you, and you can do anything with the plot.”

There are two ways to do this, he says. The “heart” method, through honesty and frankness, and the “head” method, by demonstrating knowledge or proficiency.

Both kung fu movies and musicals are excellent for establishing a high level of technical prowess. It’s easy for us to trust people who are good at things and then to accept the reality their skill sets create, where everyone is a martial arts master or a Broadway-caliber singer.

And there’s an amplified emotional intensity in both of these genres that is captivating and undeniable. The characters are drawn closer—into hitting or kissing range—and we learn more about their true selves in these high-stakes scenarios.

What they want, who they love, what they’ll fight for, and who they’ll die for.

It’s this emotional or physical peril that gives us the opportunity to cheer for them.

Whether it’s Elphaba’s singing “The Wizard and I” or Neo battling for the fate of humanity, these are the moments that truly highlight the stakes, when our allegiance to these characters becomes strongest.

The Bigger Picture

We don’t need to explicitly focus on kung fu movies or musicals to understand the point here.

In fact, I don’t want you to.

I start with those because it’s a little bit funny and will get you to pay attention, but it underscores something really important: You should be reading and watching stories outside your chosen format so you can better see the invisible strands of storytelling common across all genres.

Pull the camera back a little and instead of kung fu, just think about action movies in general. Look at Mad Max: Fury Road. For as propulsive as it is, there is a sense of rising and falling action that gives the juggernaut a heartbeat. There are still moments in which director George Miller allows the audience to catch their breath, but only for a moment—and even that intentionally shortened space amplifies the feeling of perpetual motion.

Crests and troughs. They’re everywhere.

You’ve got dancing in Saturday Night Fever.

You’ve got gunfights in John Wick.

You’ve got boxing in Rocky and football in Friday Night Lights.

I could go on. But I don’t think I need to. Because at this point, I bet you can see it.

Moving forward, those crests and troughs—what they accomplish, what they offer you as a creator—ought to stand out just a little bit more, and you should be better equipped to utilize them in your own stories.

Click to continue.

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(21 Popular Thriller Tropes for Writers.)

As much as some writers thrive on letting their characters lead the way and making split-second decisions about what happens next (also known as “pantsing,” aka flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants), I know now that I’m not one of them. Here’s why I’m a plotter, not a pantser.

1) I’m less likely to quit

At the start of my writing journey, I’d get to a tricky point in the story where I needed to do more research or where I didn’t know how to get my character out of a sticky situation, and I’d just grind to a halt. Soon, months would have gone by and picking the narrative threads back up felt more and more insurmountable. Eventually that novel would slide away into an archive folder on my computer, forgotten forever.

If I’d known what was going to happen next or what I was aiming for, maybe I could have continued writing. If I’d understood what research I needed to do before I started writing, perhaps I wouldn’t have had to pause and lose momentum.

I know now that I need to plot my novel before I start writing, so I’m less likely to quit.

2) I can see the big picture of my novel at a glance

One day I decided to try a new approach: plotting! So I turned to Writer’s Digest and found an article which has taught me skills which helped me write four novels, and which I’ve shared with countless other novelists who needed help to plan their novels: Use a Spreadsheet to Outline Your Novel.

Using the spreadsheet template in the article, I tore apart an early draft of my debut novel and laboriously plugged every scene into each row on the sheet. Suddenly, I could see everything: which scenes weren’t doing enough work, which scenes could be combined together to do double work, and which needed something extra to really sing. That spreadsheet helped me get to “The End,” and that novel became my published debut, Secrets of a Serial Killer.

3) I find more space for creativity

Some writers—Stephen King included—believe that plotting removes spontaneity and creativity. I disagree. I’ll maybe concede it changes when you can be spontaneous, and yet creativity is just as abundant throughout the process.

The plotting phase is full of fun and creativity, and is my favorite part of writing. I love sitting at my desk, staring into space and letting these new people wander around in my brain poking at stuff until they have a goal. The writing phase is a different and equally fun phase of creativity for me. I have the scope to ask questions like, “What kind of character might do the things I’ve plotted for them in future chapters?” To me, that’s hugely creative.

Sure, if you already know your beginning, middle, and end, then it’s unlikely that your characters will unexpectedly win the lottery and jump on a flight to Barbados when that wasn’t what you intended. But many writers find that knowing your major plot beats and where you’re heading enables you to play around more creatively within the space you’ve invented.

4) I get the structure right

No matter what genre you write in or what plotting advice you follow, structure is a key element of writing good fiction. I write psychological thrillers, and readers of this genre expect key things: inciting incidents, little twists throughout, a big midpoint twist, and a climactic final act. Often these elements need to be carefully placed, especially the midpoint twist—and plotting these things out in advance really helps me, both at the writing stage and in the later editing stages too. 

After the early draft I still have to go through structural edits where some things will change, but the amount of work I have to do on rewrites is significantly reduced if I have plotted in advance. And I think the books I write are better for it, too.

Since learning to plot and writing my debut novel, I have written three more novels: The House Fire, The Baby Monitor, and my newest release, My Husband’s Ex—out May 3rd from Bookouture. Each of these benefited from what I learned from Michael and his spreadsheet, and for the rest of my writing career I will be wholeheartedly a “plotter,” and never a “panster.” 

Check out Rosie Walker’s My Husband’s Ex here:

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Stories with a shocking reveal often get widely read and talked about. They keep readers hooked throughout, not knowing what comes next, eagerly turning pages to find out.

But pulling off a successful reveal is a tricky tightrope act between giving readers enough information to feel invested and keeping back enough to keep them hooked. It’s the striptease of literature: show too much and you lose all the excitement and buildup. Too little and nobody cares.

