JENN McKINLAY: Hub and I were chatting the other day about plot twists -- oh, do we love a good plot twist! -- and then we were laughing about some of the worst plot twists. So, here is my short list of plot twists I promise to never use...
1. It Was All a Dream
Three hundred pages of clues… and then the sleuth wakes up.
No. I am not gaslighting my readers.
2. The Evil Twin
Oh look, the identical sibling no one mentioned until Chapter 28. Bonus groan points if they have a scar.
3. The Cat Did It
I love cats. I write about cats.
But unless the cat hired a hitman and falsified a will, the feline is innocent.
4. The Murder Was an Accident (And Therefore Nobody Is
Responsible)
A carefully planted mystery that ends with “Oops.”
If I promise you murder, I mean murder.
5. The Sleuth Was the Killer All Along
Unless the book is explicitly psychological noir, I am not betraying the reader I’ve asked to trust the narrator for 300 pages. That’s not a twist. That’s a divorce.
6. It Was Aliens
Unless I’ve clearly written science fiction from page one, little green men do not get to swoop in and take credit for the body in the library.
If half the cast turns out to be alive, tanned, and sipping
rum punches, I have failed you. Also, I am jealous.
Reds and Readers, what do you think of these? Did I miss any? What are some of the worst plot twists you've ever read or seen in a movie? Please be generic so we don't give any spoilers.
I think you've gotten all the worst offenders . . . and thank you for no "evil twin" [scar or no scar] . . . that's definitely my most-despised plot twist.
ReplyDeleteMine too (as a twin)
DeleteRight? So lame.
DeleteTo funny, Jenn. Readers can depend on you for a rel mystery!
ReplyDeleteHere's one: Someone long thought dead has returned seekng vengeance, but there is no sign of that "ghost" (except dead bodies) until 2 pages before the end. Wooo. (Or is this the same thing as the ones with the suntans you mentioned?)
LOL. Makes me crazy!
DeleteJenn, thanks for the smiles as I sip my morning coffee. I’ve been thinking about sipping a rum beach at our “local” beach bar. But as we’re in Tortola and the driving is crazy and switchbacks and steep ascents and descents, I’ll have to imagine. One could imagine a murder (maybe) to get a beach chair with an umbrella high enough I. The sand to not get swept out to sea…. Rum punches optional.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy Tortola, Suzette. I'm not jealous at all, nope, not me. Seriously, have a rum punch for me!
DeleteI’ll certainly have one for you, Jenn!
DeleteThese are great! I can't add to the list. I confess that in one of my early books, the murder turned out to be partly accidental (the angry shove that became fatal), but the person at fault didn't call for help, covered up the accident, and kept lying. Guilty, your honor!
ReplyDeleteI did that once too and don't apologize for it. The death loosed other bad guys who were punished and punished but didn't destroy someone else.(book got great reviews, so something must have worked).
DeleteSee, that's how you do it!
DeleteThese are great ones.
ReplyDeleteThanks. They remind me of 80's TV mysteries.
DeleteAnd now it seems like it would be fun to write a book incorporating all of these banned plot twists into one bonkers book!
ReplyDeleteThe Reds should do a collective.
DeleteThese are pretty funny--some I have read, some I haven't. Like Joan, I hate the evil twin idea. My twin isn't evil, and I hope I'm not either! I'm not a big fan of pinning the murder on someone who's barely been in the story and hasn't even been considered as the suspect. All of a sudden at the end, it turns out that this very minor character IS important, the plot and motive become apparent and the book is tied up. I'm left scratching my head. That plot REALLY twisted.
ReplyDeleteI seem to have noticed that happening more often lately. Especially in tv detective shows. A person is introduced early on and then reappears at the end with little relationship to anyone in the story. Or in one book I read, the murdered victim is declared dead by the police dept but reappears alive in the end. But, still it was one of my favorite works. Go figure.
DeleteI read a mystery a number of years ago in which there was a character killed off. He didn’t appear again in that book, but returned in a subsequent book in the series very much alive. No
Deleteexplanation was given about his previous demise and how he came back to life in a later book.
