Let's Do The Twist!

[rachelmanija]

I know it all depends on execution, but in general...

Poll #26831 Do the Twist

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 114

View Respondents

What is your favorite twist?

View Answers

Two or more characters are actually the same person.
20 (18.7%)

One or more characters are actually imaginary or hallucinations.
9 (8.4%)

One or more characters were dead all along.
12 (11.2%)

Someone is secretly God.
5 (4.7%)

It's all taking place in virtual reality.
2 (1.9%)

It's all a dream.
1 (0.9%)

What you think is the future is actually the past or vice versa.
38 (35.5%)

The narrator misunderstands something.
48 (44.9%)

The narrator is lying about or deliberately omitting something.
42 (39.3%)

Someone is secretly related to someone else.
22 (20.6%)

A character is a woman.
21 (19.6%)

A character is queer.
19 (17.8%)

A character is trans.
14 (13.1%)

A character is [some other surprise marginalized identity].
12 (11.2%)

A character is a cis man. (Has anyone ever seen this one? I can't think of an example.)
3 (2.8%)

Someone the protagonist trusts has been secretly manipulating them all along.
27 (25.2%)

The entire story was all deliberately planned by a character.
40 (37.4%)

Someone is a mole.
22 (20.6%)

The narrator is in a mental hospital or otherwise delusional all along.
3 (2.8%)

The apparent victim is actually the perpetrator
22 (20.6%)

Everyone in the story is actually pigeons/aliens/dolls/etc.
14 (13.1%)

Something else I've forgotten to mention, so please explain in a comment..
6 (5.6%)

What twist do you HATE?

View Answers

Two or more characters are actually the same person.
8 (7.5%)

One or more characters are actually imaginary or hallucinations.
25 (23.6%)

One or more characters were dead all along.
23 (21.7%)

Someone is secretly God.
26 (24.5%)

It's all taking place in virtual reality.
48 (45.3%)

It's all a dream.
73 (68.9%)

What you think is the future is actually the past or vice versa.
4 (3.8%)

The narrator misunderstands something.
4 (3.8%)

The narrator is lying about or deliberately omitting something.
17 (16.0%)

Someone is secretly related to someone else.
4 (3.8%)

A character is a woman.
6 (5.7%)

A character is queer.
9 (8.5%)

A character is trans.
13 (12.3%)

A character is [some other surprise marginalized identity].
10 (9.4%)

A character is a cis man. (Has anyone ever seen this one? I can't think of an example.)
0 (0.0%)

Someone the protagonist trusts has been secretly manipulating them all along.
20 (18.9%)

The entire story was all deliberately planned by a character.
10 (9.4%)

Someone is a mole.
4 (3.8%)

The narrator is in a mental hospital or otherwise delusional all along.
66 (62.3%)

The apparent victim is actually the perpetrator
11 (10.4%)

Everyone in the story is actually pigeons/aliens/dolls/etc.
14 (13.2%)

Something else I've forgotten to mention, so please explain in a comment..
2 (1.9%)

Please mark spoilers for recent canons in your comment headers, or encode with rot13.com.

Comments

[sholio]

A character is a cis man. (Has anyone ever seen this one? I can't think of an example.)

Oh yeah, this one definitely exists, but a) it's really rare now, and b) it usually comes across pretty transphobic. Most of the examples I can think of are from older action canons and involve a Big Reveal with the damsel in distress whipping off her wig and turning out to be the male villain in disguise.

I am having an astonishingly difficult time answering this poll for tropes in general, because I can think of both delightful and terrible examples of most of these, and it also depends on the genre. I really hate finding out someone I liked is a secret mole/traitor in a canon where I'm really invested in the characters, for example, but darker canons can do a really nice job with this.

One you left off that I have really loved in several instances is "you thought this was X genre, but it's actually Y genre." This is another one that can be done really badly - SUDDENLY VAMPIRES - but if it's adequately set up, it can be a delightful "oh, that's what all of that meant!" moment.

One of the best examples of this that I can think of off the top of my head is a TV canon that you, Rachel, will never watch, because it has a trope you hate, and just saying that there's a twist of this variety is a big spoiler, so I'll put both the canon name and the twist in Rot13. It's a TV canon from the Oughts.

