: Re: How can I avoid a predictable plot? When writing a novel, authors generally don't want the reader to know how things will end. This is especially true of mystery novels, but obviously applies

One way of going "off the rails" not yet mentioned here is to actually embrace the predictable plot, and then go past it. With your setup, of course the hero is going to defeat the monster. Let that happen by the end of act 1. What happens next? How does the village respond to not having a monster caging them any longer?
@Amadeus says: something about the problem is not as it seems. (And I couldn't agree more, but I've got to add something of my own, right?) I say: the consequences of solving the problem are not what they were expected to be. It might well be that the consequences are not what they should be because the problem wasn't what the reader thought it was. But the perspective is different: having passed the expected end, you are already "off the rails". Anything that you do from this point forwards would be unexpected.

My favourite example of this technique is the Russian play The Dragon by Evgeny Schwarts. End of Act 1, Lancelot slays a dragon that terrorises a village, and saves the girl who was supposed to be sacrificed to the dragon.

Then in Act 2 it turns out that the villagers are so accustomed to living under a dictator, they don't know how to function without one - they don't know how to be free. So the burgomaster takes the role previously occupied by the dragon, and the girl whose life Lancelot saved is now forced to marry the burgomaster.

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: Re: How can I avoid a predictable plot? When writing a novel, authors generally don't want the reader to know how things will end. This is especially true of mystery novels, but obviously applies

More posts by @Steve161

: Coining words - when and how? Writing an answer to another question, I stumbled upon a quote from The Hobbit: Bilbo rushed along the passage, very angry, and altogether bewildered and bewuthered

: How does one discovery-write court intrigue? Intrigue (any kind, really, but royal courts were particularly known for it) is a series of setups that lead to a pay-off. For example, a handkerchief

: In the background of the Future As I've mentioned multiple times, I'm writing a military sci-fi novel. The focus of the story is war, and that happens far away from Earth. However, I'm starting

: Dead children in pre-modern setting The reality of pre-Industrial Revolution times was that about half the children born died before age 5. It would be a mistake to think that parents cared

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