See plot twists are like a balancing act you add one in and you have to make sure that its important to the story that it drives it forward, while all of my twists might be necessary, are they needed? To me, everything is needed, but for the reader, for the audience I'm not so sure that's true. Because I'm in the writing process the story can be changed, in fact until its on Amazon for sale the story can be changed, because anything is possible. I've heard writers complain about writers trying to hard to spell it out to readers, and in a way insulting the reader, and I've heard writers say that some stories with too many twists and turns can lose a reader.
Hopefully by the time I have the story finished I'll know. So far, everything works, but like I said before it can always be changed.
Another thing I've come across is description and detail. As an avid reader myself, when a book gets a little too over-descriptive I skip sections, I get bored easily, and find myself searching for the next chunk of action. In my book if you do that, you'll fall behind. I try not to over describe or detail, but am I missing out by not being more descriptive?
Whether it's plot twits or description, being a new writer is nerve racking. Every writer has a different opinion and no two are alike, so finding my way through the thousands of articles, and interviews, to find my own preference is crazy hard. Writing is harder than everything I've ever tried before. I'm not sure if I'll be successful at it, I'm not sure if readers will like what I have to say. But every morning I wake up burning to tell my story, and get it down on paper. I hope it works, I hope its right, and I hope that tomorrow is another good day in this writers struggle to finish her first story.
Very interesting post!
ReplyDeleteThe thing with plot twists is, that they have to be done good. If the reader gets to a twist, it has to be unexpected. Not like 'Oh so he is a bad guy? I knew it all along'. Nope you have to give your readers a 'What the fuck is going on' moment. And you have to put in little hints all along the story. Little things, that seemed not important or useless to the reader, but at the time you get to the twist, it all has to make sense!
For the number of twists. I can't really tell you a number here, but often the 'less is more' rule is right here. You know if you put in twist after twist, the reader can get discouraged. So I would recommend, work out a single big twist or only a low number. If you have only one, that is done in the right way, the reader will remember it after he read the book. With a big number of twists, he will just remember, that there were a number of them and that the story maybe didn't even make sense (because of all the twists).
Also, don't give up! Writing is hard, but its also rewarding!
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