Plot Twist Story Prompts: Interrupt Moment

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, Something Found, here.

For today's prompt, have a moment of interruption. The interrupted moment could be a class, a funeral, a wedding, a board meeting, or something a little more intimate and personal. The point is that something that is in action is suddenly interrupted.

(Writing Mistakes Writers Make: Chasing Trends.)

Of course, the interrupted moment may mean something different depending on perspective. If we use the funeral as an example, it's a completely different thing if a grieving wife witnesses two loud teenagers barging into a solemn ceremony than if the story is from the perspective of a person running from dangerous assassins entering the same solemn room.

This type of plot twist could have a small impact on the story, but it could also play a much larger role. The entire Suits series ran nine seasons and was essentially launched by an interrupt moment in which Mike Ross is running from the law and interrupts a job interview, lands the job, and everything takes off from there.

So have a moment of interruption, 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.