Balancing these considerations often relies on three key elements: knowing what and how much to keep as a reveal, when to reveal it, and how to unspool the hidden information for maximum suspense and impact.

What and How Much to Reveal

Reveals aren’t a device every story needs—and one reason they may fall flat is when they don’t feel necessary or intrinsic to the main story.

Effective reveals are the ones that essentially clarify, illuminate, or define a character arc or story: Amir’s actions in the past with his childhood best friend, Hassan, are a central facet of his arc and the story in both present and past storylines in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner; what happened to Stella Vignes after abandoning her twin sister in the 1950s to live as a white woman in Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half reverberates among all the other characters for generations.

If the information revealed isn’t directly germane to and materially impactful on the character arc and main story, then it can feel to readers like manipulation or a trick played on us by the author—a false promise or an anticlimactic letdown. You risk a disappointing payoff and losing reader trust and engagement.

But not every aspect of a story unknown needs to be (nor should be) a reveal. Readers need enough information and context to orient ourselves to the story—to know who the characters are, what they want, what’s at stake, what’s in their way, etc.—and give us a reason to care. If everything is a mystery, then readers have nothing to hook into.

Vague hints at a “dark secret” or painful past can feel cryptic, coy, or manipulative. But offering so much information that readers are left with no questions at all leaves no reason to read on.

Think of paving in a reveal—of storytelling in general, really—as giving readers pieces of a puzzle. We need enough pieces to get a sense of the full picture, with a few key missing pieces that keep us from putting the puzzle fully together.

When to Reveal

Not all reveals serve the story best if maintained throughout; sometimes you gain more narrative mileage by spilling the beans sooner, so readers see the aftereffects of the secret and its impact on the characters and story.

Liane Moriarty’s The Husband’s Secret begins on the unanswered question of what is in a letter a protagonist finds while her husband is out of town that he wrote her years ago, to be opened only in the event of his death. The secret creates wonderful suspense, but the letter’s contents are revealed about a third of the way into the book rather than sustained throughout.

That’s because the story isn’t about what the secret is, but rather its corrosive power on the characters keeping it and how they overcome it; about when the other relevant characters will learn the full truth; and about what will happen when they do. Moriarty gains much more narrative punch from showing the secret’s fallout and its impact on the story and the characters than from stringing out the secret itself throughout the book.

Knowing what type(s) of reveal you’re using in your story may help indicate how fast and far to pull back the curtain:

• Reveals kept from the protagonist or POV character
• Reveals kept from other characters
• Reveals kept from the reader

Moriarty expertly uses all three: keeping the secret from the husband’s wife until about a third of the way into the story; from readers until several chapters later; and from another key character until nearly the end. The plot and each character’s arc hinges on when they learn it.

Consider what purpose the secret and its reveal are meant to serve in your story as a whole. Keeping a reveal hidden only for the sake of the mystery or suspense you hope it creates may feel like a one-trick pony if it isn’t foundational to the story you’re telling, and it’s not usually enough to build an entire plot on.

Nadia Hashimi’s A House Without Windows withholds the central secret—did one protagonist kill her husband?—from readers and all other characters till almost the very end, but the story is based on the premise that no one but the wife knows the truth and the other characters’ goals are to unearth it. The protagonist and the plot are dependent upon the keeping of the secret rather than its revelation, which resolves the story, so Hashimi gains more narrative impact from maintaining the mystery until the climax of the story.

Gone Girl begins with the mystery of what happened to Amy and whether her husband did it, which creates strong initial suspense. But halfway through the story Gillian Flynn reveals both answers to readers, and later to Nick that Amy is alive and trying to frame him for her murder, and the story shifts into a taut cat-and-mouse suspense of who can outfox whom, and who will win the game.

In Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, readers see the central murder that the entire story builds to in the very first chapter, and all the players in the story know what happened—but it’s not till close to the end that readers learn we didn’t see the full truth. The story isn’t about keeping the animal stampede or the murder a secret—it’s about what led up to it, and in fact showing it from the beginning adds an additional element of suspense as readers turn pages to figure out the “how” and the “why” that comprise the true reveal.

How to Unspool a Reveal

Probably the hardest balancing act to pull off with reveals is unspooling the information without vexing readers, either through giving us too much information or too little, and without our seeing the author setting the hook.

That often requires a sort of benign manipulation, selectively omitting or occluding certain information, and gently misdirecting readers to lead them to draw the conclusions you want them to draw. If readers see the author’s hand, though, you risk losing their investment and trust; these devices must be invisible, believable, and organic to the story.

There are a number of techniques for pulling off this tightrope act, regardless of which types of reveal you’re incorporating:

Use the premise: The story itself may offer justification and a framework for the reveal. In Laurie Frankel’s This Is How It Always Is, a family moves to a new town to allow their young trans daughter, Poppy, to live openly as a girl without the stigma of judgment from people who knew the family before. The reader and every one of the characters in the family at the center of the story knows the secret, but the plot hinges on whether and when other characters find out.

Use the character motivations: Moriarty does this in The Husband’s Secret, where the wife who finds her husband’s mysterious letter resists opening it at first because she feels it’s a breach of his trust; then because when she tells him about it, he asks her not to. Hashimi’s A House Without Windows is predicated on the protagonist’s refusal to tell anyone what actually happened in the courtyard where she was found next to her husband’s murdered body, and her reason for doing so is the spine of the story.

Use the plot: The Husband’s Secret shifts to this device when the wife determines to open the letter: The evening she intends to do so despite her husband’s wishes, he surprises her by coming home early from his business trip and she can’t. But later that same night, when she hears him frantically searching for it while he thinks she’s sleeping, she realizes she must know what’s in it, and finally opens it.

