Plot Twist Story Prompts: Narrator Villain

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, Have a Vote, here.

For today's prompt, have a villainous narrator. Maybe a person seeking revenge pushes the limits of what is acceptable, or maybe they blow past those limits without a second glance. Before the reader realizes what is happening, the narrator goes from being a goodie to being a baddie.

(2022 November Poem-A-Day Chapbook Challenge.)

Of course, the narrator is unlikely to think of themselves as a villain. So the reader is likely to bond with the narrator until a certain point. And honestly, even after a certain point the reader may already be hooked by the big bad baddie. It's human nature for people to connect with someone who bares their thoughts and feelings, but...

Once your likable (or unlikable) narrator begins performing villainous acts, readers will be forced into making a decision: Do they turn on the narrator and quit pulling for them, or do they excuse the bad behavior? And as a writer, you have to decide whether the narrator has any capacity for growth and change, or are they rotten to the core?

So have a villainous narrator, 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.