Writing How do you finish a story with a twist?

[Daichi]

Suppose, you wrote a story and it is time to finish it but you want to finish it with a twist. How do you do it?

 

[GDLiZy]

Make it logical by leaving foreshadowing and the like in it.

At its peak, the foreshadowing should be within the first sentence of the first dialogue ever spoken.

 

[AliceShiki]

Uhn... I'm not sure a twist is the ideal thing for an ending... I mean, twists are good, but wouldn't it be better to put them in the middle of your story instead of the very end?

Best thing I can think of is painting the scenario where all is doom and gloom, when the heroes are about to be defeated, until they suddenly make a miraculous comeback!
... Except this isn't a twist, it's the expected thing to happen.

 

[DragonMage18]

Give just enough clues for it, and hide them well, but not hide them to much...

 

[Zero300]

finish it with a normal ending and then change the ending to it's complete opposite.

 

[weakwithwords]

GDLiZy's example is an extreme brick joke.

AliceShiki's point is potent. You will be disregarding the purpose of the denouement. If you want to twist, twist the resolution. Otherwise, you can lose the trust of your readers even if they were masochists.

DragonMage18 and easter eggs. Can help make it seem more justifiable, but too much will indeed dilute the impact.

Zero300 and reversals. Will work if it remains convincing or logical.

Anime will sometimes have gecko endings because they have no further production plans despite the ongoing manga. This is a kind of twisted ending because you expect more (or maybe even know that there should have been more) but the show stops.

.dne ehT

 

[GDLiZy]

Uhn... I'm not sure a twist is the ideal thing for an ending... I mean, twists are good, but wouldn't it be better to put them in the middle of your story instead of the very end?

Best thing I can think of is painting the scenario where all is doom and gloom, when the heroes are about to be defeated, until they suddenly make a miraculous comeback!
... Except this isn't a twist, it's the expected thing to happen.

I believe the twist ending should and would work with novella and below. Anything that didn't take long to read through would be easy enough to plan out the entire thing around the twist.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Suppose, you wrote a story and it is time to finish it but you want to finish it with a twist. How do you do it?

Don't listen to these nerds yo...just drop it out of the blue.

Just suddenly come out with it.

Bomb they asses. That's the only way. Fuck, foreshadow. That's just ONE way of surprising people and its not even the fun one cuz then they might figure it out beforehand and then all the excitement is gone. You want that "holy fuck. What? What?!" moment from them, you feel me?

So yeah. Hiroshima the fuck outta them

 

[gaylolis]

since i wrote a comedy story, i just made one that will crack me up.

Spoiler

like, the boy grew up by drinking his dad's breast milk and suspect his little sister for having two penises.

 

[DDTStudios]

Twists aren’t my forte but usually what I do is drop hints throughout the entire novel and make every little thing important even if it doesn’t seem like it is.

 

[Moctemma]

Did you already have the twist in mind? If yes then I agree with CupcakeNinja, just do it.

If not, then why do you want to add a twist? For shock value? Just because? Does it improve your novel? Were you inspired by another story?

Whatever the reason I have two advices:
First. Make sure it's a twist. There are twists that have been done enough to stop being considered as such; for example, introducing gods, making the story a result of their whims or stupidity.
Second. Make sure the characters don't act out of character. This should be applied to the whole story, but is imperative in a twist or you'll ruin your story.

 

[K5Rakitan]

I recommend taking a walk (with a mask and staying six feet away from other people) and see what ideas you can pull from your surroundings. Sometimes you need to go somewhere new for inspiration, sometimes you'll realize it was right in front of you all along.

 

[AliceShiki]

I believe the twist ending should and would work with novella and below. Anything that didn't take long to read through would be easy enough to plan out the entire thing around the twist.

Oh yeah, short stories are easier to plan around a twist~

 

[Yorda]

A TWIST is just like satisfaction.

In order to satisfy a person you first need to create a deficiency. The worse the deficiency the more satisfaction you can give them when you fulfill their needs.

Starvation to satiation
Suffering to salvation

To twist you first need to create an expectation. The stronger the expectation the more unexpected a twist you can give them when you crush the expectation you deceived them with.

How to cause suffering ... I mean a twist. 101

 

[HURGMCGURG]

The way to do a proper twist is to reveal something that has been hinted at extremely subtly. Mind you, when you hint at it subtly, you want to give away small parts of information at a time that would be difficult to tie to other pieces. The reveal will tie all the pieces together so the reader will shocked, but when they reread it, they'll be able to notice all the little details the never saw before.

 

[Kldran]

The real plot twist is not having a twist at all and letting it play out exactly by all appearances it should play out.

There was a game once that really amazed me by doing exactly this. The villain explained throughout the game, that victory was impossible. However, it was a hero saves the day story, so when the hero insisted they'd find a way, I just assumed they would. Then at the end, when the villain won, I was amazed. They told me they were going to do it, I just didn't believe them.

 

[Kldran]

I mean you can't just describe this and then NOT say what the game is...

Well, that's kinda a spoiler for the game...

Spoiler: The Game:

Final Fantasy 13-2, yes, the sequel to FF13. The fact that FF13 had the heroes win despite plenty of claims of it being impossible was part of why I had assumed it'd happen again, despite hints it couldn't.

 

[hory-portier]

Hmm... The main twist would be good a little earlier, then you need to resolve its effects and at the end you could add some surprise hinting that the twist had much deeper consequences, worked differently or wasn't single time occurrence, maybe show the appearance of second person that came from different dimension just like the main antagonist shown in the story... Maybe even hundreds of people to blow reader's mind... Show that the reader (and maybe MC) got it wrong about how the thing works and leave it with the open ending... Those are my free thoughts at this moment.

I could sum this up with a sentence: "Now everything is over, but is it really?"

 

[ChronicleCrawler]

Suppose, you wrote a story and it is time to finish it but you want to finish it with a twist. How do you do it?

Play with the little details in your earlier chapter. Don't make things obvious and near the end connect the dots. Don't overload the detail, let the readers arrive on their own conclusions through scenes and words. In the end blast them with your own twist. Delivery is the key, not the twist itself.

PS: How about reading or watching detective Conan. Sherlock Holmes and other detective novels. The heavy stuffs, not the common WN.