Shel Silverstein

If you are a dreamer, come in

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

a hope-er a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...

If you are a pretender, come sit by my fire

For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

Come in! Come in!

Jan 10, 2012

Secerts kept are wasted.

(*Disclaimer: I've never actually seen this movie so bear with me.)
Two guys are fighting in this futuristic world, where swords are made of lasers and they're fighting to the death because one is really evil and the other is good. This happens. The evil dude is wearing a black suit with a funky black respirator type helmet. Some stuff happens and the good guys is all like "you killed my dad!" to the evil dude (major paraphrasing here). The evil guy replies. "No, I am your father...you know what forget it."

Twist are not secrets, secrets are wasted on stories because if you keep the secret then what was the point of having it in the first place? The world of the story is only constructed out of they idea's portrayed so if you have an idea do tell or else nothing is gained.

Now you can have twists in a story, which are like secrets but not really. The difference between a secret and a twist is that a secret is something nobody knows. Whereas a twist is a plausible end, road less traveled that people ignore until they can't ignore it any longer. i.e. a twist is always there, your job is to make it so people never think about it until you want them to.

The reaction to a twist should be:
"Oh! how did that happen?" and then as they look back on all the events leading up to the twist.
"OMG why didn't I see this coming?"

Whereas if you tell someone a secret, their reaction will be:
"I'll take your word for it."
As there is nothing to look back on to support this new information because it was a secret.

Twists answer a question that may have been raised or fill a gap. For example your main character never had father and the villain had a son. Now people are not going to generally put two and two together to equal four when the two's are so terribly different (rivals). But if they were so inclined as wonder about the coincidence the evidence is there. Twists are not without basis, they are something people would've never guessed but they are not with out basis.

How this helps
Xoxo


10 comments:

  1. Happy new year to you - a great year ahead full of writing adventures! Hope i find time to write something too ..

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  2. Hello there sweetie! Thanks for the lovely comment over my blog, and also for following me, it means a lot to me!
    Great post and pics!
    Hope to hear again from you!

    Hope you're having a great evening!
    http://kikisbookofdreams.blogspot.com/

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    xoxo Kiki

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  3. Thank you for setting my head straight between plot twists and secrets. Based on this, I love a good twist! Makes the re-reading, or re-viewing in case of film, totally fun in terms of the "aha!" moment.

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  4. great post! I love this pic with a book <3

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  5. I love this post - you definitely highlighted the fine line between twists and secrets in fiction! :)

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  6. Love the second picture! Your blog banner is so enchanting! =)

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  7. This is so perfectly worded. I swear, you need to write a how-to book on writing.

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  8. *Luke.... I am your fatherrrrr.... Heehee

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  9. Hi! Thanks for stopping by my little blog and for the lovely comment. I hope you're having a great start to the New Year :)Have a great day.

    Beautiful inspirational post!

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