Plot Twist Story Prompts: Sudden Death

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, Unintended Message, here.

For today's prompt, someone has to die. The death can be from natural causes, a terrible accident, or a sinister end plotted out by a nefarious ne'er-do-well. Regardless of intent, this plot twist story prompt does require a death.

Of course, murder mysteries are built on people getting knocked off. In fact, those plots sometimes require multiple murders. But a natural death can play a big role in the plot for other genres of story as well.

(The 10 commandments of how to write a thriller.)

For instance, a sudden death in the family could change a character's personal wealth or lead them to a new locale (either because they were gifted a spooky old house or have to visit a foreign land to hear the reading of a will). Deaths can liberate some characters and add responsibility to others. So the stakes can be high, because this truly is a matter of life and death.

As such, let someone die and see where your characters and story take you as a result. Whether it's a romantic comedy or cosmic horror, a sudden death has a way of livening things up.

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