The Nature of a Good Plot Twist

I finished playing Heavy Rain last night, and it got me thinking about plot twists and their function in storytelling. Heavy Rain is a game that places itself firmly in the “thriller movie” genre, for better or worse. It’s great at building tension and getting you to care about the characters you meet and control, but it falls into the trap that undermines so many thrillers, namely that its endgame centers around a “shocking” reveal that doesn’t actually make any logical sense.

(Just a quick warning: this rest of this post will contain spoilers about movies that are old enough I will assume everyone has seen them. There will be no Heavy Rain spoilers, however.)

The problem with plot twists, see, is that by nature they should make you jump out of your seat or gasp in horror. You’d never expect that [CHARACTER NAME] was the killer in Heavy Rain, after all, and you are of course horrified that you empathized with the character while playing. That’s the root of the problem, though; in order to make the twist ending truly surprising, the game’s writers decided to fill the story with red herrings and give no real concrete clues about the real killer’s identity. They didn’t want you to figure it out ahead of time, after all.

I think this is why very few storytellers can pull off a truly stunning twist that holds up under scrutiny. If a writer works to make her story internally consistent, she may layer in too many readable clues and people will write off the twist as “predictable” and feel cheated. The easiest shortcut to making a completely unpredictable twist, then, is to make that twist completely illogical or at odds with everything leading up to it. This will at least ensure a visceral shock in the moment, but ultimately… the audience just feel cheated in the light of day. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

There are the occasional successful twists, of course: The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, and The Usual Suspects come to mind. From what I can remember of the first two, clues to predict the twist were layered in throughout both movies. If you go back and re-watch them a second time, knowing the twist reveals the story rather than undermining it. Of course, there may be those of you out there who figured out the twists halfway through because of the clues.

The Usual Suspects treads in kind of dangerous territory, however, in that its twist ending makes you question why everything you just watched even matters. If the entire movie is a lie told by Kevin Spacey’s character, why should I even care what happened? I think what helps Usual Suspects is that it is such a well-made movie we forgive it for playing with such a hackneyed trope. It’s rare that “it was all just a dream!” is used as anything but a cheap gag.

I think the best twists are often so subtle you may not even realize they are there. I would argue that Minority Report has a twist ending, for example, although everyone who saw it with me disagreed with my perspective. My argument was that when Tom Cruise’s character is arrested and put into cold storage, everything that happens after that is a dream, thus explaining why he is rescued and everything works out positively for the characters. The end of the movie doesn’t pull back the curtain and reveal this, however, so it is entirely up for interpretation. The only clues you are given are a few lines from the jailer character about whether his charges dream while they are in storage.

In any case, I’d love to play another game in the style of Heavy Rain, if only the makers could be convinced to forego the showy twists of thriller movies and focus on things like character development and an internally consistent story. Surely there is a way to work in shocking reveals without causing massive inconsistencies and plot holes.

Books Bought Today

The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar, Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, All Tomorrow’s Parties by William Gibson, Look To Windward and Inversions by Iain M. Banks.

In my defense, the trade paperbacks were $2.98 a piece, and Look To Windward is out of print.

She Can Say

I like to make the occasional mix CD, for a few reasons:

1. CDs do actually sound better in my car. My FM transmitter is convenient, but the sound quality isn’t as good as a CD. When I really want to jam a particular song, I need to burn a copy on CD to max out the quality.
2. A good mix CD stays fresh for a long time. I have a few fairly polished mixes that I keep in constant rotation. I’m not a big fan of completely random music because 9 times out of 10 the next random song is not one I want to hear.

I also have a few rules for making a mix CD that treat me well:

1. Make every mix as though it will be played at a party. Ask yourself: “would this song clear out the room?” or “would my CD get turned off when this song comes on?” Even if your mix will never get played at a party, I’ve found that the mixes I love the most are ones that live and die by this rule.
2. Don’t overstay your welcome. Just because a CD can hold more than an hour of music doesn’t mean your mix should be that long. I think the sweet spot is 12-13 songs and/or 45-50 minutes of music.

I was inspired to make a new mix tonight after hearing the absolutely fantastic theme song from HBO’s new show, How To Make It In America. It’s a song called “I Need A Dollar” by Aloe Blacc, and – wonder of wonders – Stones Throw has a free download of the song on their website. Run, don’t walk (digitally, of course) and get to downloading.

As for the mix, it’s called “She Can Say“:

I may continue tweaking it, but for now I think that it is at least presentable. If nothing else, it has some of my most favorite songs of the moment on it. Also, Lala may not let you listen to the whole thing, so let me know if you want to hear the rest of it.

Books Bought Today

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis, The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies, Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

Went on a jaunt around town this afternoon and stopped in at Recycled Reads, the library’s used-books store that runs primarily on old library books, donations, and volunteers. They actually have a pretty great selection of books, made all the better because everything is absurdly cheap – hardbacks are $2, and paperbacks are $1. I dropped a total of $4 to pick up the books shown above. I was also pleased to discover they changed their hours to make them far more convenient – 12-6 Thursday through Sunday, instead of the previous hours, which were seemingly random.

Wakaresaseya

Wakaresaseya (literally “breaker-uppers”) is the nomenclature or slang for Japanese businesses that specialize in drawing an individual into an affair. Though most often used to gather evidence of infidelity for use in a divorce case, it may also be used for purposes ranging from bringing shame to someone or securing a resignation of an employee. Employees of these companies pose as strangers who happen to meet the target, and then become involved in an affair. In 2005, there were around twelve such companies in Japan, but has grown since with companies offering services through the internet.

(via WikiPedia)