Use the story structure: Moriarty avails herself of this device too: Because her book has multiple protagonists, she is able to show the wife learning what’s in the letter but withhold it from readers from several more chapters simply by cutting to other characters’ scenes. Gillian Flynn skillfully uses the structure in Gone Girl as well: Part one is all Nick’s first-person POV, so Flynn is able to keep Amy’s fate secret from both him and readers until part two, when Amy narrates the story.

Use POV: The conventions of the various points of view can offer you tools to keep back unknowns. Frankel uses omniscient POV to add meaning and heft to the secret each character is keeping about Poppy, heightening stakes and building suspense and tension into the constant threat of reveal. Flynn uses first-person to mine suspense and stakes from what each character knows and is withholding, both from other characters and from the reader.

Use reader assumptions and expectations: Outright lying to readers sacrifices our trust, but you can lead us to draw incorrect conclusions from what we think we know. The classic example of this in film is The Sixth Sense, where filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan highlights at the end all the many clues he peppered into the story about the central reveal that many viewers overlooked or misinterpreted.

You can deliberately influence readers’ assumptions with the skillful use of devices like red herrings (Ruta Sepetys uses these to point reader suspicions away from the actual spies in I Must Betray You; Agatha Christie uses them in pretty much everything), unreliable narrators (like Pi in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi), foreshadowing (poor tragic Oedipus in the Sophocles play, who knows of the prophecy that he has unwittingly fulfilled but refuses to believe it), and upended expectations (like Rebecca’s character and backstory in Daphne du Maurier’s eponymous classic).

There’s no need to limit yourself to just one of the above techniques—strong reveals often incorporate elements of many of them. In Water for Elephants, Gruen uses structure to conceal the secret in the “past” timeline, and character motivation and reader expectations to conceal it in the present. The Vanishing Half uses the story premise, plot, structure, and point of view. A House Without Windows uses character motivation, point of view, premise, plot, and structure.

Reveal Guidelines and Tips

Putting all these elements together for an effective reveal can be tricky, so keep a few tips and guidelines in mind to plant readers’ feet in your story while withholding the full picture:

• Determine what works best as a reveal in your story, how much of the facts to reveal, and when. In the early part of The Vanishing Half, the main drivers of Desiree’s story are Stella’s choosing to absent herself from her twin’s life and the unanswered questions of why, not the specifics of her sister’s life afterward. But learning Stella’s whereabouts and situation later becomes central to Desiree’s and other main characters’ storylines.
• Reveal enough context to ground readers, keeping back just one or two key elements that constitute the full reveal, as in the omitted piece of crucial information in the opening scene of Water for Elephants.
• Reveal all the facts, but only to a point—let the depth or nuances of the story serve as the reveal. Sepetys does this in I Must Betray You with the final reveal of one character’s true motivations for actions readers already know about but have likely attributed to other motives.
• Play the feelings even as you conceal some facts; show how the characters are influenced by the secret, how they react, feel, behave, act as a direct result. Hosseini bases much of the character arc and story of The Kite Runner on this technique, as does Moriarty in The Husband’s Secret.
• Reveal pieces of the puzzle gradually as a key framework for the plot, leading up to the main reveal, as Flynn does in Gone Girl, or Ruta Sepetys in I Must Betray You. Letting readers be part of putting the puzzle together avoids a deus-ex-machina reveal that feels ret-conned or sprung on readers.
• Reveal pieces of the puzzle incrementally to different “audiences”—readers, protagonists, other characters— to keep stakes high and suspense taut, as Moriarty does in The Husband’s Secret and Flynn in Gone Girl.

*****

The challenge of a successful reveal is balancing how to salt in enough information to orient readers and give us something to invest in, while withholding enough to keep us turning pages to discover the answers.

But used skillfully and intentionally, reveals can be a powerful tool for creating the kind of “unputdownable” stories that gets readers talking—no matter your genre.

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When I began to employ this new-found (to me) plot structure in my own writing, I quickly confronted a question: How does a writer help the reader to navigate from the exposition to the rising action? At best, that’s a bit of a leap to go from setting up a story to cranking up the conflict. I would later understand that this missing component of the plot pyramid was something commonly referred to as an inciting incident. In short, the inciting incident is the event that triggers the shift from the exposition to the rising action. If the exposition shows us a normal day in the life of the character, then the inciting incident serves as that catalyst for when that normal day shifts into a world full of conflict or a series of obstacles the protagonist must now confront. While some people consider the inciting incident to be a part of the exposition, others view it as a missing ingredient from the plot diagram. Either way, few, if any, writers would disagree that it is a necessary component to writing a good story.

After writing 30 books, many of them in which I had to strongly consider this particular point, I have come to understand that there are five key things that have guided me and that I feel other writers should consider when it comes to using the concept of the inciting incident in their own works.

1. Don’t rush to it.

As writers, we often have a strong idea of what we want to happen in a story. We also understand that our readers might not be particularly patient when it comes to getting to the good parts of the book. As a result, we use techniques like in medias res or the use of carefully crafted, engaging first sentences that push the plot farther along. All of these things are wonderful techniques; however, the plots, especially for longer works, tend to eventually come back around to the idea of setting up the core conflict of the story at some point, thereby requiring some kind of inciting incident. Knowing that you have that element to look forward to when you begin writing, you might feel tempted to zoom past the other exposition in the story to get to that moment. I whole-heartedly understand where that notion originates, but the exposition allows us to understand and appreciate the characters enough to care about what they are going through. As a result, you can pace yourself as you work to get to that point of the story. We don’t want to unnecessarily drag our feet, but we definitely don’t want to run toward the inciting incident so quickly that we can’t appreciate how we arrived there.

