dneuschulz
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- Jul 6, 2021
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Some of the original explanations of how to write a "good" twist that I encountered were, IMHO, very fuzzy. By that, I mean that the attempt to nail down something more specific than "you'll know it when you see it," offered up a lot of cruft that boiled down to nothing more than the original "you'll know it," sentiment. The oft repeated observations that "good" twists leave the audience surprised, yet satisfied (thrilled, even), and "bad" twists, leave the audience surprised but frustrated and feeling cheated are fairly useless as writers' tools. (They're tautological, really.)
I did, however, eventually come across something I found useful, that I'd like to share. I'll use the mystery genre as my example, because it is the clearest case of how twists work.
In cognitive psychology (Piaget), aquistion of knowledge can be described as an interplay of two processes: assimilation and accomodation.
Importantly, assimilation creates only a small dopamine hit (satisfaction) to the brain, but successful accomodation delivers an exponentially larger dose in proportion to the amount of assimilated understanding that is reorganized.
So in a typical mystery -- a very simple one -- the accrual of clues is assimilation, and the appearance of a twist forces accomodation: all the prior points of assimilation need to be reconsidered and reorganized in light of the twist. It is akin to dominoes. Setting up the dominoes next to each other is assimilation, and setting one and tipping it to create a cascade of changes is accomodation. (The metaphor of dominoes, here, breaks down quickly because twist can be piled upon twist many times, but dominoes fall down only once.)
Example 1: In Hitchock's famous movie "Psycho," the scenes of the elderly woman killing hotel guests or Norman Bates talking to his elderly mother are points of assimilation (leading to the conclusion that the mother is killing the guests). The twist at the end forces the audience to reasses all the previously assimilated information in an entirely different (but completely cohesive) way: massive dopamine hit!
Audiences feel cheated when a twist doesn't reorganize very many points of assimilated understanding. Some examples are: offering a huge info dump as the twist at the end (that curtails the amount of pre-existing information available to reorganize, since it is all hoarded up until the finale); dropping a piece of info that is unrelated or very loosely related to any existing understanding (this is akin to placing that last domino too far from the existing line; it drops all by its lonesome; no accomodation, no chain-reaction); too many twists (which usually means too few points of assimilation being reconsidered per accomodation). But here is an example of two twists which multiply each other instead of diminishing each other.
Example 2: In Agatha Christie's "Witness for the Prosecution," there are two twists at the end, in rather quick succession, that work extremely well. Why? Well, as the mystery unfolds, there is minor twist at the begining when the suspect (Mr. Vole) sends the detective (Mayherne), to his wife so that she can vouche for him --- but Mrs. Vole, turns out to confess contempt for her husband. However, near the end, the inspector gets Mr. Vole acquitted by revealing many of the clues pointing to his guilt were fabricated by his wife (twist!). Then immediately afterwards,
Why do the two final twists work and not dilute each other? Because they both force an accomodation of all the prior clues. In other words, it is not the case that each twist merely divvied up the prior set of clues and forced accomodation on half of them. It is not 1/2 + 1/2, but rather 2X the amount of accomodation. Huge dopamine hit.
I hope this helps others clarify why their draft twists work or do not -- or how to make them even more impactful.
I did, however, eventually come across something I found useful, that I'd like to share. I'll use the mystery genre as my example, because it is the clearest case of how twists work.
In cognitive psychology (Piaget), aquistion of knowledge can be described as an interplay of two processes: assimilation and accomodation.
Assimilation is the impetus to create or extend a framework of meaning/understanding by adding new information to the existing understanding -- simple addition. Key example: as an audience member, adding a new clue to the list in your mental notebook.
Accomodation is the impetus to integrate new information or frameworks to existing understanding -- which implies a reassesment or reorganization of the existing understanding. It is like a chain-reaction of altering connections.
Importantly, assimilation creates only a small dopamine hit (satisfaction) to the brain, but successful accomodation delivers an exponentially larger dose in proportion to the amount of assimilated understanding that is reorganized.
So in a typical mystery -- a very simple one -- the accrual of clues is assimilation, and the appearance of a twist forces accomodation: all the prior points of assimilation need to be reconsidered and reorganized in light of the twist. It is akin to dominoes. Setting up the dominoes next to each other is assimilation, and setting one and tipping it to create a cascade of changes is accomodation. (The metaphor of dominoes, here, breaks down quickly because twist can be piled upon twist many times, but dominoes fall down only once.)
Example 1: In Hitchock's famous movie "Psycho," the scenes of the elderly woman killing hotel guests or Norman Bates talking to his elderly mother are points of assimilation (leading to the conclusion that the mother is killing the guests). The twist at the end forces the audience to reasses all the previously assimilated information in an entirely different (but completely cohesive) way: massive dopamine hit!
Audiences feel cheated when a twist doesn't reorganize very many points of assimilated understanding. Some examples are: offering a huge info dump as the twist at the end (that curtails the amount of pre-existing information available to reorganize, since it is all hoarded up until the finale); dropping a piece of info that is unrelated or very loosely related to any existing understanding (this is akin to placing that last domino too far from the existing line; it drops all by its lonesome; no accomodation, no chain-reaction); too many twists (which usually means too few points of assimilation being reconsidered per accomodation). But here is an example of two twists which multiply each other instead of diminishing each other.
Example 2: In Agatha Christie's "Witness for the Prosecution," there are two twists at the end, in rather quick succession, that work extremely well. Why? Well, as the mystery unfolds, there is minor twist at the begining when the suspect (Mr. Vole) sends the detective (Mayherne), to his wife so that she can vouche for him --- but Mrs. Vole, turns out to confess contempt for her husband. However, near the end, the inspector gets Mr. Vole acquitted by revealing many of the clues pointing to his guilt were fabricated by his wife (twist!). Then immediately afterwards,
Mrs. Vole confesses to Mayherne she deliberately created easily disproven false clues, knowing he would uncover them, not because she was trying to frame her husband, but because he was, in fact the murderer, and she loved him (did not hate him!) was trying to get him acquitted (bigger twist!)
I hope this helps others clarify why their draft twists work or do not -- or how to make them even more impactful.
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