The canon is Sevatr and the twist is that lbh guvax sbe gur ragver svefg frnfba gung lbh'er jngpuvat na K-Svyrf glcr Jrveq Fuvg Ntrapl fubj, ohg vg gheaf bhg gung vg'f npghnyyl n qvzrafvba-fyvc Fyvqref glcr fubj, naq lbh svaq bhg ng gur raq bs gur svefg frnfba gung bar bs gur punenpgref vf gurve nygreangr havirefr qbhoyr (ohg qbrfa'g xabj vg) naq zbfg bs gur Jrveq Fuvg, gubhtu abg nyy bs vg, vf vaphefvbaf sebz gurve ernyvgl vagb bhef. Gura gur qvzrafvba-fyvc/qbccrytnatre cybg pbzrf va uneq va frnfba gjb. Ohg V erzrzore ubj oybja njnl V jnf ol gur pyrirearff bs qvfthvfvat na NH qbccrytnatre gjvfg vafvqr nabgure traer, naq va n jnl gung npghnyyl rkcynvaf n ohapu bs gur fghss gung qvqa'g dhvgr znxr frafr va cerivbhf rcvfbqrf. Gur zvfqverpgvba vf nyzbfg ragveryl gung lbh qba'g ernyvmr guvf fubj vf n traer jurer gung xvaq bs guvat pbhyq unccra, ohg vg'f nyfb abg n traer jurer vg *pbhyqa'g* unccra, fvapr gur Jrveq Fuvg nfcrpg vf frg hc rneyl.

[rachelmanija]

I know, there's a bunch of twists I've hated or loved depending on execution.

Dammit! "This is a different genre than you thought" is one of my favorite twists!

[recessional]

I kind of can't answer because I dislike twists-qua-twists.

This does not mean I hate revelations? But for me, the idea of a "twist" implies a mechanical/craft-level choice based on structure - it is the creator going "I will make a twist in this story that will surprise my audience". I don't mind when revelations - even big and shocking ones - arise naturally from the narrative and the manner in which the narrative is being related to the audience? They can in fact be literally any of the above, theoretically.

But when I can feel the meta-doylistic level of "this is the Creator who is Making A Twist aimed at Me, the Audience", I am already in the area of "could you not?" I'll put up with some, or ignore the TWIST!! feeling, but I don't like them and would rather the creator Not. There is no "twist" that is, at this point, clever or shocking or new or a big surprise, I don't WANT to do a meta-level dance of Me Admiring Your Deft Craft Art, I just want a fucking story.

eta: I will note there are probably times in my life where this wouldn't've applied - I did look up the Carnegie medal book you were talking about and I think at the time that I was that book's actual audience I would have found that twist Delightful? But at this point I just am Tired Of It when it feels like A Thing The Author Is Doing (rather than an outcome of how we're telling this story).

( . . . nb: I am super grumpy today and this may bleed where I don't notice it.)

[rachelmanija]

Try answering it only substituting "revelations" for "twists."

[rydra_wong]

There are some things I like as elements -- e.g. presence of queer and trans characters -- that I generally dislike when they're presented as SHOCK TWIST REVEALS, because it tends to invoke the idea that being queer or trans is inherently shocking (and in the case of trans-ness, can involve the idea that the character was "deceiving" people and is "really a man/woman", etc. etc.).

Black Sails is one of the few works that immediately spring to mind that has queerness as a reveal in a way that works, and I think that's because it carries so much emotional heft (and is also so well-foreshadowed); it doesn't feel like it's being used for shock value.

(I think this is general enough to not be rot-13ed; "Black Sails has queer characters" is not a spoiler, it's advertising.)

[rachelmanija]

I've often liked it in canons where there's a lot of social prejudice, so the characters can't be open about their identity immediately. It was very well done in Black Sails, but also in the Ben January series, where we learn that someone isn't a cis man when they trust Ben enough to tell him more of their backstory.

[feldman]

I'm not big on twists, but I did enjoy Scooby-doo, so I chose "character is a cis man who would've gotten away with it, if it weren't for those meddling kids".

[marjorie1170]

And I immediately cannot think of a single book I've read with a twist. That can't be right.

I will say, though I cannot think of an example, that having the narrator omit information can be used to really good effect. So I guess that is my favourite.

(I think it's bit strange that I can only think of The Sixth Sense! I know I've had more twists in my life than that.)

[rachelmanija]

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd? Fight Club? Gone Girl? Life of Pi? We Were Liars? Liar?

[sholio]

It intrigued me, answering the poll, to realize that I generally enjoy "it's all VR!" twists but absolutely hate "it's all a dream!" twists. I think this has something to do with the VR twist usually coming at the midpoint of a canon and still affecting the events. Having it in the last couple of pages would suck, but it's usually not done that way. The VR ones are usually revealed through a series of small inconsistencies leading up to figuring it out for themselves and then having to find a way out of it, which is usually pretty cool, as opposed to "And then she woke up."