2. Don’t rush past it.

Just as you had to patiently navigate yourself toward the inciting incident, you will also want to avoid running past it. The inciting incident is a pivotal part in the story. The weight you are about to place on the shoulders of your protagonist should be understood and appreciated by the reader. Full empathy for the character comes when the reader is acutely aware of the stakes involved in your story, from where the stakes arose, and what choices the character will have to face to move forward. In the aforementioned movie, Friday, the inciting incident occurs when the protagonist is offhandedly dragged by his best friend into efforts to pay an ice cream truck-owning weed dealer back a certain sum of money. Prior to the dealer’s arrival, our protagonist, Craig, was having a regular day (or as regular a day as he could have, given that he’d been fired on his day off). The notion that Craig has been dragged into the hijinks of his best friend, Smokey, immediately kicks off the struggles that will propel his character through the rest of the movie. Still, in that moment of discovering the obstacles that lay ahead, the character is given a moment to allow this alteration to his daily plans to sink in. One might also view this breathing space as the opportunity for the character to completely digest his situation and get a glimpse at the obstacles that lie ahead. We as viewers or readers get to share this moment, and that shared recognition of the inciting incident is what allows us to root for the character even more enthusiastically going forward.

3. Use your exposition wisely to set up your story for the inciting incident.

Just because we are aware of the need for the inciting incident doesn’t mean we shouldn’t spend the time carefully crafting how we arrive at this point. Carefully crafting your exposition is akin to not only driving there (which is essentially the focus of my first point), but also doing this in style. It goes without saying that pacing and style are not necessarily synonymous, but they do impact each other. How you layer in the exposition can affect the impact of the inciting incident when it does arise. One of my favorite short stories to teach my students, Charles Waddell Chesnutt’s “Baxter’s Procrustes,” is an excellent example of this. The story is about a group of literary aficionados calling themselves the Bodleian Club and a mishap that happens with one of its members. The story is narrated by one of its members, Jones, who gives a detailed background of the club and its value so that when we encounter the inciting incident, we can appreciate the magnitude of the dilemma that will follow. “Baxter’s Procrustes” might have one of the longest sections of exposition I have come across in a short story in quite some time, as it is meticulous about establishing the mood and tone of the story. In fact, a casual reader might not even recognize the exact moment in which the inciting incident occurs—or whom the protagonist really is, for that matter. The inciting incident is far more impactful, not just because of the pacing, but the manner in which the exposition was developed while reaching the inciting incident.

In my second novel, 30 Love, I used this technique to establish the events of the novel. The inciting incident of that book is when Dizzy asks Lailah, his best friend of 30 years, to marry him, based upon an off-handed agreement they’d made 10 years earlier. In building up to this turning point, I establish the nature of their friendship and how they have interacted with each other over the years through the telling of how they celebrate their joint birthdays (since they were born on the same day to parents who were best friends, as well). By using the exposition more efficiently, the inciting incident carries much more emotional resonance when it occurs, especially since Lailah’s response is not a foregone conclusion. Inciting incidents are more likely to hook the reader when readers are invested in the characters, so make the most of your exposition.

Order a copy of Ran Walker’s 30 Love today. 

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4. Recognize what that moment means for your character.

Now that we have arrived at the inciting moment, how does this moment affect your character? This is not merely a question of what the character should do; it must also take into account how the character’s personality is equipped to deal with this turning point. Some characters will willingly accept the charge and move forward. Others might piddle around trying to make sense of how to proceed. Whatever reaction the character has to this inciting incident should be explored and understood, as it will usually factor into how the character elects to approach the obstacles of the rising action. It is always good to know what makes your character’s reaction unique in that moment, given what you have developed about them in the exposition of the story. For example, in Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour,” we meet a woman who has just learned her husband has passed away in a train wreck. Her grief quickly turns way to relief, as she has a chance to really consider what his death will mean to her regaining her freedom to be something other than his wife. Without giving away the story’s conclusion, it is worth pointing out that the protagonist’s reaction to this inciting incident is a big part of the story’s plot. As you write your inciting incident, it would be helpful to keep in mind how your character will respond to this.

5. Always understand what your inciting incident is, even if you choose not to show it in the actual story.

There are numerous stories, whether due to their length or the style of structure they employ, that simply do not illustrate the inciting incident directly to the reader. Instead, the inciting incident is implied and understood upon a closer reading of the text. A good example of this is Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” a classic tale in which a Confederate sympathizer is put to death. What he did, however, is never directly stated in the text, only implied, yet those very actions have created the situation in which he finds himself. Of course, this reading of the story only comes from considering the totality of the plot (including those things that occur “offstage”). For readers who seek an inciting incident within the text, they might turn to the snapping of the rope as this turning point, but using the definition I stated earlier, the point at which Peyton Farquhar’s life takes a turn away from the normal is when he decides to help the Confederate cause by taking the information shared to him by an undercover federal scout and do something bold and punishable by death if he’s caught (which, spoiler alert, he is). As I consider my own microfiction, I realize that having an understanding of where the inciting incident is will help me to write tighter stories. Many of my stories occur after the inciting incident would have, theoretically, occurred. This is by design, as much of microfiction is about implication. Still, in the absence of showing it, my stories are much stronger because I still recognize that it’s there, just like an implied “you” or implied “that.” Whether or not you choose to actually have the inciting incident as a part of your story in a direct way, you should still have an understanding of what caused the change in your text and set in motion the conflict that will anchor your story. This harkens back to the theory of the iceberg, where most of your story is underwater and never actually seen by the reader, yet it is incredibly important to the writer, especially in terms of how they choose to craft the portion of the story that is seen by the reader.

