Who’s on First?
What’s on Second and I Don’t Know’s on Third
This may come as a surprise, dear reader, but the necessity of logic can be missing from a majority of people’s manuscripts (and even their final product).
Nothing ruins a good book more than a character or plot element doing something that doesn’t make sense within the established narrative. Characters choosing to do something crazy and dramatic when an obvious, more in character decision lay right in front of them isn’t a plot twist. It’s lazy and disappointing to your readers.
Taking a character you’ve presented as an adherent pacifist for their entire life and suddenly turning them into an efficient, cold blooded killer in the final act just to make things more dramatic will be so jarring to your reader it will distract from the actual story. The last thing you want is for your decision in character choice to rip your reader out of the story as they try and figure out what the fuck just happened.
Now, I’m not saying this can’t be done for an effective character moment, but you’ve gotta put in the work. If you don’t lay the groundwork for this “grand reveal” that Timmy Pacifist has actually been repressing an intense bloodlust for the past 400 pages then his sudden change into Rambo is going to come out of left field and your reader is going to be too busy trying to recall if there was anything they’ve read that hinted at the shift in character they won’t be paying an ounce of attention to whats actually going on story beat wise.
Unfortunately, chances are that instead of that wiz-bang “wow” moment you were looking for they’ll simply stare at the page and go “huh?” Pro-tip: any time you do something that pulls your reader out of the story and make them go “huh?” that isn’t a good thing. You want them as immersed as you can. You want them to live that shit, to be transported to another world.
“But, John,” some of you cry. “What paltry advice is this? Surely no one would do such a thing.”
False.
Allow me, dear reader, to tell you a tale of my good friend Aaron.
Aaron gave me a book once. Aaron told me the ending of this book was a real zinger. I trusted Aaron, dear reader, fool that I am. I was intrigued by his endorsement, my curiosity piqued. This guy had been a bastion of good recommendations in the past. Why, he’d introduced me to Dune for pity’s sake! So I started reading. And you know what? The book was a blast! There was mystery, intrigue, romance, and the promise of the rediscovery of long-lost treasure.
My Spidey senses were tingling in all the right places, dear reader….and then I got to the last ten pages.
That was when the protagonist confronted the villain who (hurk) who (hurk, oh, god) who monologued, and somehow convinced the hero to forget about his missing love interest, forget about his kidnapped son, no longer care about a murdered colleague, and to accept that the missing treasure THAT WE AS READERS AND THE PROTAGONIST HAD SEEN MULTIPLE TIMES was a complete and utter fabrication. It was all a lie. The villain wasn’t even trying to pull a fast one, either. The dude simply now believed with undying conviction the treasure was a lie despite having touched said treasure multiple times and indeed having used items from said treasure to foil our heroes throughout the book.
Now all of a sudden the treasure which drove the entire narrative simply no longer existed. No gold. No Library of Alexandria. No templar treasure or ancient observatory like had been specifically mentioned and was indeed shown within the story to be the treasure in question.
Just some bullshit about the “real treasure” being the acknowledgement that god isn’t real.
Then, I shit you not, right after this page and a half monologue which somehow convinces the hero to betray everyone and everything they ever cared about (and where they embrace such a nihilistic viewpoint on mankind that I can only assume the author can’t so much as glance at a work of Tolstoy or Nietzche without pitching a tent), a bomb goes off and kills everyone.
That was it.
The end.
It was like I’d just watched Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark and at the end Indy got capped by a random extra, everyone died, and then the film cut over to The Davinci Code.
I called my friend Aaron and asked him, and I quote, “Dude, Aaron, what the fuck?”
You know what answered me, dear reader? Laughter. Not an apology. Laugher.
So, what can we learn from this debacle aside from my friend Aaron being a diabolical sadist? Simple: one poor twist can ruin a good book.
And make no mistake, dear reader, that book is ruined.
It still retains a place of infamy on my bookshelf to this day as I won’t donate it for some unsuspecting reader to burden themselves with and I won’t give it the honor of a clean death via burning or decomposition. It will live in disgrace in perpetuity (don’t feel bad for it. It knows what it did).
Now, how could this train wreck have been salvaged? For one, the author could have not shown us that the treasure existed, keeping it a nebulous “shiny” instead of blowing his load every opportunity he had. He could have hinted that the protagonist had some sort of nihilistic worldview and was close to not caring about anything instead of painting him as a wonderful do-good family man who’d do anything in his power to save those he loved. Think of it like Sherlock Holmes: if there are enough bits of data scattered across the narrative to where the grand reveal makes sense then the reader is rewarded for paying attention. If the reveal or twist goes against the grain of the narrative you’ve already established then you rob your reader of that “aha!” moment.
Now, the name of the book and it’s author were redacted from this post for the sake of civility but let’s call the author Dick.
Dick tried to subvert my expectations with his third act and ruined a perfectly good book.
Don’t ruin your book.
Don’t be a Dick.