: Re: When having a plot twist, does there have to be foreshadowing of it? Can it just pop out of nowhere, or does it have to be something that was slightly mentioned before that only expert readers

@Hamaas631

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A good twist fits into the story organically, at least in hindsight. So it doesn't have to be foreshadowed, necessarily, but there should be elements of the former plot that take a new shape after the twist, for sure.

A good twist doesn't just change the story, it actually improves it. So Sixth Sense, as the obvious example, was an okay ghost story before the twist, and then turned into a really good ghost story after the twist. And while it was a bit clumsy to have the film maker go back and show us all the scenes from the newly understood perspective, it was also satisfying to see how they fit into the new framework.

A twist that doesn't fit organically into the story may feel like a deus ex machina or a random WTF moment. I don't think either of those is a satisfying storytelling element.

So deliberate foreshadowing? Great if you can do it subtly enough for it to work, but not strictly necessary as long as the twist can be seen, in hindsight, to have affected the story all the way through.

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