Final Thoughts

My wife is fond of telling me that it’s important to know your why when it comes to doing things. Understanding the purpose and the function of an inciting incident is essentially having a complete grasp of your character’s why. Why is this situation important to your character? Why does your character choose to react to this situation in this particular way? Why does the character feel compelled to follow this trail of conflicts in the quest for a resolution? There is a certain logic that arises when you are acting from an understanding of the why, and this understanding and appreciation of inciting incidents will help you to deliver the stories you long to tell in a way that has a greater chance of satisfying your readers that much more.

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(How to Write Inner Conflict in Fiction.)

One such way to achieve this tension is to leave the reader wanting more—that is, disturb the narrative equilibrium enough by dropping a carefully placed bombshell or hanging a carrot just out of reach. These and others, are examples of cliffhangers, which when used effectively, prompt curiosity to learn more. And that’s when you’ll find readers bingeing their way through a book.

While literary cliffhangers have long been a popular literary device, many believe the word got its meaning from Thomas Hardy’s A Pair of Blue Eyes, an 1873 novel in which the protagonist is left—quite literally—hanging from a cliff. In the early days of fiction, stories were largely serialized in publications, meaning that cliffhangers were a fitting ploy (more on writing series later). Today, readers see cliffhangers in some shape or form in a variety of genres, most notably, but not exclusively, thrillers and mysteries.

Why use cliffhangers in your writing? On the whole, this strategy can:

• Create suspense and add to tension
• Give a shock
• Reinforce reader investment
• Avoid predictability
• Propel reading momentum

Like many storytelling devices, the term “cliffhanger” is used widely for any instance when the author hopes to incentivize the reader to continue. However, on the writing side of the equation, there are different ways you can implement a successful cliffhanger. Let’s take a look at four unique types:

1. Cut and Leave

Your protagonist is at the height of peril and BOOM, you end the scene. Perhaps the character is in a race against time, or there has been an unexpected accident, or he must make a major choice. Either way, the scene or chapter ends before any resolution, leaving your reader desperate to know what happens next. 

And you know what that means? You guessed it—they’ll keep reading. This type of cliffhanger creates a kind of pain-in-pleasure response in the reader, where he must find out how the protagonist moves forward.

TIP: You don’t want to resolve the cliffhanger too quickly. Instead, switch POVs to draw out the tension even further before returning to the moment of peril. More tips later!

An example of this type of cliffhanger is from Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. Katniss, the main protagonist, is fighting for her life in a dystopian game of kill or be killed. Collins ends chapter 16 with: “For a moment, everything seems frozen in time. Then the apples spill to the ground and I’m blown backward into the air.”

You try putting in your bookmark after that—it’s nearly impossible!

Check out Jen Craven’s The Baby Left Behind here:

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2. Lights Out

This cliffhanger is, in all respects, a loss of consciousness. Just when your character is in jeopardy, he blacks out. An author might use comparable wording, along the lines of “and everything faded to black.” Readers will find themselves thinking, “What happened? Is he okay? I better read a little more to make sure.”

Here’s the tricky part with this type of cliffhanger: You want to be careful of wake-up scenes, as readers can find them lazy. The character must wake up as dramatically as he blacked out. Don’t let the tension plummet.

Take this example from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: “Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Harry looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand, before he lost control, before he betrayed fear—. He saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.”

Dun, dun, dunnnnnn. Okay, one more chapter.

3. The Big Reveal

As its name suggests, this type of cliffhanger divulges something major. There are three subcategories, all of which are similar in that they expose a key piece of the story, but different in their approach.

• Identity reveal: Surprise! The good guy is actually the bad guy. Or vice versa, the bad guy is actually the good guy. This is depicted in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince when Snape’s true identity is revealed.
• Plot reveal: Watch out! The plot just got turned on its head. For instance, in Gone Girl, when we learn Amy is alive and well.
• Reader reveal: Shhhh! The reader just learned something important, but the character(s) are still in the dark. This can create beautiful dramatic irony and keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Reveals often end up being plot twists, another literary device used often in genre fiction. You’ll never hear a reader say, “I knew exactly how it was going to go and that was satisfying.” Readers want to be surprised. They may enjoy guessing the plot along the way, but part of the joy of reading is the unpredictable journey.

4. All the Emotion

Unlike the other types of cliffhangers, this one is much more internal, meaning that the character experiences something that causes a subtle but emotional reaction. Imagine the scene as though it were a movie where the camera zooms in on the actor’s face. You can see something in their eyes without words being spoken. 

In literature, it might be internal dialogue, in which the character comes to a poignant realization. It could be a bad omen, a sign, or a general sense of foreboding. Perhaps there is a sudden loss, and the reader will then wonder how the character feels about it, how it affects the rest of the cast.

In Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, young Theo is grappling with the sudden death of his mother. When two strangers show up on his doorstep, the chapter ends with the following line: “…but though they both had kindly expressions on their faces, I understood the instant I saw them that my life, as I knew it, was over.”

Can’t you just see his face here? Doesn’t it make you want to keep reading to see how exactly his life would change?

Tips for Writing Effective Cliffhangers

Writing cliffhangers should never be as simple as cutting a scene in the middle with no thought. Likewise, they shouldn’t be thrown into the story haphazardly. Like any plot technique, they take thoughtful application and appropriate timing. Here are some helpful tips for those who want to take a stab at using cliffhangers.