[rachelmanija]

My issue with VR is that it often feels low-stakes, sometimes even if there's rules like "You die in the real world if you die in VR."

scioscribe and I watched a noir movie where it turned out to be "It was all a dream!" We were astonished, and not in a good way.

[likeadeuce]

My feelings about twists are pretty wrapped up in how the information is withheld or revealed. It needs to make sense with the POV.

ie, there's a first in the series book from the late 80s 90s, I think, that keeps referring to the female protag's partner Sam (or something like that) -- i don't think it uses partner but avoids saying boyfriend/girlfriend or pronouns -- this character appears in scenes and has conversations with the protag (who is also the POV character) and at the end SURPRISE SAM IS A LADY, YOUR HEROINE IS GAY!) And i absolutely fully sympathize with the context that a mystery author in the era would have had to fight to get that in/would be challenging ppl who may never have read about a lesbian relationship, but storytelling + pov wise it makes no sense.

As opposed to a couple examples i can think of where the author gave the 1st person character a gender neutral name and didn't dwell on gender/ doesn't have it come up in the story, but that's not really a twist.

[el_staplador]

I have a few that I love if it's Agatha Christie writing them and hate if it's anyone else.

[cyphomandra]

Oh this is hard, because it’s really hard to think of something I always like. I was also at a talk by Jeffrey Deaver once where he talked about the distinction between twists for the reader and twists for the characters that I found really useful (and a heavy reliance on the former is why a lot of modern thrillers don’t work for me, because all the tension goes out of the story once you know the twist). “The narrator is hiding something” for example - this works for me if the reason is strong and not just so that the readers will fall for it.

I do agree with usually liking the “this is actually a different genre” than you expected and usually not liking “it was all a dream”, although time loops and VR are more successful.

One of my favourite twist narratives that I’ve read in the last ten years or so was Ginn Hale’s The Rifter, which I though had an absolutely brilliant twist. (I would read it again to see how she did it and then again just because it was so satisfying, as opposed to the vague anticlimax I get with a lot of modern thrillers)

[rachelmanija]

The Rifter had multiple brilliant twists!

[james]

While I do love "it was all the dream of someone in a mental hospital" as a twist, it's also incredibly depressing, so it's hard to have it done well. The Buffy ep still haunts me and I do love how St. Elsewhere ended. But if it's done too much it becomes trite.

My fav twist is every episode of Leverage where things that happened did so, HOWEVER Nat had a fourth secret plan all along.

I said I hate the 'person is actually a trans/queer/etc' because I don't think those things should be twists, I think they should just exist in the narrative and not be a Revelation(tm).

I love me some time travel, though, and love when it's clever and fun so I like when that's the twist but also when it's just blatantly part of the plot.

[author_by_night]

I said I hate the 'person is actually a trans/queer/etc' because I don't think those things should be twists, I think they should just exist in the narrative and not be a Revelation(tm).

Yeah, I agree. Unless it needs to be a twist, but if it does, it has to be done with care. I read a book where a character realized she was gay or bi (she wasn't sure and it was never really confirmed), and she thought back to a creepy lesbian she'd dealt with and was all, "but I guess not all lesbians are creepy." REALLY? The book could've dealt with that so differently.

[author_by_night]

I hate "it was all a dream," but the others... I guess for me, it's about how it's done? Maybe there's even a great "it was all a dream" twist out there somewhere.

Mental illness really needs to be done carefully, thus "it was all a hallucination" twists must be delicately handled.

[starlady]

I think for me the worst "it was all a dream" might be Gur Obk bs Qryvtugf, particularly since it was clear the author just didn't feel like writing out a denouement.

I'm trying to think whether the twists in The Locked Tomb books even fit in here. "Two characters are actually sharing a body" might need to be added to the list.

[sholio]

I gotta say that while I had major problems with Harrow the Ninth, it did have a really cool twist on the general theme of narrative reality-bending that I haven't seen before (rot13) jvgu gur aneengbe univat fryrpgviryl rqvgrq ure zrzbevrf fb gung jura jr frr ure irefvba bs gur cerivbhf obbx'f riragf, vg'f pbzcyrgryl qvssrerag sebz jung jr ernq orsber. Ohg fur'f abg ylvat be orvat vagragvbanyyl qrprcgvir; fur trahvaryl oryvrirf va gur irefvba bs ernyvgl fur'f qrfpevovat.

