amorentia-quibble - Tumblr blog

amorentia-quibble · 4 months

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glad that im not popular enough to have an evil shadow version of my blog that exists just to make contradictions on my posts

#starting the cesear comments to prepare for the tidal wave of ides of march comments the moment we're a breath away from February I see #this is amazing though #exact amount of chaos i would assume for someone named tothechaos

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amorentia-quibble · 9 months

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How to hide plot twists from both your readers and your characters in a way that is not frustrating or annoying.

So I was watching a book review for a book that I liked but both loved and hated some of the plot twists. Of course this got me thinking about plot twists and why they work for both readers and the characters that are falling for these plot twists.

Readers

The key is to control the information that your readers have. Your readers aren't going to consider an option unless (1) that twist is really common for your genre and that reader has read that genre a lot and will therefore be expecting it or (2) you have very obviously given them the specific information nessesary to unintentionally figure out the twist before the characters.

Why does this information stand out, you may be wondering. It is because there is nothing else going on to distract away from a piece of information that can seem meaningless with the right context.

Most of the time, if you're not writing a very specific plot line with a very specific genre, your reader isn't going to immediately know where the plot is going so they may not be looking out for the information relevant to a later plot twist, so as long as you justify an informational choice that explains a later plot twist in a way that covers a variety of basis, they're probably not going to pick up on the one piece you left out, aka what is going to make this twist fun.

This piece of information should be something small and unassuming. It can be magical, but if you're writing fantasy that magic has to be hidden really really well. I find that a plot twist works the best when the piece of information that is missing is something you wouldn't really think about, like the reason a prince was able to infiltrate a prison and hide his identity was because he had his cousin standing in for him and we don't know that this cousin existed and knew the limits of that world's magic (this is actually a plot twist that fooled me btw despite how obvious at sounds now).

A good plot twist that fools the reader relies on twisting the information that the reader has and therefore twisting how they think the story will go.

Midway sidenote: not every plot twist needs to exist to fool both the reader and the character, sometimes it is really fun to watch a character fail because of something inherent to that character.

Characters

Remember how I said sometimes it's really fun to watch a character fail. That only works sometimes.

It is more annoying to figure out a plot twist that is really obvious and then have the character miss it because the author said so.

So how does a writer pull this off?

Be intentional. Have an idea in mind of when you want the reader to figure it out and ask your beta readers when they figured out your plot twists to control that as much as you can.

Your character does not know which genre they're in, so you have to both get inside the character's head and take the reader along with you so they understand why this character is making these poor choices and missing the most obvious villain in the room.

Why would a character miss a plot twist?

They are distracted or delusional. Characters have goals and they may ignore their better judgments to achieve these goals based on their personality. Put more emphasis on your character's motives to hide information that may make plot twists more obvious. Also, your characters may use information about their world to explain their motives and this information may also be vital to understanding a later plot twist

The average person does not go around thinking everybody around them is out to get them especially if those people seem incapable of that through the pov character's ego or the other character's demeanor. If your character has known somebody for a really long time or knows a piece of information that is vital to the worldview they're probably not going to immediately discard it. Fun fact: in the real world, when people have their views disputed, even with very good evidence, it can make them more likely to hold on to that old belief.

Expectation of harm. Different characters have different experiences with shape how bad they think things can get. For example, if a character has never experienced something, they may not know what can lead to that thing. (FYI older characters are more likely to know more things so be careful with this one.)

The Twist

For a twist to work, it must make sense with both real world and in world knowledge as well as common sense, so keep this in mind as you plan.

Conclusion

This isn't comprehensive because good plot twists require a lot of information to make them work and that's makes them very specific. While I would love to explain why different plot twists work, part of them working is them fooling you and hindsight bias is kind of a thing.

Keep writing. If a plot twist just isn't working either scrap it or let it sit until you have the information to build reasons why it should work.

#Amazing advice which I definitely need as I'm getting back into writing.#but also *squints at example*#a prince inflitrating a prison and hiding his identity because his cousin stood in for him and because we didnt know about the worlds magic?#The Prison Healer? By Lynette Noni?#Immediately made me think of it which AMAZING book by the way Lynette is very lovely

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amorentia-quibble · 1 year

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#me: wtf these are so complicated!!#also me: 48+2=50 +5=55 #it just makes sense in my brain this way i just get it rounded to the next ten and then its easy!!

