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Topic : Re: Is an easily guessed plot twist a good plot twist? In my post-apocalyptic novel, there are two "twists", but they're mostly tied up in each other. The first is that humans have developed - selfpublishingguru.com

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An "easily guessed plot twist" is a really subjective beast. There are people who read the phrase "his mother's silver pentagram" and just know, (a whole novel before we know there are werewolves), that a werewolf is going to get killed with it. There are also people who are still wondering how the protagonist is going to kill the big bad wolf right up until it dies.

The twists you present appear to be twists for the characters rather than for the readers of the narrative since the readers are, in this case, given more information than those characters have. This is often called a "character revelation", the moment characters learn something we [the reader] have known all along. They're still times of extreme tension and/or conflict for the characters involved.

Knowing what's coming is a two-edged sword, on the one hand there's no suspense but on the other you have anticipation. The key to making these moments work is to drive/focus the anticipation and pay it off well.


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