Beats Part III: Structuring Beats for Non-POV Characters
August 13, 2022Question of the Day: Starting Over
August 17, 2022As an editor, I get a lot of questions from clients, other writers, and all of you. Some of those questions come up so often, I’ve decided to do a blog post on the most common ones. Welcome to the first of those posts: Bait and Switch. In these posts, I’ll set out a generalized version of the question, along with my answer and the writing theory behind that answer.
Today’s question goes like this:
Throughout my whole story, my main character (MC) is headed toward one goal. Then, when they reach that goal, they “switch” to something else which has really been their goal all along. In hindsight, or upon a re-read, I want my MC’s actual goal to be clear. How do I set this up properly? What tools/plot devices can I use to make this sort of “bait and switch” plot twist work?
For a little extra set-up, let’s look at a bait and switch plot twist at work. That way, I’ll have an example to which I can refer during my answer.
Today’s example comes from @Russianlad, and it goes like this:
The book is written with an unreliable narrator from the MC’s first person perspective. Throughout the plot, they have been searching for the love interest from the beginning of the book. When they find her (or him/her/them, but we’ll use she/her pronouns for this example to avoid confusion), there will be a romantic dinner, after which the MC kills her.
Fantastic bait and switch, right? The reader is primed to think that the MC’s real goal is to get back together with the love interest from the beginning of the book, where they’ve actually been searching for her specifically so that they can take some sort of revenge. This plot example has fantastic potential for shock and horror.
Today’s answer goes like this:
This could be a very tricky moment to get right. You’ve got to balance the shock and horror with the potential to betray your reader’s expectations (which is always a bad thing).
Because the emotional impact from him killing her is pretty self-explanatory, let’s start with reader expectations. Through the first part, you’ve set up a very specific narrative. You’ve geared the reader to root for the MC, and hope that they will get together with their love interest. Think about it. If you were a reader, and your two favorite characters just met up, and you’re really excited for them to get back together, because that’s where the book has been headed this whole time, how will you feel when one brutally murders the other? Personally, I would feel betrayed, horrified, and maybe even put the book down.
As a writer, you never ever want your reader to feel betrayed. Horrified? Yes. Saddened? Absolutely. Betrayed? Never. Your job is always to make the reader feel smart—like they know the world just as well as you do. At the end of the day, no matter whether you write romance, action, slasher horror, fantasy, or anything else, you want them to enjoy reading your book. Betraying their expectations is the only way I know of for certain to leave them feeling dissatisfied when they finish the book.
Alright, I’ve gotten a little side-tracked, here. The question wasn’t about whether or not bait and switch was a viable plot twist device, but how to do it correctly.
Good news, there are definitely ways to do this without betraying reader expectations.
The easiest way is to set up this moment as the tipping point where it could go one of two ways. Let’s say that the reader knows your MC is unstable. They might be the unreliable narrator, but the reader has seen enough of this character’s crazy that they know this person has an issue. In fact, the reader has caught huge glimpses of the MC’s decision. Sometimes they want to kill her, other times they don’t.
This sets that moment up to be even more full of tension than before. Now, the reader knows there’s an issue. They know the MC might kill their love interest. They’ve seen the MC collect the weapon, they’ve seen the MC set it up, they’ve seen the MC wrestle with their inner demons and, last time they saw the MC, they came out on top of their murderous instinct.
Now, more than ever, the reader doesn’t know what the MC will do.
They know the MC could turn around and, right now, it looks like the MC’s finally decided to let her live. But every moment of this scene is tainted by that what if feeling. They read on, so excited that the MC has finally found the love interest at the same time they’ve decided they can be happy together. At first, they know it could go either way but as the MC continues to have this romantic evening, their fear fades. They’re proud of the MC who has conquered their inner demons and is now going to finally find happiness.
Then, in an instant, it all changes. Something happens and the MC snaps. The decision the reader thought was already made goes the other direction. The expectation was already laid out – they knew this was a possibility from the start – and now the bill is coming due.
Bam. Shock. Horror. Plot twist.
Structuring the book this way gives the reader all the information from the start and keeps from betraying reader expectations. It also preserves that shock and horror you were aiming for.
So, let’s recap. In the end, you never want to do anything which betrays reader expectations. So, instead of tricking your readers, help them feel smart and invested in the situation. Give them the information, and let them do the hard work of convincing themselves everything will turn out alright. Then, when you turn around and hit them with the “switch”, your reader will still feel the intended impact of the scene – without those feelings of confused betrayal.
Well, that’s it for today’s question. Did I miss anything in the answer? How do you all solve this problem when it surfaces? Let me know in the comments below!
