Expect the Unexpected: Creating Plot Twists

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Readers pay attention when they don't know what's coming next.

When someone asks, "What's a story with a great plot twist?" your mind probably conjures one of the classics. Soylent Green. The Sixth Sense. Fight Club. The Lottery. Even Newhart. 

You no doubt have your favorites. Stories that shifted and turned and blew your mind.  

A great plot twist is a wonderful thing, be it in the books you write or the ones you read. Readers revel in that unexpected event or revelation that changes everything they thought they knew and takes the story to a whole new level. They delight in the surprises that make them think, "wow, that was awesome. I never saw that coming." (And then they tell all their friends). 

Trouble is, knowing you want a plot twist is a lot easier than coming up with a good one. 

There's no formula for devising a great twist, because every plot is different and any number of things can work in a novel.

My trick for twisting my plot is pretty simple:

Moving Forward Into 2025

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

A new year, and new opportunities and hopes on the horizon.

Happy New Year, everyone!

I wish you all the best and hope your 2025 is starting off well. Fingers crossed it doesn’t go totally off the rails.

2024 was an interesting year for me. It didn’t go as planned (it never does, right?), but I had several accomplishments and positive momentum with my writing and career. I always review my previous New Year’s post when I write these, and noticed I never did one for 2023 (I’ve skipped a few the past couple of years), so it was interesting to see my list of hopes for 2023.

And, um, yeah, two years later, I didn’t do any of them.

The fact that I laughed about this shows I’ve grown in those two years, and I’m no longer putting the crazy pressure on myself to “Do it all!” like I used to. That’s a win in my book.

5 Edits to Strengthen Your Writing, Right Now

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Making some simple word edits can turn a flat scene into one that sings.

Back when I was first learning how to write, I loved discovering a great writing tip--the ones I could immediately apply to my work and see actual improvement were the best. I got especially excited over lists of words or specific examples, because I could search and find the weak areas right away. Which is probably why I like to do a lot of lists and examples now in my own articles.

While there's nothing inherently wrong with a "weak word," they do tend to hang around trouble areas--just like those red flag words with show, don't tell. They're good places to start when something feels off in your work or you're getting negative feedback and aren't sure why. 

If you're looking for easy ways to improve your writing, here are great words to search for to identify potentially weak areas.

Let's a take a peek at a few of the more common troublemakers that often pull readers out of a story.

5 Ways to Fight Your End-of-Year Writer’s Fatigue

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

The end of the year can be exhausting, but you can beat it.

December is both a fun and a rough month. The holidays and festivities keep everyone busy and smiling, but that constant string of tasks and events wears on a person—especially us writers. It can be hard to write when all our energy is going to prepping, handling, and enjoying the holidays.

It’s also the end of a potentially long year of “I need to hit X goal.” You wanted to revise that novel, write that novel, publish that ebook, go on that book tour, revamp your website, and so on and so on…. 

This is the last few weeks to complete those goal(s) and the pressure is on. However, the motivation to actually do it is likely waning or missing.

The end of the year makes you want to push hard to finish all the things you wanted to do that year—even if there's no way you can possibly do it.  

What Are Your Characters Thankful For?

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

 
It's not all about the bad stuff.

 
I'm the first person to heap trouble and pain upon my characters (bwahaha), but even I know there's a limit to how much you can dump on a poor soul before they just give up. And we need our characters—especially our protagonists—to keep going when things are at their worst.

When we create our story people, we typically focus more on their problems, flaws, and the things that make them unhappy, because that’s where the best conflicts and plotting opportunities come from. But it’s also important to consider what will make our characters willing to go through all those horrible things we throw in their paths.

Which is totally what they care about and what's important in their lives.

Bob and Weave: How to Mix Character Actions and Internal Thoughts

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

The smoother the flow between action and thought, the stronger the scene will be.

Although some scenes (and some writers) naturally find the perfect balance between action and internal thought, other scenes take work to get that balance right. Tip it too far in either direction, and the writing can come across as too slow (too much in a character's head) or too flat (all description, no character).

There's no rule or ratio for this, since a writer's voice grows from how they string words together. If we all wrote the exact same way, all books would sound alike. And who wants that?

A strong action/thought combination is when the character's actions flow smoothly with their thoughts and work in tandem to tell the story. 

The genre will affect that balance, such as a more thoughtful novel typically tips more to the internal thought side, while a thriller usually leans toward the action.

What “Mama” Can Teach Us About Tension & Suspense

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Want a bestselling novel? Grab your readers and don't let them go until the end.

Once in a while, a story comes along that blows me away. It might be a novel, a movie, a game, or a TV show, but how it’s written or structured illustrates an aspect of storytelling that expands my writer’s mind.

The film, Mama, by Andrés and Barbara Muschietti is one such story.

If you haven’t seen it, the basic premise is this: Two young girls abandoned in the woods are rescued by a tormented spirit who decides to raise them as her own. When the girls are found five years later, things get…complicated.

Although classified as horror, this film is really more psychological suspense in the “peek through your fingers while on the edge of your seat” way. It will utterly creep you out, but also make you laugh so hard you can’t breathe. And it makes you care—deeply.

6 Ways Your Setting Can Create Conflict

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Setting can play a much bigger role in your story’s conflict that you might realize.

No matter what form it takes, conflict is at the core of every story. It’s part of what drives the plot, and it’s what makes readers eager to read on to see if the protagonist succeeds. Characters face problem after problem, and with each trouble found, they’re forced to make tough decisions about what to do next. It’s this constant flow of dealing with problems that keeps the story moving.

But conflict also exists in the world around the characters which has nothing to do with them personally—it’s just the inherent conflict of the world. The setting can be rife with problems that prevent your protagonist from solving their problems and even add to their internal conflicts.

A Step-By-Step Plan to Create Compelling Characters

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Strong characters are vital to a strong story, so don't scrimp on their development.

Developing characters is one of those things where everyone has their own method (which is totally fine). But it also often takes a writer multiple tries to find that perfect process that works for you. No matter what you might read out there, there's no right or wrong way to do it.

Some folks love to interview their characters, others make lists of key traits, some fill out pre-designed forms with a variety of details, and even find photos online of what they look like (I find this photo bit particularly useful).

One friend of mine creates collages that represent that character, letting her mind find images that feel right to her, then thinks about the kind of person who'd create that collage. Another friend dives deep into the emotional states of the characters and needs to understand how they tick before she can do much with them. And me? I only know the bare bones going in.

4 Tips on Writing Action Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

A good action scene starts with the character. Seriously.

I love action in my entertainment. Books, movies, TV shows, even games. I also enjoy a great story to go with it, but I like the external forces that cause the true nature of a person to bubble to the surface. I want to see what people do and discover why they did it. 

At this point in my career, writing action comes pretty easily to me, but that wasn't always the case. My early work was way too descriptive in how my fight scenes played out—I explained every detail, I created special names for fighting styles and whatnot. It took longer to read the action that it did to actually perform the action.

Which is the opposite of what you want when it comes to writing action.