Twist Endings: A definitive guide to endings you didn't see coming

Twist Endings: A definitive guide to endings you didn't see coming

I was six years old when I read Sorcerer’s Stone with my aunt. Rowling spends the first three hundred pages of the book establishing Snape as the Obvious Bad Guy.

Actually, she’ll go on to do that for six more books, but I had no way of knowing that at the time.

I remember experiencing a small rush when Harry stepped into the final chamber and found, not the old Potions master but a weird guy in a turban waiting for him.

It had never occurred to me as a possibility.

Of course, I was a child. I hadn’t been introduced to the concept of twist endings yet.
Sure, the Berrenstien Bears might occasionally find their assumptions about a grumpy-looking neighbor challenged but that was nothing—nothing compared to the exhilaration of coming to the end of Harry Potter and finding that what I thought I knew about the story was incorrect.

As an adult, I’ve been fed many hundreds of twist endings. I’m rarely exhilarated anymore. However, every once in a while a book does manage to surprise me, and yes—that familiar old rush returns.

How do twist endings work? Why do authors use them so frequently? The answer to both of those questions and more waits in the following paragraphs. Read on my friends!

Why Writers Use Twist Endings

Twist endings don’t have an intrinsic literary value. They are simply a tool—a way for writers to both ensure sustained interest and keep their audience thinking about the book long after it is over.

That’s the idea, anyway, but we’ve all seen it play out the other way. A bad twist is almost always much worse than not having one at all.

What’s more, once you’ve read a few books by the same writer, you can often guess how they will end their books. For example, there is a popular thriller I won’t identify (it’s Riley Sager) who casts the main character’s love interest as the final act surprise villain in almost every single one of his books.

The ingredients for a twist ending follow this basic formula:

  • Expectations are established.
  • Easily overlooked clues that all is not as it seems are spread throughout the story.
  • Tension winds up.
  • Expectations are subverted.
  • The main character overcomes their shattering revelation and attains closure.

These are the basic ingredients for a twist ending—particularly in the crime or thriller niche.

For example:

Dick and Jane are In Love. When we meet them, Jane feels sick. Every day, Dick shows up to the house with flowers and tea, but nothing works. Jane continues to feel worse!

Jane begins to think something is going on. She is a powerful woman, up for a major promotion at Fictional Business Firm. Work Acquaintance David is up for that same promotion. Has he been slipping something into her power lunch quinoa-infused salad?

Dick dismisses Jane’s concerns as absurd. Jane, of course, is determined to prove him wrong.

One day, she goes to work early—missing her morning tea and flowers—to snoop in David’s office. She finds Misleading Clue that reveals David to be an underhanded scoundrel, conspiring to sabotage her chances at a promotion.

That day she skips lunch. Sure enough, her Weird Symptoms go away.

That night she explains in great excitement what she discovered to Dick.

Bad idea. Dick is the Secret Bad Guy. He’s been poisoning her tea for Personal Motives. Now that Jane suspects she’s being poisoned he’s forced to Escalate the Plot to Its Violent Conclusion.

Don’t worry Jane will Narrowly Escape Death and be Forever Changed by Her Journey.

We’ve all read a version of that story before. But you see how the recipe plays out. The expectation is that Jane and Dick are the happy couple Jane thinks them to be. Because this story would most likely be filtered through her experiences, we’d be given only warm details about Dick—except of course for very minor comments that hint at his temper, or a big inexplicable lie she caught him once or….

Something that lays the groundwork for who he really is. Details we are spoon-fed while the David Saga owns most of our attention.

The tea and flowers perform double duty. They make Dick look like a great guy, and they also foreshadow the final revelation. It sounds almost childish when summarized in two hundred words. And often, twist endings are.

However, a skilled writer will step on those bolded phrases to take you on a journey that makes forget you are reading a thriller novel that requires a surprise ending.

It’s through that elaboration that you get lost in the details.

And of course, there are tons of ways to modify that recipe to deliver an impactful ending. Below, I expand on some of the most effective and popular techniques for delivering a twist ending.

Betrayal

Pretty simple. One character trusts another. As a result, the reader does too. The crude scenario I put together above is an example of a Betrayal Twist.

There are many others. Snape pulls double betrayal duty in the Harry Potter books, first in Half-Blood Prince when he apparently betrays Dumbledore, and then again in Deathly Hollows when we learn he actually betrayed Voldemort.

