§ RESOURCES / TOPICS / Plot Twists
Plot Twists
A radical change in the direction or expected outcome of a plot — recontextualising preceding events or introducing a new conflict. May be foreshadowed, but always carries an element of surprise. Executed through withheld information, misdirection, or ambiguity.
References
- Plot twist. Wikipedia.
"No one’s meant to notice this scaffolding. But it needs to be there -- because otherwise people would be like, where did that come from?"
— Stu Willis | DZ-90: Setups & Payoffs in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
DZ-90: Setups & Payoffs in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
How can you use setups and payoffs to stitch your film together?
AI✦Reversals function as a third tier in the setup-payoff system, recontextualizing earlier planted information in ways that shift the audience’s understanding of the story.✦
Listen to understand how setups, payoffs, and reversals create narrative cohesion even when your story is fkn bonkers.
▶ More Info
In this one-shot, Chas and Stu jump into the utter chaos of EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. Y’know, nultiverses, butt-plug action sequences, hot-dog fingers, a raccoon chef, a nihilist bagel. All the good stuff. And yet it lands emotionally in a way that feels inevitable… →
DZ-87: Keeping Genre Fresh
How do you deliver on the emotional contract of a genre while surprising the audience?
AI✦These films are analyzed as case studies in how to construct twists that feel earned rather than cheap -- recontextualizing what the audience thought it was watching.✦
Listen when you're writing within a genre but terrified you'll deliver something your audience has already seen.
▶ More Info
In tackling this enormous topic, Stu and Chads enlist professional TV writer and director Kodie Bedford, someone who has somehow managed to defy genre pigeon-holing by writing mystery, comedy and vampire shows… →
DZ-127: Secrets and Clues 2 - The Cost of Revelation
What does it cost a character to find something out, or to say it?
AI✦Side Effects is dissected as a two-genre film where the twist in the second half recontextualizes everything about Emily’s agency and medical victimhood, while the hosts debate whether the audience or just the characters should see it coming.✦
Listen to learn the emotional impact of revealing secrets vs discovering them.
▶ More Info
In this episode Stu, Chas and Mel apply the Landmark–Hidden–Secret framework (from DZ-126) across two very different genres: the thriller SIDE EFFECTS (2013) and the tragicomic pilot of SHRINKING… →
Shows:
Shrinking 1x1
DZ-68: Using POV to structure KNIVES OUT
How can shifting narrative point of view drive your sequences?
AI✦Knives Out’s structural surprises are examined as products of carefully managed narrative POV--what the audience is allowed to see and when becomes the mechanism that earns the film’s reversals.✦
Listen to help you master the gap between what your audience knows and what your characters know.
▶ More Info
Born out of isolation madness, this episode is an edited version of Draft Zero’s first YouTube livestream. Stu and Chas both watched KNIVES OUT and - together with our listeners - broke down each sequence and turning point by reference to what the audience knows in relation to the characters (aka narrative point of view). They then answer listener questions on KNIVES OUT and much else besides live on air… →
Films:
Knives Out (2019)
DZ-42: One-Shot - Character Worldview & Macro POV in SPLT
What screenwriting lessons can be we learn from SPLIT?
AI✦The episode covers how Split’s twists function within its structure, examining the craft decisions that earn audience surprise while reinforcing the film’s thematic through-line.✦
Listen when you're writing a twist and need to earn it through point-of-view rather than surprise alone.
▶ More Info
In our first (and perhaps last) one-shot, we take a close look at the M. Night Shyamalan’s SPLIT. Rather than having one topic with many examples, we use the one example to look at many topics. Well, okay, a few topics… →
Films:
Split (2017)