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Topic : 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 - selfpublishingguru.com

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You're worrying too much about playing the tropes straight. If you want to make the story less predictable, play with the expectations. For simplicity, I'm going to only use inversion, subversion, and reconstruction. Here, let me borrow your example...

Here's an example which I recently thought of: Assume I'm writing a fantasy novel which takes place on an isolated island in the middle of the ocean. An amnesia-stricken newcomer arrives in the only village on the island, and quickly learns that life there revolves around escaping the island. The only way to escape the island is by defeating the evil monster keeping everyone from leaving. However, no one has yet been able to slay the monster.

Cool. There's the example you gave. Interesting plot idea, but feels a bit too Maze Runner for my tastes. Oh, well. I'll work with it. So, how did you play out the plot again?

The amnesia-stricken newcomer is going to be the one who kills the monster and frees the people. The story will probably even end with them sailing off into the sunset.

Well, let's invert the trope.

The newcomer doesn't have amnesia but simply had no memories to speak of before arriving on the island. He is killed by the monster and the people stay stuck on the island. The story ends with it raining as they hold their usual "funeral" ceremony.

This works because readers are thinking you're going to have the hero save the day. When the hero is killed, your readers will think, "Surely everyone else will take the opportunity to leave while they can!" Instead of sailing off, everyone stays and accepts where they are for at least a little while, his heroic speech of "We're all going to get off this island together," still echoing in their heads. The problem is, your readers won't appreciate this as much because they'll feel as though their time was wasted for absolutely no gain. The story was one of perseverance only for it to warp into a tale of futility.

What if we subvert it?

The newcomer is faking his amnesia. He's secretly the person keeping everybody trapped on the island. While he acts like he is helping everyone to defeat the monster and escape the island, he is actually working to feed the castaways to the monster in order to dishearten them and make them lose interest in escaping. The character he becomes closest to and develops a sort of friendship with finds out who he is, and is the last one he feeds to the monster before we end the story with him now as the de facto leader of the island; he has ultimate control over everything and everything he stated that he wanted for when he leaves the island (in the beginning of the story) is now his at the end: women, power, and all the tapioca pudding he could handle.

This works because the reader was expecting the main character to be the hero. They won't feel cheated that things didn't work out because, if written well, they'll have been deceived just as much as the cast. It won't be a matter of "that's not what I expected, I don't like it." It'd be a matter of "I went into this with the wrong idea altogether! Boy do I feel dumb. lol"

Finally, let's reconstruct the trope.

Everyone sent to the island are criminals. They were induced with amnesia in order to help rehabilitate them. The newcomer doesn't realize what is going on and sets out to kill the monster and free everyone, but discovers what he and everyone else did. In that final moment, as he's face-to-face with the monster, he's given the choice to kill it and free everyone or to stay so they can pay their penance. He hardens his heart and finds new conviction. He rushes towards the monster, weapon in-hand. As he approaches the monster, he strikes down, his weapon crashing into the ground next to the monster as he stands there, blood flowing from a wound in his chest. He manages to gasp out one final sentence, "This way, they don't have to learn the truth," and he falls to the ground.

It works because it makes the audience have a back-and-forth. It makes them think it could go either way, and it really could. You could play that out where he follows through, where he tells them what he learned, where he let's himself die or commits suicide, or where he kills the monster but also makes sure the monster kills him so that he can pay his penance. There's different ways to take that. Sure, reading it, it's easy to say, "That was predictable," but that's only because we've seen so many stories do it where it's taken in every direction. "Nothing's new under the sun," and all that.

I recommend checking the hyperlink out for ideas of how to play with your tropes. Combine tropes. Don't just use only one. Don't ONLY play it straight. Subvert parts of the plot, invert it, deconstruct and reconstruct it. Have fun with your writing. A plot is only predictable if we know what is going to happen. We knew Katniss was going to be in the Hunger Games, but we didn't know she would volunteer to take Prim's place (as you said). We knew Batman wasn't going to kill Superman in BvS, but we didn't know it'd be over something as asinine as "You're shouting about Martha. I knew a Martha. We can be friends now!" We knew Harry Potter would have to fight Voldemort at some point, but we didn't know what was going to be unveiled leading up to that point. The trick is making sure the outcomes feel fresh despite the plot-point being trite.

I hope that helps!

...And now for some reason I feel like binge-playing the Danganronpa series...


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