Plot Twist Story Prompts: Falsely Accused
Every good story needs a nice (or not so nice) turn or two to keep it interesting. This week, have a character get falsely accused for something.
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 Visitor, here.
Plot Twist Story Prompts: Falsely Accused
For today's prompt, have a character get falsely accused for something. This is a different spin on last month's Placing Blame prompt, in which a character places blame on someone. In this case, a character gets accused of something, whether it's not completing a task, cheating on a test, murdering another character, or a range of different possible problems.
The character who is falsely accused is bound to go through a range of emotions and possible reactions. They may immediately try to proclaim their innocence and work to clear their name. After all, nobody is enamored with the idea of being accused of something they know they didn't do.
But there's also a chance that the character does not proclaim their innocence or work to clear their name, and there may be a variety of reasons for this. For instance, the character may feel like they shouldn't have to prove they didn't do X, because of their track record of doing the correct thing. Or perhaps, the character is covering for someone else who they care about. Or maybe they just figure that it won't do any good to fight the system. A character may also take the false accusation and work to get revenge on the accuser.
So let one of your characters be falsely accused and work through how they will respond to see where it takes your story 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.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
