As you Wish

Are you a fan of the Princess Bride movie? My daughters can quote that move backwards and forwards. J actually went looking for the screenplay online, downloaded it and studied it. Now, she and her friend use quotes from Princess Bride as a shorthand for things.

Well, I love the scene where the Princess is about to marry the evil Prince. It’s a solemn moment, and then the minister starts to speak. “Deah-wy Be-wuv-ed.” His scrambling of the “Dearly Beloved” line is hilarious. It’s a great example, too, of a twist in a story. Expectations set up, then blown apart. Here, it’s not a plot twist, but a small element that is used for humor.

I’ve been thinking about twisted voices this week, which is a good exercise in “Brute Thinking,” forcing two concepts together. I keep thinking of using an inappropriate or unexpected voice for humor, for shock value, or to distinguish a character. It points out that there are both big and small elements that can be twisted in a story (expectations met in unexpected ways) to keep the interest high.

I also found examples of voices described as “twisted.” Usually, these implied dark, forbidding characters, or characters in extreme circumstances.

Describing Voices

If you haven’t seen/heard NPR’s Vocal Impressions series, you should. Listeners to National Public Radio are asked to describe voices of well known people. Here are a few samples. Go back and look at all five in the series and then send in a description for number six!

• Phyllis Diller: The sound of an aluminum beer can rubbed on a rusty cheese grater — James Green
• Elvis Presley: A barn full of straw burning at night visible for 20 miles — Denny Dowdye
• Celine Dion: A Siamese cat stretched immodestly over a black leather couch — Markus Schafer
• Bobby Short: Sadness and beauty walking hand in hand on a cobblestone street on a foggy night — Denny Dowdye

For Vocal Impresions six, you’re asked to listen to Rodney Dangerfield, “Mama” Cass Elliot, Samuel L. Jackson, and Paul Robeson.

How would you describe the voices of your characters?
Any other examples of twisted voices?

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I just got a look at my picturebook, 19 Girls and Me, in German! It joins the English, Chinese and Arabic editions. It should be released officially any day and, with this publication, I am now available in eight languages! Totally amazing.

I saw it at this online bookstore, so if you’re in Europe, check it out.

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Top 11 Plot Twist of Movies. You do have to know the movies, because the article doesn’t explicitly tell you the twist. They are popular movies, so you’ll probably recognize most.

More on Movie Plot Twists including The Sixth Sense.

If you’re really stuck, try this Plot Twist Generator, created especially for the NaNoWriMo. It’s fun!

Any other resources for plot twists?

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Plot Twists

Like twist endings, plot twists can be accomplished in several ways. But usually, plot twists are usually the result of setting up expectations and then meeting those expectations in an unexpected way. For example, you might set up a fight scene, but deliver a fight between different characters than expected. Or set it in an unexpected place. Or let the fighters use unexpected weapons.

One way to set up expectations is through foreshadowing. This technique is a way to give a preview of action to come. For example, in The Empire Strikes Back, the second of the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker knows he must face Darth Vader at some point. As part of his training to be a Jedi, Yoda tells Luke to go into a cave. There, he sees a vision of Darth Vader and fights, wining the battle by striking off Vader’s head with a light sabre. Luke opens Vader’s visor and finds his own face inside Vader’s mask. It’s a warning and foreshadowing of the actual battle to come, where Luke loses to Vader, yet wins his soul by refusing to join the Dark Side.

False alarms can also act as foreshadowing for a plot twist. Let’s say that a boy’s imagination tends to go wild. Twice, he’s been sure that a wolf was going to attack, so he races home. The next day, he’s walking home again and hears something slinking in the grass, following him. We expect a wolf, right? When the tiger attacks, we’re both expecting it and surprised by it.

Expect the Unexpected

If you set up a pattern of plot twists from the start, then a reader will stay with you to find out what your devious mind has planned next.

Raymond Obstfeld, in his book Fiction First Aid , suggests you write yourself into a corner. Make the opposite happen and see what happens. Don’t allow yourself to use a cliche to get out of this bind; instead, make something unexpected happen.  Surprise even yourself.

Any other suggestions for creating twists?

Any great examples to suggest we read?

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Book auctions are the glamorous dream of most authors.

Alvina Ling, editor for Little Brown explains this mysterious process of acquiring a mss through a book auction in one of the clearest explanations I’ve seen

Yesterday, I talked about twist endings. But theory doesn’t help me much. How do you come up with such things?

How To Think Up Twist Endings

I went back to my trusty brainstorming book, Thinkertoys : A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition). It’s written for business purposes, so all the examples have to do with setting up a business, selling things, etc. But the techniques are clearly explained and I use it for help in brainstorming.

