some possibly controversial thoughts on how handsome jack is often written in fanfiction (that kind of devolves into a commentary on writing in general)

hamilton songs ask meme

creating a plot twist

i was talking to a friend about twist endings and i realized the basic, underlying ingredients for writing a twist in your story. for horror stories in particular, plot twists are dependent on perspective, specifically the perspective of the narrator. there needs to be something wrong with the narrator’s thinking: perhaps they’re making a false assumption about themself/their situation, or there’s some deep flaw that makes them inherently unreliable.

so there’s the fiction that the narrator believes vs the truth that is hidden from them. the plot twist is the point where the author peels away the fiction and unveils the truth. and imo, really good twists work not because the truth was thoroughly hidden, but because it was in plain sight, unknown to the narrator (and by extension, the audience) because their false assumptions were so ingrained that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.

plot twists are much more difficult to pull off if, in the brainstorming phase, you start with the fiction (or what’s happening on the surface, e.g. a boy is tormented by a monster) instead of starting with the truth (e.g. the “monster” is human; the boy is the true monster). i think plot twists are likely easier to write, and are more effective in execution, when one works backwards:

-start with the truth, or the reality of the story

-next develop the narrator and the ways in which their perspective hides the truth

-and lastly, develop the fiction or the surface-level story that dominates the narrative

this is new territory for me so if anyone else has suggestions, i’d love to hear them :D

so-chintzy replied to your post “stray thoughts on the borderlands fic i’m currently writing: so i...”

sorry but i haven’t written dmmd fic in quite some time. i really only started writing fics again in the past year or so.