• Use them at the end of chapters or before paragraph breaks, but be sure to follow up the cliffhanger with a solid opening to the next chapter/section. Keep in mind, however, that too many cliffhangers can cheapen the reading experience. Use them intentionally.
• Delay cliffhanger resolution as much as possible without stringing your reader along tediously. Consider jumping POVs in between to drag out tension.
• Be sure to eventually resolve all cliffhangers, otherwise they can be considered plot holes, and readers never like that. However, avoid falling into deus ex machina, wherein resolutions feel improbable or unlikely as a way to reach a tidy ending.
• Don’t prolong the cliffhanger. They should be short and “pulsy,” where readers can sense lurking danger followed by a sudden stop.
• Use foreshadowing throughout your story as a way to lead up to a cliffhanger. Readers love being able to pick up on hints along the way.
• Avoid cliffhangers at the end of a book, unless it’s part of a series—in that case, conclusion cliffhangers are an enthusiastic YES. Nothing makes a reader pick up the next book in a series more than a cliffhanging ending in the previous one.
• Ambiguous endings are not the same as cliffhangers. Open-ended books allow the reader to come to their own conclusions. However, cliffhangers come with a promise for an answer, which is why they should only be used at the end of a book that’s followed by a sequel.
• Use flashbacks as a delivery method for cliffhangers. Make the reader question everything they’d read to that point.

Put It To Use

Ready to write a cliffhanger in your story? The best way to practice this skill is to try some writing exercises. Take a character from your work in progress and invent problems for her. What could make her life worse? 

Go there. Then take it a step further. Type the words “And then…” and see where it goes. Try moving the last paragraph of a scene to the next (or later) chapter. Ask yourself rhetorical questions like “Will they ever find him?” or “Will he get there in time?” or “Which one will she choose?” Don’t give the readers the answers right away.

Remember, the key centers on conflict, and conflict comes from tension. Maybe you won’t rename yourself Dan Brown, but weave these things throughout your story, and you’ll have a book readers won’t want to put down. 

The post Want to Write an Unputdownable Book? Try a Cliffhanger (Or Two) appeared first on Writer's Digest.

“I try to leave out the bits people skip.” –Elmore Leonard

A well-paced novel holds the reader’s interest throughout. But how does a writer achieve such a thing of beauty? These are some of the techniques you can use:

Suit the pacing to the genre. 

Before anything else, consider the kind of novel you’re writing. A thriller, for example, will be faster-paced than a sweeping historical saga. 

(The Art and Craft of Pre-Writing.)

Whatever the genre, we all should aim to leave out the parts people skip. Pages of lyrical description of a setting or long, convoluted passages of introspection might have been acceptable in an age when life itself moved at a slower pace. 

These days, readers tend to steer clear of books where the story takes pages, or even paragraphs, to move forward.

Varying the pace. 

The best thrillers allow the reader breathing space between high octane scenes. Conversely, slower stories might quicken the pace when reaching the story climax or during action scenes. 

Keeping the pace at a constant level throughout leads to reader fatigue, so it’s good to change the pacing to suit the mood at that point in the story.

Working at the sentence level. 

Generally speaking, the longer the sentences in a piece, the slower the pace. In thrillers and high action adventures, short, declarative sentences might be best, but some variation in sentence length is still required so as not to make the prose seem stilted. 

Sometimes, a long sentence can be fast-paced—it depends largely on its cadence and rhythm. Authors aiming to achieve a fast pace might even try not to use too many words with more than one or two syllables. 

On the other hand, historical fiction might be more suited to complex sentence structure, words, and prose. Be careful of this, however. A story can be more powerful when told in direct, simple language, no matter when it’s set. Hilary Mantel’s novels are a prime example.

Check out Christine Wells’ The Royal Windsor Secret here:

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Now, look at your scenes. 

The best way to tighten a scene for better pacing is to know exactly what the protagonist of that scene wants, and what is stopping them from getting it. Most of the time, when a scene meanders, it’s because the writer is casting about for the scene’s actual purpose or narrating parts of the story that are irrelevant to the character arc and plot. 

We don’t need to know how your protagonist traveled to a certain destination if nothing much happens on the way. Pinpointing precisely why a particular scene is in the book at all will give it more energy, the characters more agency, and keep your reader engaged.

Seed in story questions. 

Readers often say they burned through a book because they had to know the answer to a certain story question—the identity of the murderer in a classic whodunnit, for example. 

However you don’t need to be a crime writer to plant intrigue and mystery in your book, secrets the reader is dying to know. Their curiosity will pull them through the story, but be careful about leaving smaller story questions unanswered for too long. We want some payoffs along the way.

Use hooks and cliffhangers. 

Each time the reader gets to the end of a scene, chapter, or part, it is the natural place for them to put down your book—perhaps never to pick it up again—unless there is some compelling reason for them to read on. One way to ensure the reader stays up reading your book deep into the night is the judicious use of hooks. 

Instead of ending your chapter at the close of a scene, end the chapter in the middle of a scene. Say, after a long build-up of anticipation, the story’s villain appears. That is the perfect time to cut to the next chapter. 

Someone asks the very question that the reader is dying to know? Don’t answer it right there. Cut away to another timeline or point of view, or simply end the chapter at that point.

Zooming out now to get the eagle’s eye view, how do we look at an entire manuscript and know what to cut? 

A simple way is to find a trusted beta reader to mark all of the places where their attention wandered or where they put the manuscript down. This isn’t always possible, however, so I suggest putting the manuscript away for a while, then either formatting it to look like a book and printing it out or loading it on to your e-reader and finding the places your own attention wanders.

If you want to do a more thorough analysis, this is the time to focus on character arc and plot. 

The method of making sure your novel lines up with your intended structure will depend on which structure you prefer—I favor The Hero’s Journey coupled with Michael Hauge’s “Identity to Essence” analysis of character arc. 