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amorentia-quibble · 1 year

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#2 apparently #a friend of mine was an extra in the Elvis movie and tom hanks was in that #im gonna say that counts #but man thats kinda wild

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amorentia-quibble · 1 year

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ATTENTION NEW TUMBLR USERS: This website is different from twitter and there are actually four (4) things that every blog needs. Go to the woods and fetch the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, the slipper as pure as gold

#obligatory sondheim reblog

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amorentia-quibble · 1 year

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#save for later

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amorentia-quibble · 1 year

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As a young librarian, I started trying to figure out why more young people aren't ever coming in; 90% of our demographic are the elderly and parents of children, and the rest are a rough mix of the kids and teenagers who come in just for school projects. As a result, I've been attempting different ways to get the Youth TM to come into libraries, but first I wanted to see why they don't come in. Please reblog to get this poll out to more people! <3

#dude i just dont have time #i work full time 5 days in a different city where i do a 3 hour round trip commute #i would love to use those facilities but there literally isnt enough time in the day #and thats not on the library thats just on me needing money to survive

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amorentia-quibble · 1 year

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Can't be bothered putting this on the original post because it will disappear in the notes, but I promise as a native speaker of New Zealand English that when we use "chips" to refer to both fries-chips and crisps-chips, this is not a source of confusion in 99% of cases because, uh, it is pretty obvious from context that "fish and chips" (deep fried food) is not the same as "I'll bring some chips for D&D" (an occasion on which cold/room-temperature snacks are consumed). This operates in exactly the same way as the many other words in various English dialects which have contextual meanings.

In the VERY SMALL number of circumstances where someone is confused, this can be clarified immediately by referring to either "hot chips" (fries/wedges/etc) or "potato chips" (crisps). Anybody who is confused after this is either 1) a small child 2) not a native speaker of New Zealand English or 3) has...really specific and unusually limited life experience in re: chips.

To be fair, about a quarter of NZers are not native speakers of New Zealand English so this is not an uncommon occurrence, but our dialect is perfectly understandable TO US, thank. (And IME non-native speakers who move here pick up this distinction in pretty short order because, again, it's not that confusing in day-to-day speech.)

What this does mean, however, is that I was extremely offput and disappointed this week to find that the "hot chip" of the "be bisexual, eat hot chip, and lie" meme actually means, like, spicy Doritos. that ENTIRELY changes the meaning and quite frankly ruins it for me. gutted.

#NNO. THIS CANT BE TRUE #DORITOS???#I refuse im taking back the narrative were eating hot potato chip

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amorentia-quibble · 1 year

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i've been staying with family in australia for a bit and this cannot be a real fucking country

#not to go doxx myself but jesus christ every time i went to uni i saw these theyre everywhere knjbfdn #but hey sun safety is important #especially here where you literally burn in 15 minutes

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amorentia-quibble · 1 year

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Do you ever eat popcorn out of the palm of your own hand with such ardent desperation that you feel like both a wild horse and the gentle schoolgirl feeding it treats to gain its affection

#ive already liked this before but this is a noble enough cause to donate a rare reblog #enjoy ur tag fingers crossed u get 1 million sorry its past ur bday

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amorentia-quibble · 1 year

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Sims 4 page on Steam. Not to be controversial but I think the CEO of EA should be beheaded for this

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amorentia-quibble · 2 years

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now that everyone from twitter has joined tumblr overnight, it's time to lay a couple ground rules:

1. it's not called a "retweet", it's called a "reblog", but if you're REALLY cool, you refer to it as a "rebagel"

2. if someone has fewer followers than you, it is totally fair to call them "irrelevant", but it is actually more stinging to call them "irrelephant"

3. if you see someone irl that you think might have a tumblr, you're supposed to say "i like your shoe laces". the correct response, which any true tumblrite would know by heart, is "thanks, i stole them from the president"

4. there is a particular phenomenon that happens after 12am EST called "nightblogging", and everything after this point is the fault of the australians

5. tumbeasts

#oh my god its been so long since ive seen someone say anything about nightblogging #or blame it on aussies #that threw me so far back in time goddamn

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amorentia-quibble · 2 years

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Keep your game exactly the same but now players have to pay you $8 a month to keep their Player Character status.

#failure to pay means your PC becomes a lowly NPC never to be heard from again and you must reroll #after you've paid your $8 fee of course

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amorentia-quibble · 2 years

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Harold Holt’s motive finally uncovered after 55 years

[gets a tumblr ask and reads it] wow! i should respond to that!! first i have to do something though [walks into the ocean never to be seen again]