[shati]

In general, I like twists that mean I get a significantly different idea of what the characters are thinking/feeling on reread (/rewatch), so I like most twists involving characters keeping secrets from me (though obviously execution can ruin it).

The others are more hit or miss for me -- "[Characters] are related but don't know" is less interesting to me than "[characters] are related and one knows but wasn't saying." A twist like having one character turn out to be a hallucination can make things more interesting, but all it inherently does is completely remove the question of what one if them is thinking on reread (because they're a hallucination).

I also like twists if they make me laugh purely because they're weird, but that's harder to make abstract.

[shati]

I think this is because I'm very lazy about starting new things, and I like having the opportunity for a rerun with some novelty instead of having to start a whole new plot/cast.

[lemonsharks]

my very favorite twist of all time didn't make the list: "they're working the same case!"

[rachelmanija]

I like that. What's it from?

[marycatelli]

I generally like the "character planned this all out" IF the character is somewhat numinous and the point-of-view characters can't be quite certain.

*

[minoanmiss]

A character is a cis man. (Has anyone ever seen this one? I can't think of an example.)

Depending on how it's told, the myth of Achilles being hidden among the maidens in King Lycomedes' court? Which gives me a story idea...

[landofnowhere]

The Terra Ignota series plays with a number of these, but in particular goes interesting places with gjb be zber punenpgref ner npghnyyl gur fnzr crefba, zvkrq va jvgu na haeryvnoyr aneengbe naq n ahzore bs bgure gebcrf sebz gur yvfg.

[hamsterwoman]

Ooh, yeah! I felt like the entirety of Perhaps the Stars was a series of twists that kept blowing my mind in rapid succession.

[ironed_orchid]

I think the mental hospital/delusional one can be done well but more often it's not. Like, the BTVS episode only works because it goes against 6 years of established canon.

Woman on the Edge of Time is one of my favourite books, but it established the mental illness/mental hospital pretty early on, so it's not really a twist.

[frith_in_thorns]

I feel that I voted very much against the majority here! My big, big hate in stories is a knowledge mismatch between the narrator and the reader, I find it actually upsetting a lot of the time. (That may be a weird word for it, but it's the closest I can find.) I generally seriously dislike POV narrators who are purposely eliding something important* (my wife has never persuaded me to read more of the series after The Thief, for instance), and also I think I may be the only person who finds the Steerswoman books incredibly frustrating for the opposite reason. I think I don't really like having the conflicting understandings in my brain? I also don't enjoy POV characters where I think you're supposed to realise gradually that they're actually awful people, because I usually don't realise it until very late on and have been getting more confused and frustrated as their interactions with others and the results make less and less sense to me narratively. (This is like Peak Autism here. But I do struggle with inferring characters thoughts and feelings from text when they're not clearly presented, and in these situations I do end up feeling purposefully tricked and resentful.)

*My exception to this trope is The Raven Tower, which I love. I think mostly the difference is that the structure with part of the story told in the past meant that I knew that of course I was still learning lots of things about the character as I went along, so the denoument was a final delightful reveal rather than a "surprise, I the writer forced you to misread this all along".

[asakiyume]

Yes!! Yes, The Raven Tower's twist/reveal was wonderful.

[eruthros]

I think I've seen "they are secretly twins / clones / doppelgangers" a fair amount as a twist, which is sort of the inverse of "two characters are actually one character." Sometimes it's so obvious, and sometimes it's done in a deeply creepy way.

I think of gur cerfgvtr (obevat) naq hf (vagrerfgvat naq perrcrq zr bhg) naq n jubyr ohapu bs qrgrpgvir fgbevrf. Bar bs gur barf gung znqr n cnegvphyne vzcerffvba ba zr jnf n Ybeq Crgre Jvzfrl fgbel, Gur Vzntr va gur Zveebe, juvpu unq n "zveebe vzntr gjvaf frcnengrq ng ovegu" pbaprcg gung znqr gurz frr rnpu bgure nf vs va n zveebe, nf vs gur bgure crefba jnfa'g ernyyl gurer naq gurer jnf n zveebe orgjrra gurz. Naq bs pbhefr bar bs gurz jnf n zheqrere.

[rachelmanija]

Coincidentally, I read a book yesterday which had multiple twists, most very well-executed and logical, but then couldn't resist throwing in a "Maaaaaaaybe it was the other twin all along! PSYCH!" and then never saying if it was or wasn't.

