Plot Twists and Dramatica

Can a plot twist be so profound that it changes the storyform?

Allow me to answer your question with a completely different topic.

There’s this philosophical theory called “determinism,” which says that there is no such thing as free will. When we think we’re making choices, what’s actually happening is specific chemicals in our brains are activating in a long-predetermined way. Theoretically, if one could measure the initial conditions of the universe, you could plot every single motion of subatomic particles, and it would always lead you back to the same place. According to this theory, it isn’t accurate to say that time “moves,” per se; treat time as a dimension, just like the regular three. Looking at it this way, we can consider the universe as a four-dimensional crystal, already perfectly formed. We humans experience this universe through time passing, but that’s just our form of consciousness. Looking at it from an outside perspective, all of our choices have already been made, and we’re just wending through the lattice form of the spacetime continuum.

All this to say, that’s how stories work. From the moment an audience member sits down and begins to enjoy the story, it’s already been decided, beginning to end. A plot twist is part of that storyform. It doesn’t make sense to say that a plot twist “changes” the storyform, anymore than a person in a deterministic framework can be said to “change” their mind; that change was already preordained from the beginning.

Now, if you’re talking about the planning stage of a story, or if you’re telling an episodic story or some other form of media that develops in the telling, then sure, a plot twist could change everything. As an example, J. C. McCrae, the writer of Worm, said he literally flipped a coin to decide whether the Main Character of Worm, Taylor Hebert, would die in chapter 5 and be replaced by one of the side characters, Aegis. As it turned out, the coin fell the other way, and Aegis died instead. But in that moment, when chapter 4 was out but chapter 5 had yet to be written, it could have happened, sure.

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Objectively, no, because a storyform always describes what is (by definition), NOT what appears to be.

Subjectively – maybe. A plot twist can SEEM to put the entire story into a different context. This is accomplished through misdirection and implication of information without verification.

For example, in Planet of the Apes (the original film version), the astronaut was always on Earth – his home – but on it at a different time than when he left it. This is hinted at but only revealed as the truth in the last moments of the movie.

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Creating a “misdirection” storyform and then revealing the real storyform is one way to produce the “big twist” effect:

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Get Out might be an example of a storyform that was deliberately broken to create a massive twist:

But that’s not having a twist that breaks the storyform. That’s breaking a storyform for the sake of a twist (and an argument).

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Holy crap! I didn’t know @bobRaskoph had a blog! He even has a few posts talking about my blog…

That Obscuring the Story Form article was fantastic… on to read others … :popcorn:

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one way I think plot twists can be achieved is by switching the order of signposts. Melanie Anne Philips says you could start with signpost 4 then go to signpost 3 then go to signpost 2 then go to signpost 1.