Twist and Shout: How Not To Do Surprise Endings

…the fuck is this shit?

I read a story recently that had…well, let’s call it a twist ending.

Except that it wasn’t a twist. It was a thinly disguised deus ex machina that neatly got the protagonists out of danger without them actually having to do anything. But the feel was that I should have been so distracted by the sarcastic-quotes-twist that I shouldn’t have noticed. It was less “hey, that was a surprise” and more “here’s a wool hat, do you mind pulling it over your eyes real quick?” I was clear I was supposed to play along, but, frankly, the author hadn’t earned it.

It was the worst possible thing the ending to a piece of fiction could be*: it was unsatisfying.

Writers: don’t do that shit. We–meaning your readers–are not stupid. We know when we’re the target of authorial condescension. And we don’t like it.

This isn’t to say there can’t be surprises or twists. Obviously there should be, because otherwise there’s no suspense. But in retrospect, those twists have to seem like the organic outcome of who your character is and the choices she makes. It should come, not out of left field, but from the home plate, even if the reader isn’t entirely sure where it’s going to end up.

A twist isn’t introduced at the end. A proper twist is introduced in the beginning. Casually. So that we barely notice. Then, when it appears later, it’s not going to induce the WTFs in your readers.

If you can’t write your ending without an external force swooping in the save the day–especially an external force that hadn’t been so much as mentioned in the three hundred pages previous–then you need to rethink your ending. And possibly your beginning. Because, honey, you took a wrong turn somewhere and it landed you on a such a dead end road that you figured that was the only way to get out of it.

What comes next is…what comes next. It is inevitable. Every step should have led here. Even if we couldn’t see the road.

*To me, obviously, but if there’s one among you who claims a worse crime against narrative I can only assume you’re an alien in disguise.

Bathroom Break: Life Details In Fiction

Thank you, Poop Writer, for inspiring this post. At least you did something right.

I once read a story in which every characters’ bowel movements were graphically described.*

It wasn’t a very long story—maybe ten pages, max. But, of those ten, about three were devoted to detailing the process and product of taking a dump. And those pages were so detailed that I can barely remember the plot of the story. Everything else has been eclipsed by the endless descriptions of shit. I’m not squeamish by any stretch of the imagination, but at a certain point even I was all, Enough, dude. What’s the point of this?

When I read the afterword—yes, it was one of those publications that has afterwords for short stories, presumably to give the authors a chance to explain what the hell they just did to you—the author discussed how s/he** was striving for more realistic stories. S/he felt that most stories didn’t accurately represent the actual human experience, as far as conversation, thought processes, and, of course, sitting on the porcelain throne.

To which I say: well, duh.

Had Poop Writer been in my home at that time, I likely would have pointed out that fiction doesn’t need to be a perfect representation of daily life, with all its dead ends and wanderings and everyday boring errands, physical or otherwise. We already have something that does that. We call it life.

Fiction*** is an idealized representation of reality. It’s streamlined. It has to be, because fiction has something life doesn’t: plot. There’s a story being told in there somewhere, and all things are in service to it. Even ‘reality’ television knows this rule, which is why story lines and villains and drama emerge in every season. Someone out there is carefully cutting those scenes together and making a story out of them instead of the random, chaotic mess that is real life.

Which means I damn well don’t want to read about your characters musing on their digestive tract health unless it is key to the story.

It’s not just bathroom breaks; I’ve read things that had the occasional detour into What The Hell Land many times. Unreasonably long sections about running errands. The minutia of hair styling. And, on one memorable occasion, an entire chapter devoted to deer hunting and the preparation of the skins for wearing. It’s not that these things can’t be interesting, or even useful to the story. But in these cases, they weren’t. They were just…filler. Or the author showing off how much they knew.

When writing fiction, children, remember this: if it doesn’t serve the plot or illustrate character—preferably both—leave it on the killing floor. If it does one or both of those things, it’s probably a keeper.

Even if it’s about poop.

*I typed that sentence one-handed because I was drinking coffee at the same time. My right hand skipped most of the letters on the left side of the keyboard. Presumably because it thought the left hand was on that. Muscle memory is weird. Anyway. Back to the post.
**Can no longer remember the author’s gender. Or name. They will forever and always be known to my brain as The Poop Writer.
***Usual caveats apply. Surrealist fiction is, of course, a horse of a completely different colour with seven legs.