Anon, as someone who has to check my name bible in order not to mix up characters I INVENTED, for heaven's sake, I am 100% certain that decedent came back to life because the author completely forgot they had killed him off.
DeleteYes, I need my clues!
DeleteIn my latest work in progress, a 13-volume romcom with E-bola (currently making its rounds to various publishers while I continue to tweak it), the protagonist is one of 13 (one for each volume) identical clones and is a zeitgeist created by the dreams of a third-world country pulverized by atomic bombs. Each of the protagonist clones is increasingly evil, from mildly annoying (not aware that it is very late and beyond time to leave because the hosts are falling asleep) to pure-dee evil (Stephen Miller). The crime shifts from murder to accident to suicide from chapter to chapter because we are all caught in an alternate world time warp, and the murderer (if there is one) but a genetically-altered llama who% had been captured by aliens in Roswell in 1953. (In volume 7, his brain is implanted into the protagonist's skull, so there's that.) The plot twist is revealed in the final three sentences of volume 13, in swehich nobody moves to Aruba (which, BTW, is revealed to be the lost continent of Atlantis stuck in a witness relocation program). I truly feel that this opus is a bold and unique direction for the mystery novel and (once it is accepted and published) I await my Edgar. (Also BTW, there is absolutely no sex in the novel because I am not an expert, but I have included an 30-page appendix detailing all the various phrases (and there are many) I use to describe naughty-bits.)
ReplyDeleteJerry, that is more imaginative in one paragraph than most series ever are! Completely wacky, but imaginative!!
DeleteBrilliant, Jerry!
DeleteFunny!! Thanks!!
DeleteJerry, I think you aren't telling us the whole story. Tsk-tsk. As forvthe sex addendum, should one read that first?
DeleteLOL!!!! I'd read that - all 13 volumes.
DeleteI'm reading this, Jerry!! :-)
DeleteIdentical twins have the same DNA, but different fingerprints.
ReplyDeleteThat's fascinating, Margaret. I, a mystery writer, should have known that, but I didn't.
DeleteI'll echo Kim, Margaret. That's a FASCINATING fact.
DeleteMirror image identical everything from one to the other is on the opposite side. I believe some identical twins have the same fingerprints?
DeleteIdentical twins what is true about the fingerprints?
My twin children are fraternal, nothing is the same including, sex blood type, fingerprints, dna. They are as similar as any common
sibling pair.
My cousins are mirror twins. I'll have to ask!
DeleteOh that is interesting Margaret!
ReplyDeleteRegarding #4, I read two or three books where a person set out to kill someone, and through a variety of circumstances ended up becoming their own victim of the trap/poison/whatever. So kind of an accident, at least in the death of that person? But I did enjoy that twist.
ReplyDeleteIt can be done well, for sure.
DeleteAlicia, I saw a movie or tv detective show where the bad guy set out poison in the intended victims drink and the victim switched their drinks when he went to the kitchen. He sat back down and drank unknowingly drank the poison wine. I wish I could remember the name of the show.
ReplyDeleteCopying from Hamlet, I guess!
DeleteThere's a great scene in The Princess Bride where drinks are switched. Such a fun movie!
DeleteThat's actually clever.
DeleteYeah, twins is bad. Wasn't there one that used triplets, though/ That everyone knew they were twins, etc, so that could not be the solution. But then--HA!--triplets. Something like that . I am also not fond of "oh, its the person, but they are in witness protection so no one knew." And I have to say--I love that the sleuth was the killer. If you can pull that off, and be fair about it, I applaud you.
ReplyDeleteOne of the later Ellery Queen novels used the surprise triplet twist as the murderer. I wont tell you which novel because that would be too much of a spoiler.
DeleteThat could have been it! Thank you! And thank you for the spoiler free comment… Much appreciated!
DeleteHank, the triplets scenario reminded me of a Diagnosis Murder episode where one of the Carradine brothers played the role of triplets. The detective and his doctor father had to figure out which triplet was the killer.
DeleteThis conversation makes me think of what was it - season 3 of ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING? With the Broadway musical? "Which of the Twickham Triplets did it/who in the crew could commit this crime."
DeleteAgreed. I think the unreliable narrator trope is exhausted. Could be just me, tho.