• Two Good Endings. I despaired at first of thinking of two good endings that were plausible, believable, yet unexpected. The Cherry Split (pp. 60-65) exercise seemed perfect for this. It asked you to separate your challenge into two separate units. For example, I was thinking of a fast runner. I split it into “fast” and “runner,” and then tried to think of as many attributes for each as I could. (Actually, I called my daughter who ran cross country in high school and got her input–help is good.)If you’re a runner, she said, you like to read running biographies. I realized that in my story, there was a certain bio attached to my runner. But what if that was a lie–instead of losing races, she had won races, but no one knew that until the end. What emotional twist would that give?
• Unreliable narrator. Help is, indeed, good. For this one, I got help from the CIA. CIA agents rely on Phoenix (pp. 137-143), a set of questions that force you to question your basic assumptions about your problem. Sample questions: Why is it necessary to solve the problem? What is the unknown? What is NOT the problem? What is the information you have?
  It goes on from there for a couple pages. I didn’t have to go far before I found some answers that I needed.
• Murphy’s Law. Some muscle was needed here, for me. The Brutethink exercise (pp. 157-163) suggests that you put together random things and somehow make it work. It was the only exercise that worked for me to make things continually go wrong.
• Unspoken Expectations. Well, I quoted the Sweet Violets song yesterday as an example of using expectations. And none of Thinkertoys exercises helped here. It seems like it’s more of a language play thing in the song. And I couldn’t break out of that. Any suggestions on how to brainstorm this one?

Overall, brainstorming techniques–a wide variety of them–help me when I’m trying to think of Twist Endings.

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This is a twisted week! Today and tomorrow, we’ll talk about twist endings; Wednesday and Thursday, about plot twists; and on Friday, about twists of voice.

Twist Endings

On my current novel revision project, one of the criticisms is that the plot is too predictable. What I need is a twist ending, or at least plot events that unexpected. The thing is that I like my ending; therefore, I must change the set-up.

There are four basic types of twist endings:

1. Two good endings. The story sets up two possible choices for the ending and different readers will choose which side to root for. Or the two possible endings are set up unequally, so most readers will expect one ending; but when the twist occurs, they slap their foreheads and say, “I should have expected that.”This requires plotting multiple endings. Think of it as one of those branching stories with several possible choices at crucial steps. When the protagonist takes a step forward disguise which trail s/he is taking. Use events that are ambiguous, with several interpretations. Also, make sure the protagonist’s motivations could work in several directions; or disguise/hide the real motivation and instead show a surface motivation.
2. Unreliable narrator. The reader sees the action through the eyes of an unreliable or naive narrator. Be sure to give the reader enough clues, though, that they will not be shocked by the ending.
3. Murphy’s Law. What can go wrong, will go wrong. Small things believably fail, reasonable things trip up our protagonist–until, these things that were overlooked become a huge crisis. This would work especially well for plot twists within a story.
4. Use unspoken expectations. Set up an expectation, then break it.

For example in this old folk song, expectations are set up and broken with each line. Fill in the line with what you expect, then read on to see how the lyrics really read:

Sweet Violets
There once was a farmer who took a young miss,
in back of the barn where he gave her a _______
. . . lecture on horses and chickens and eggs,
and told her that she had such beautiful_______
. . . manners that suited a girl of her charms,
a girl that he wanted to take in his ________
. . . washing and ironing and then if she did
they could get married and raise lots of_______
. . . sweet violets. Sweeter than the roses,
covered all over from head to toe,
covered all over in sweet violets.

The song sets up expectations, like jokes set up gag lines. Breaking those expectations create laughter and twists in our stories.

Caution: Be sure you’ve played fair with the audience and set up the twist by foreshadowing it!

Tomorrow: Invention strategies for twist endings.

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Patricia Sargeant on the importance of the writer’s voice. (Scroll down to her advice for other writers.)

Author Grace Paley died yesterday at the age of 88. Here’s an excerpt of her comments about the way your cultural roots affect your writing voice.

Cynthia Morris offers a checklist for evaluating your writing voice.

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The ocassional newsletter will feature my speaking schedule, recent publications and more.

Recently, my friend was complaining about his revision process.

“All I got done today was evaluating one aspect of my WIP and thinking about it. I didn’t get any writing done.”

But thinking about your story is part of writing and a definite part of revision. Many people write a first draft without an outline and like to follow the character around; in other words, they are very right-brained about it and like to go with the flow. Usually, though, even these writers have to be left-brained at some point and just evaluate what they’ve written.

Thinking

Take the scenic view–what does your story look like from a distance?

What patterns are turning up in my story? Do I like those patterns? Can I strengthen them?

What sticks with me? The characters, a certain plot, a certain setting? And will the same thing stick with my readers?

How can I create more plot twists? Anything unexpected that I can build into the story?

Do I like my main character? Do I create sympathy for him?

Maybe (for those of us who are too left-brained) just take a day and immerse yourself in the world you’ve created. Daydream for the entire day about living there.

So much of revision is thinking and allowing yourself the time to absorb the characters and to feel what they feel! Don’t feel bad if all you do for an entire day is think–or daydream. It’s necessary.

I’m avoiding a revision project.

I don’t want to start digging into the project–yet, again.  Sigh.

Is there any path to excellence without the shovel and loads and loads of heavy dirt?

No?  I was afraid of that.  Very Big Sigh.  OK.  I’ll get to work.