Plot Twist Story Prompts: This Is Real

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, Triggered Memory, here.

For today's prompt, give your characters a reality check. That is, provide your characters with the clarity that what they once thought was impossible is now not only possible, but the actual reality of their situation. Then, have them deal with that new reality.

(7 Things That Will Doom Your Novel and How to Avoid Them.)

For instance, the prospect of war in peacetime can seem like an impossibility. And as such, different characters may have different abstract (and perhaps romanticized) ideas about what war would mean. Then suddenly, there's an invasion, and new realities of the situation set in, and characters must deal with the consequences.

Another situation could present itself for a character who reads about fictional monsters and then realizes that real monsters (or aliens, witches and wizards, etc.) exist. At that moment of realization (that this is real!), your characters have to react to this knowledge and figure out how to navigate this brave new world.

One thing to keep in mind with this prompt is that it's possible that everyone gets a reality check at the same time (like everyone suddenly knows there are aliens), but it's also possible that only a few characters know what's really going on. This can create an interesting dynamic in which the characters are thrust into a new reality while the rest of the world around them is still stuck in the good old days.

So give your characters a reality check 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.

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