DeleteNot a fan of the unreliable narrator.
DeleteOHHHH Julia, now I am singing. SO funny!
DeleteWell, I'm not happy when it turns out to have been suicide. Exceptions made for the plot where the victim, who is dying, commits suicide in a way that implicates his wife and her lover.
ReplyDeleteAh yes that's rhe plot of Rebecca by du maurier.
DeleteThat is a good twist.
DeleteAgree with all! A rift on #5, though: in Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," the sleuth is not the killer, but what a twist on the unreliable narrator! As far as disappointing plot twists, I have to say, nothing in "Gone Girl" surprised me.
ReplyDeleteI just need to like someone in the book, otherwise, I don't care.
DeleteI am the plot-protector who is removing the comments that are spoilers.
ReplyDeleteYou're doing the work of the angels, Hank.
DeleteWhy?
DeleteVery good point Hank, but the two books I referenced and in my defense they were written almost a hundred years ago!!
DeleteThank you, Hank! I'm late to the party today. I once had a reader rip me for revealing a plot point in REBECCA in one of my library mysteries and I realized just because it's old doesn't mean there are new readers yet to discover it. Lesson learned!
DeleteI can see that Jenn. I thought he ending of Rebecca was truly a shocker. I never saw that coming.
DeleteI laughed at the list, but, honestly, if the writer is good enough, I think even twists 2-7 can be made entertaining and fun. But NOT it was all a dream. I remember some children's books that did that, instead of having the magic in the story be real, and I was furious. I still hate "it was all a dream." World's worst plot twist.
ReplyDeleteSO agree.
DeleteIt's so DALLAS, isn't it?
DeleteJenn: I have seen some of the mystery films and mystery novels with some of these scenarios. Regarding twins, what if they are not twins but doppleangers by design? I was thinking of a Nancy Drew detective story, which I read a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteI can give Nancy Drew a pass on that plot point :)
DeleteI read an otherwise terrific book where the murderer turned out to have done the seemingly-impossible murder because he was an Olympic-level archer. Something that hadn't been mentioned ONCE in the previous 300 pages. I literally went back and re-read the whole novel, looking for where I had missed the clue. Nope! There was no clue. I wanted to commit murder myself after that.
ReplyDeleteTHAT IS SO GREAT!!! Ha ha ha...perfect. SO audacious. I read/critiqued a manuscript once where the mc saved the day by her fabulous swimming skills, and when I mentioned to the author that she might want to foreshadow that in some way, she told me I was wrong. That it was meant to be a surprise. It sure was.
DeleteJulia that happened (or a similar situation) in a MC Beaton book too (Agatha Raisin).
DeleteWith a bow and arrow? LOL.
DeleteLet's not forget the twin nobody knew existed, including the "good" twin. Secretly delivered, separated at birth, the people involved all dead.
ReplyDeleteHonestly...it's too much.
DeleteTwins often are more interesting in general fiction than in mystery novels. I loved the book written several years ago about twin sisters who passed as White. One chose to stay in the Black community while the other left and moved to California with her husband. I forgot the title or the author.
DeleteSECRET twin. Yeah. SO believable.
DeleteAre there mystery novels about Identity thefts, which happened in real life?
ReplyDeleteThe bad plot twists are especially bad when you've read some really great ones. One of my favorites is still Clare Mackintosh's l Let You Go. I think the twist I hate the most in a book or a TV show is that it was all a dream. Those of you who are a bit older, like me, might remember the dream twist in the Dallas television show. How awful that was. And, I'm not fond of the evil twin either. Oh, and as for an alien being the killer, that can actually work. I've just watched the first few episodes of Resident Alien. Haha.
ReplyDeleteThe alien being the killer is literally the plot of many homeland Security press releases. Unbelievable there also.
DeleteYou are so right, Jerry. Equally unbelievable. (And I appreciate the pun.)
DeleteLove this, Jenn. I had a cat dial 911 and yes, the cops showed up. Not a plot twist, real life. Who knows what else they can get up to when they want to. The 911 story appears in a recent Chicken Soup for the Soul anthology.
ReplyDeleteOh, we need you to write a whole blog about that!
Delete