I will sometimes draw an arc on a large piece of paper and mark along it the major plot points of the book. In another color, I note my character’s “identity” or the false persona they present to the world at the beginning of the novel and their “essence” or the real person underneath, at the end. 

Then I mark the incremental way the character changes in response to the plot points. Then I go through all of the scenes of my book, referring back to my chart, and any scene that does not agree with the character arc or seems to serve neither character arc nor plot will be either rewritten or cut. Equally, if a step in a character’s transformation is missing, I will add that scene in.

Good pacing is one of the most difficult skills for a writer to master. The better we become at pacing our novels in the most appropriate way for our particular genre and story, the more satisfying an experience our readers will have.

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So, grab your lock-picking tools, put on your best disguise and queue up your ultimate heist playlist while we check out eight key tips for writing the perfect heist novel.

The Mastermind

The heart of any heist novel is its central character. Whether it is charm and charisma (think Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven) or a motivation that justifies the daring caper, the mastermind (not always the protagonist, as in Hustlers) drives the emotional core of the story with the plan and vision to make things happen.

Character backstory is key. What drives the mastermind? What brought them to this crossroads, and why are they qualified to lead the heist?

The Stakes

The stakes need to be sky-high to convince the reader to jump on board the runaway train that is every heist. Each member of the crew will have their own reason for getting involved. Whether it is a quest for vengeance and reparations as in The Italian Job, or a fight for survival and saving innocent lives as in Die Hard, or just a need for money, the stakes fuel the narrative, making readers empathize with the reason behind the heist.

In my novel, To Have and To Heist, the central character Simi is trying to save her best friend, a single mom, who has been framed for the theft of a $25 million necklace, and the only way to do that is to steal it back from the thief, the leader of an organized crime family. The crew come on board, not just out of a desire to help, but because each of them is struggling financially to the point that the potential reward outweighs the risk.

Order Sara Desai’s To Have and to Heist.

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The Crew

The charm of a heist lies in its motley (or vibrant as in Inception) crew, each with special skills that they bring to the table. The bosses—mastermind, partner in crime, and money person—keep things organized and the crew in line. The specialists—hacker, gadget person, and explosives expert—thrill us with their incredible inventions and expertise. The thieves—grifter, distraction, contortionist, safecracker, and pickpocket—dazzle us with deception.

The supports—driver, muscle, fixer—often take a back seat but often pull the heist together (think of Baby Driver). A crew can be as small as two or as big as 13 (Ocean’s 13). Each character adds layers to the plot and their interactions can provide comic relief. They are the gears that keep the heist running.

The Plan

Crafting an engaging heist plan is akin to choreographing an intricate dance, and seeing it all come together is part of the fun. In Snatch, the preparations and scheming by a group of wildly different criminals are packed with mishaps and comical conflicts. In Money Heist, the plan is spun out for the entirety of the series. Your characters need to envisage potential challenges, design solutions, and prep every aspect of the heist. Research is key.

If your crew needs to break into a bank vault with 10 levels of security, then check out the real-life story of the Antwerp Diamond Center heist in which Leonardo Notarbartolo broke into a seemingly impenetrable vault and made off with $100 million worth of treasure, only to be caught because of a carelessly tossed garbage bag. The meticulous planning phase forms the crux of the plot, keeping the readers intrigued, and building tension as the hurdles and risks are revealed.

The Big Day

Time to mess with the reader’s expectations! Even with the best laid plans, the initial heist goes terribly wrong, often leading to a thrilling encounter with the antagonist (think of Heat). Whether the crew is betrayed by an inside informant (Reservoir Dogs), the intended object of the heist is missing (The Art of the Steal), or the heist spirals out of control (Dog Day Afternoon), the crew is forced to retreat and regroup. The roller-coaster ride of successes and setbacks keeps readers turning pages.

The Revision

Armed with a revised plan and tech marvels (think Mission: Impossible), and often with an injection of self-discovery and support from an unexpected source, the crew tries again. Their innovative tactics and resilience inject adrenaline into the narrative, pushing the limits of their wit and resourcefulness. This is their moment, the culmination of everything they have worked for, and the reader gets a respite from the tension and a chance to savor the moment.

The Great Escape

With the object in hand, the crew makes their great escape. Riddled with misdirection and surprises (The Usual Suspects), an unexpected double-cross, a chase scene, a visual treat (think of the Minis in The Italian Job) or a last-minute snag, this part of the story provides one last pulse-pounding thrill before the big finale.

The Aftermath

Whether it is the sweet taste of success or a twist of poetic justice, readers should leave with a sense of satisfaction at the end of the journey, even if the story ends with a lingering question (Inception) or a touch of ambiguity (Now You See Me) that could set the stage for a sequel.

Writing a heist novel is a high-stakes literary game of cat-and-mouse that catapults the writer and the reader into a whirlwind of intrigue, danger, and breathtaking feats. So, grab your pen or keyboard, find your target and put together your crew. It’s time to plot your heist. Happy stealing!

[Click to continue.]

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Okay, that’s not true, but it is a well-known fact that romance readers love tropes (AKA, a recognizable and frequently used plot device found in a work of fiction). Why? Because tropes deliver on the promise of the premise. They often serve as the first point of connection between book and reader, drumming up anticipation of delicious—and familiar—things to come.

The main characters are enemies on page one? A romance reader knows that by the mid-point, that hate will be headed in the opposite direction. Someone needs a fake spouse? They’ll be in love for real in no time, and that first “my wife” is going to hit hard. The romantic leads are checking into a hotel after their car breaks down or they hit inclement weather?

