The Power of Surprise
By Greer Macallister | August 1, 2022 |
Some writers like to plan, and others like to figure things out as they go along, and both have their place. But both planners and pantsers can benefit from surprise along the way.
Are all surprises good? Absolutely not. If a reader picks up a murder mystery and finds it’s actually a rom-com, that’s not the good kind of surprise. Ditto for romances where the hero dies at the end or a “sci-fi” novel that takes place in a present identical to ours in every way. But barring extreme left-field surprises, there are three ways that writers can wield the power of surprise to our advantage.
Surprise your characters. This is one of the great advantages you have over your characters: you know what’s coming, and they don’t. You can really knock them for a loop. How a character reacts to something unexpected—surprise party to sudden death and anything in between—can be a great moment of character development. Surprises also have a way of goosing the plot. Again, truly left-field events can go too far—it takes a very special book to host a rabid squirrel falling out of a tree onto a birthday cake—but if you find a scene growing stale, maybe it’s time for an unexpected guest or the revelation of a secret that wasn’t intended to come to light.
Surprise your reader. While surprises for your characters and surprises for your reader can be the same thing, they don’t have to be. There are plenty of things characters know that readers don’t, and revealing them at the right time can be just the kind of surprise that rockets a plot into motion. I love the kind of book where a character is struggling with a secret that you think they’re going to suffer through angstily for 300 pages and it turns out that their best friend blurts it out in chapter 2 and then everyone has to deal with the blowback. Withholding info from the reader is part of how plot works, but it can also make for a frustrating read. Consider putting it all out there and letting the sparks fly.
Surprise yourself. Last but definitely not least, even if you’re a planner who enjoys 50-page outlines and extensive character worksheets, you might benefit from leaving some room for surprise in the writing process. Surprises can be small moments of beauty as well as big earth-shattering events. Set challenges for yourself, just to see what happens. Can you write a romantic scene where the characters don’t even touch? Can you take a scene you’ve already written that you’re not happy with and shake it up by adding a character, constraining the characters you do have, or relocating the action? Even if you don’t end up with something publishing-ready, you may create something that helps you either on this project or the next.
Q: How will you try surprising your reader, your characters, or yourself?
Raised in the Midwest, Greer Macallister earned her MFA in creative writing from American University. Her historical novels have been named Book of the Month, Indie Next, LibraryReads, Target Book Club, and Amazon Best Book of the Month picks and optioned for film and television. Her latest novel, The Thirteenth Husband, is inspired by Aimee Crocker, the Paris Hilton of the Gilded Age. Macallister also writes the ongoing Five Queendoms epic fantasy series as G.R. Macallister. A regular contributor to Writer Unboxed and the Chicago Review of Books, she lives with her family in Boston, MA. www.greermacallister.com
Hi Greer, I believe the very process of creation is part of the surprise. It can come onto the page, the rereading of the day’s work or the decision maybe days later, that “No” that’s now what the MC would do in this situation etc etc. Just living one’s own life helps the flow of creativity, especially in the middle of a work when everything seems to light up your thoughts concerning those complicated characters you are now living with. Thanks for your post.
What a great post! Thank you for this tip.
Surprise may consist in doing what you promised – but making it seem right up until then that you aren’t going to.
I enjoy making readers remember what they forgot, even though it was presented in plain English. My beta reader is up to my tricks – and even she misses them sometimes. Regular readers should have a couple of these happen to them per book. Or I don’t feel I’m doing my job.
I use surprise for comedic effect. I surprised my totally ‘human’ character, Ashina, by revealing that one of the two wolves that showed up at her door was her father, who’d been missing for 25 years. The other wolf was her half-sister.
Actually, I think my characters are starting to surprise me!
Is there actually a book (or story) in which a rabid squirrel falls out of a tree onto a birthday cake? One of yours? I LOVE that idea, and if it’s not taken, I’d like to work it into my WIP (“a very special book” to me, at least) somehow, or maybe there’s a nugget of a fascinating short story in that idea. Thanks for this advice, by the way; I think I will find it helpful even if the rabid squirrel on the birthday cake belongs to someone else.
At the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, the managing editor said he looked for stories that “surprise and delight.” So simple, but after he said it, I realized how much ground that covers, and how apt of a guideline it is.