I’ve a researched a bit about writing plot twists properly. The conclusion I came to was simply: Twists shouldn’t be too predictable but they shouldn’t be completely random either. There was also this method a writer used which was simply: 20% of the audience should figure out the twist LONG before it’s revealed and about 80% of the audience should figure it out JUST before it’s revealed. These are all great advice but I’m struggling to apply them properly. Thing is: I often have a hard time thinking from the audience’s POV. I’m not struggling with writing twists themselves but rather the foreshadowing/hints. I’m curious, how do you all incorporate your hints into the story? How many hints are there? How do you exactly employ hints, via dialogue? Via a character’s actions? Via small visual details? Do you employ hints in only one way or several? Simply put, I’m trying to ask the following: How do you all put hints/foreshadowing of a plot twist into the story?
I think the most important thing is that the plot twist must make sense.
The setup works best when the reader is like: “something is off, it doesn’t add up, there must be a plot twist, but what could it be?”. And then after the plot twist like: “ah, now it makes sense”
And the worst ones are when the reader is like “the town is clearly fake” but then the town has a functioning river and no one ever complains about the lack of a sky so it can’t be fake and then the story is like “actually the town is fake what a plot twist huh” AAARGH (this happened to me once and I’m still angry)