Plot Twist Story Prompts: Difficult Decision

Plot twist story prompts aren't meant for the beginning or the end of stories. Rather, they're for forcing big and small turns in the anticipated trajectory of a story. This is to make it more interesting for the readers and writers alike.

Each week, I'll provide a new prompt to help twist your story. Find last week's prompt, Unexpected Sibling, here.

For today's prompt, have your character make a difficult decision. That is, have your character struggle with a problem that has multiple solutions, though many of the solutions may lead to new problems. This situation, of course, is why the decision is so difficult to make.

(5 Ways to Surprise Your Reader Without It Feeling Like a Trick.)

While people (and fictional characters) make decisions every day (and in every story), the difficult decision plot twist is one that many people can see coming from a far off distance. Because of this, the difficult decision plot twist is one that can really drive up the tension in a story as the character weighs the pros and cons of each option.

Meanwhile, other characters in the story may be getting their hopes up or down and/or planning their actions and reactions simultaneously. Once the difficult decision is made, the tension breaks and the dominoes begin to fall often in expected and unexpected ways.

So have your character make a difficult decision, and see what happens next.

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Have you hit a wall on your work-in-progress? Maybe you know where you want your characters to end up, but don’t know how to get them there. Or, the story feels a little stale but you still believe in it. Adding a plot twist might be just the solution.

Click to continue.