What are some examples of the best and worst twist endings you’ve read in books? I’m trying to understand what makes it work and what ruins it, or if it’s just a matter of preference and some people don’t like twist endings no matter what
by ThrowRAchristmastime
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The worst twist endings for me are the ones where it was all in the main characters head. Which is just a big fuck you to the reader. Some twists work better than others if there’s set up for it and it makes sense. A good twist has enough clues spread throughout the book but also has to make sense. Some twists become predictable once you read enough.
what works for me: Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier
what it is: >!the vicar is evil!<
what made it work for me: I think most modern twists are kind of silly and the modern obsession with them is something I don’t relate to. du Maurier did not bend her story in the slightest to pile up some artificial suspense because “that’s what ThE mArKeT wants”. she let her MC realise the truth at an organic point in the story where it makes sense, and she did it by having her notice exactly the kinds of small signals that would give a real live person that creeping sense of unease. it’s obvious (to me) that she was not curating her own narrative with any intention of trying to keep the reader from catching on at all costs.
the result for me is that the suspense doesn’t end artificially in some big climactic boom. instead, Mary realises what’s up and nothing changes except that for a while longer she *knows* what is rotten but does not yet see her way out.
that’s how I remember it, anyway.
*Code Name Verity* by Elizabeth Wein. The whole first half of the book is Julie writing down her confession of being a British Operative who crash landed in an aeroplane from Britain with eleven radios. She was tortured and agreed to confess to the Gestapo officer, giving them the radio codes, and telling the story of her war years and her friend Maddie. The second half of the book is Maddie, the pilot of the plane that crashed, telling what happened after the crash and then reading Julie’s confession. >!Her false confession. Her confession that she used to get out enough information to complete her actual mission. Great twist. And oh, my God the climax scene. “Kiss me Hardy!” I always cry.!<
{{Trust Exercise by Susan Choi}} has 3 sections and each section is a twist of the preceding section. What made it hard to read is that it took forever to get to the twist and I almost DNF-ed. The thing about a twist is you have wrote good enough before getting to the twist or people will not finish it.
London Fields by martin amis is very good. how to explain.
>!amis tells you certain things up front, right out of the gate: we know the victim knows the future. so we know that she knows the exact day and way of her death: she will be murdered. and we know that she hunts for the man who is going to kill her and once she finds him, she *engineers* it into happening.!< that’s most of the book.
the only thing we don’t know is who it is. >!it’s her confidant/chronicler, the narrator who has been ‘with” her every step of the way!< there’s evidence in the first pages that *she* was surprised when it came down to it.