This reminds me of Isabelle Holland's Trelawny, in which twins switch places so often that by the end no one had any idea who had originally been which.

[kiezh]

I tend to really dislike twists that boil down to "and nothing mattered!"
"It was all a dream/hallucination/etc" often feels like "you wasted your time reading/watching this, haha, joke's on you", which just leaves me irritated at the writer(s) and completely disengaged from the story.

If the story up to that point still matters or was still real in some way, if it affected character relationships in a lasting way, an unreality twist isn't necessarily a dealbreaker, though it has to be handled carefully.

Similarly with lying narrators - I don't much like it as a trope, but whether or not it throws me out of the story depends on the execution. (I know a lot of people love the Queen's Thief books, but I disliked's Tra'f fzht ylvat/jvguubyqvat aneengvba so much I bounced hard off the first book and didn't want to read anything else about him. Hmm, is that a spoiler? Maybe I will ROT13 it just in case.)

I think twists are more likely to hit well with me if they explain rather than undermine what has gone before. "Oh, *that's* why!" is much more satisfying to me than "wait, what?!"

Especially if there has been sufficient buildup and foreshadowing, so even if I don't know exactly what the reveal is going to be, I have a sense that something needs to be explained. In MDZS/The Untamed, (very vague spoilers) gurer ner n ybg bs uvagf guebhtubhg gur fgbel gung gurer vf fbzr hanppbhagrq-sbe fpurzre - jub frg hc Jrv Jhkvna'f erfheerpgvba evtug jurer naq jura ur'q eha vagb fbzr Ynaf? Jub'f neenatvat sbe jvgarffrf gb WTL'f pevzrf gb fhesnpr? Jura jr qb svanyyl svaq bhg jub jnf frggvat guvatf va zbgvba naq jul, vg znxrf cresrpg frafr, naq gur punenpgre jnf pyrneyl va gur zvqqyr bs guvatf gur jubyr gvzr, whfg tbbq ng qrsyrpgvat nggragvba.

That worked for me as a final twist/revelation - it was unexpected (to me), but made sense in retrospect.

[frith_in_thorns]

*high-fives someone else who had that reaction to Queen's Thief!*

[snowynight]

A character is a cis man. (Has anyone ever seen this one? I can't think of an example.)

There is one that the love interest thinks the protagonist is a woman in disguise, and courts him earnestly. When he finally realizes the truth, he is surprised but accepts it quickly and confesses to him his feeling

[rachelmanija]

I just rewatched that! In that case, the twist isn't the disguise but the acceptance.

[davidgillon]

WRT something else, I remember being stunned by a book which, told in first person past tense, revealed its narrator was dead all along on the last page. Or if not dead all along, was at least narrating while dead.

There's a twist on 'character is a cis man' in Scalzi's Lock In where we are never told if the protagonist is male or female, straight or gay, trans or cis.

[davidgillon]

Hands up everyone old enough to have been turned off "it was all a dream" by Dallas ;)

For those too young to remember, Dallas retconned the entirety of Season 9 out of existence by having the (theoretically dead and buried) Bobby Ewing walk out of the shower.

[sovay]

For those too young to remember, Dallas retconned the entirety of Season 9 out of existence by having the (theoretically dead and buried) Bobby Ewing walk out of the shower.

I'm afraid I think that's hilarious, although I am sure I would have thrown my TV across the room if I had cared.

[teenybuffalo]

I have an unusual example of "character turns out to be a cis man": va Crgre Orntyr'f Gur Vaaxrrcre'f Fbat, jr ner vagebqhprq gb Alngrarev nf n jbzna, ohg nccneragyl ur'f n pvf zna jub nqbcgrq n zntvpny qvfthvfr gb sbvy n tebhc bs crbcyr jub jnag uvz qrnq ohg qba'g xabj ur pna zntvpnyyl punatr uvf traqre cerfragngvba.

V fnl "nccneragyl" orpnhfr jr qba'g urne nobhg jurgure guvf vf qbar sbe crefbany ernfbaf engure guna bayl nf n znggre bs fheiviny. Ohg ur gheaf hc va eryngrq fubeg fgbevrf jurer uvf yvsr vf abg va qnatre, fgvyy vqragvslvat nf znyr, fb cerfhznoyl ur'f n pvf zna. Va uvaqfvtug vg frrzf yvxr na bqq fvghngvba sbe gur nhgube gb abg rkcyber rira n yvggyr ovg.

[rachelmanija]

Uhu. V unq nffhzrq Alnagrarev jnf n genaf jbzna!