Plot Twist Story Prompts: Unusual Transport

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, Achieve Worse, here.

For today's prompt, force a character to take an unusual mode of transportation. Whether it's hopping on a pogo stick or riding on a luck dragon, have your character forced into taking a different means of getting from one place to another. 

(5 Tips for Writing a Search Story.)

Walking, driving a car, riding on a bus, these are all pretty ordinary. Instead, have a character commandeer a go-kart after their car breaks down. I know I'm dating myself, but in the movie Goonies one of the characters has his bike tires deflated. This forces him to take a tiny bike with training wheels to try and chase down his little brother.

Unusual transport is a plot twist that can lead to a bit of humor. But it doesn't have to be. Instead, it may show a character's ingenuity or desperation. After all, unusual transportation could be a new technology, magic, or something else entirely. Either way, an unusual mode of transportation has the potential to be a memorable part of your story.

So have a character take an unusual mode of transportation, 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.