Yep. In romance books, there’s only ever one bed available. So strange how Marriott just can’t get it together…

Tropes aren’t just for the reader, though. Authors love them because they provide a framework for the story we want to tell, a no-fail way to propel a plot in familiar and compelling ways. But as a writer, particularly a debut writer like me, it can be overwhelming to think about how to use popular tropes and still stand out in the crowd. How many enemies-to-lovers books do readers really need?

The true answer is that the limit does not exist (please imagine that in Lindsay Lohan’s voice), but when I was writing You, with a View, I kept asking myself: How can I make the main tropes I’m employing feel fresh, while honoring what readers expect when they pick up an enemies-to-lovers book?

What I discovered is that the magic happens in the details and subtle twists.

In my book, the main character, Noelle Shepard, finds an old love letter alongside pictures of her late grandmother and a handsome mystery man. When she turns to TikTok to see if she can connect with said mystery man, she ends up finding him thanks to her video going viral—but it’s via his grandson, Theo Spencer, who also happens to be the old high school rival she battled for accolades and shared a Most Likely to Succeed title with. You’re thinking, “Okay, this is a classic case of enemies to lovers.”

Absolutely, but not all the way. In a true enemies-to-lovers story, the characters have misconceptions about one another that are negative. They start the story thinking there are insurmountable differences between them that they can’t overcome.

Noelle, whose point-of-view the book is told through, does technically have misconceptions about Theo, but they’re not negative. On the contrary, they’re distressingly positive. She views him as an incredibly smart and driven man who’s found the kind of success post-high school that she’s still searching for. In fact, she deeply respects him, and that annoys the hell out of her. Her favorable perception of him, grudging though it is, mellows the acrimony of a traditional enemies-to-lovers book, but you’ll still find the bickering banter and fiery tension and “it could never be him” elements that the trope always delivers.

You, with a View also uses the classic road trip trope. In the book, Noelle discovers that Paul, Theo’s granddad, and Kathleen, her late grandma, were going to elope and take a honeymoon road trip across the Southwestern United States before their plan was thwarted. This trope is typically executed with two people—the ones who are going to fall in love, and also into that single bed Marriott reserved for them.

And absolutely, it was my initial plan to have Noelle and Theo take that road trip on their own.

But then I realized Paul was my secret weapon: He was a matchmaking device to nudge Noelle and Theo together when they were resisting their fate, and a physical roadblock for them when they were finally ready to give in to the explosive chemistry between them. What’s more awkward than getting caught mid-hookup by your granddad, you know?!

But most importantly, he was a major factor in the emotional connection between Noelle and Theo. Via his storytelling and the old love letters Noelle and Theo read along the way, Paul was able to impart necessary wisdom and show them that his and Kathleen’s interrupted connection led to their inevitable one. In turn, it allowed Noelle and Theo to show more and more of themselves to one another (not in that way) (okay, yes, in that way, but in the more meaningful, love-related way most of all).

While Paul wasn’t the road trip addition I initially planned, he brought that plot element to life in a way it wouldn’t have otherwise. It ended up making the execution of that trope feel stronger—and more fun!—for the story.

Order You, With a View by Jessica Joyce today. 

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In no way did I reinvent the wheel. I just customized the tread so that the tropes felt specific to my characters and You, with a View as a whole. You can do the same when you sit down to write your next brilliant romance: Identify the tropes you plan to use, then flesh out the ways you can customize or twist them to strengthen your story.

When it comes down to it, tropes exist for readers to recognize stories they’re confident they’ll connect with. But they also exist for authors to play with, to use as the framework for our stories while making them fun and fresh and special.

After all, that’s why readers fall in love with the “same” trope again and again.

[Click to continue.]

The post Personalizing Familiar Tropes in Fresh and Fun Ways appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Most vampire tales are allegories about sex or being marginalized in society. The protagonist is often the vampire or one of their soon-to-be exsanguinated victims. My book, Night’s Edge, changes the protagonist’s relationship with this supernatural entity.

Mia is a 10-year-old girl whose mother contracts a vampiric disease. She is her accomplice. She has no choice in the matter, because she is a child, and a child needs a parent. In turn, Mia’s mother needs HER in order to stay hidden and satiated. She feeds from her daughter’s own veins each night.

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By changing the relationship our main character has with the vampire in question, I was able to look at this popular trope in a whole new light. Themes about codependency and enmeshed families emerged, something typically reserved for literary fiction and memoir as opposed to vampire lore. But that was the story I wanted to tell. Vampires just so happened to be the vessel.

Flipping the script on relationships can help us, as writers, find a refreshing angle on old tropes. Take the classic haunted house story. Most of the time, our characters abhor it. They want to escape. But what happens if this wicked place was your childhood home, filled with nostalgia and old longings, like in The Haunting of Hill House?

What if returning was the only way you could make sense of the evil that had come to invade your inner world, like the incredible and subversive Tell Me I’m Worthless? What if this house is your salvation and you need it as badly as it needs you? Changing the character’s relationship to the supernatural provides an entirely new way “in.”

Alien invasions are another ubiquitous trope that springs to mind. Films like ET and District 9 offered audiences a distinct and refreshing point of view because they changed the relationship the protagonist had with this otherworldly invader. The alien was a friend who helped a child recapture his lost innocence. A refugee who forced a small-minded man to confront his prejudice (and provided a wealth of commentary on South African apartheid).

Simply put: There’s no reason to avoid writing about the lore you know and love. To keep things interesting, ask yourself about your own unique relationships. What questions are you probing? What needs unpacking? Then, see how those relationships look when you superimpose them upon popular tropes.

Is it an exact science? No way. There are still plenty of tales that use classic archetypes in beautiful, timeless ways. But if you’re looking to turn the tables and make it personal in the process, ask yourself what (or who) is haunting you.

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