I could go on but we’d be here all day. The “Red Wedding,” scenario in Game of Thrones is a betrayal twist. Edmund selling out his family for candy in the Narnia books is a betrayal twist. And in Catholic grade school I was introduced to a man by the name of Judas.

Betrayal twists work well because the reader experiences the same hurt and surprise as the character.

Misdirection

In my Dick and Jane example, misdirection comes in the form of David. Ideally, the reader will focus most of their attention on him, and not notice Dick slipping poison into the tea.

In Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry’s dislike of Snape misdirects readers. We get so caught up disliking a bully that we fail to notice the—admittedly subtle—evidence quietly stacking up against Professor Quirrel.

Harry’s scar hurts at one point in Quirrel’s presence—though we are led to believe at the time that Snape inspired the pain. Quirrel is there at the Quidditch match. He’s the one who intrudes the troll. Harry literally dreams about his turbin.

All very circumstantial, of course, but ultimately more meaningful than the evidence against Snape which is—nothing. We get caught up in a feeling rather than fact.

Also, we trust the main character’s assumptions. Harry thinks Snape is evil so we ultimately agree.

Reversal of Identity

Someone isn’t who they claim to be. Agatha Christie’s famous play The Mouse Trap, turns on exactly this twist. So does The Murder on the Orient Express. In fact, if you ever find yourself in an Agatha Christie novel, assume that no one is as they appear.

There are many other examples. The Enigma in Room 622, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

It’s also the twist that makes the ending of Usual Suspects so famous. Reversal of identity is hard to pull off because it ultimately comes out of left field. Still, when done well, it provides a memorable conclusion.

Reversal of Motive

In which you think a character is motivated by X when really they want Y. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but Snape’s murder of Dumbledore could also fall into this category. We assume his motive is to aid Voldemort’s cause.

In the next book, we learn that he was motivated to complete Dumbledore’s long-term plan.

Reversal of motive twists are a common ingredient of subverting expectations. My hypothetical twist at the beginning of this article involved reversal of motive.

We thought Dick wanted to help Jane feel better with his gift of tea. Really, his motivation behind that action was to kill her.

Reversal of Perception

A character comes to view old information in a new way. The Court of Thorns and Roses series employs this twist. In the first book, Feyre views Tamlin as nurturing and protective. In the second book, she acquires a much darker interpretation of his paternalistic behavior.

He is controlling—abusive even.

Reversal of perception twists rely on the fact that readers tend to assume the perspective of the main character—even when they have little reason to.

Witheld Information

A third act reveal that provides new context for old information. The call was coming from inside the house. Many famous stories rely on this twist to give provide audiences with a last-minute surprise. Gone Girl. The Sixth Sense.

The problem, of course, is that when this twist isn’t executed perfectly it cheapens the entire story—a lesson M. Night Shyamalan refuses to learn.

Unreliable Narrator

I wrote an entire article on the concept of the Unreliable Narrator that you can read here. Basically, the story’s narrator gives us bad information. The Murder of Roger Akroyd is one of the most famous examples, but it is a twist that has gained great popularity over the last ten years or so.

Unreliable narrators aren’t always evil. Nita Prose’s Maid series is narrated by a protagonist who is unreliable because she constantly misinterprets social cues.

The narrator on Girl on the Train is unreliable because she is always drunk.

Irony

"The Gift of the Magi" is a famous example of the ironic twist. A poor couple wishes to buy each other Christmas presents. The man sells his watch to buy a comb for his wife. The woman sells her hair to by a chain for her husbands watch.

At the end of the story they give each other gifts that can’t be used.

Ironic twists needn’t always be propulsive or shocking. In fact they often leverage realism to deliver an ending that is both surprising and satisfying.

Conclusion

Why does any of this matter? Well, dear reader, in the strictest sense of the word, I suppose it doesn’t. But there are worse ways to kill time in the bathroom.

Understanding the architecture of a good twist helps writers improve their story structure. It helps readers recognize the story telling conventions that delight them.

Twist endings are not exactly high-art, but they do have a way of producing memorable reading or viewing experiences.

And that’s all I have to say on that.

Did you like what you read? Maybe you hated it so much you want to let me know. Either way, let me know in the comments. Like, subscribe, tell your friends, name me in your will. Whatever feels appropriate.

Back to blog