Daniel Sellers' guest post #2: 'Twists - what makes a twist work?'

Today, Daniel Sellers returns to the blog with a second guest post about his thoughts on plot twists: 
'For me, twists are most effective — and impressive — when they’re both ingenious and credible.
There are plenty of twists that don’t meet my ‘gold standard’. I’d argue that a number of well-known crime stories have ingenious but utterly incredible twists: Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) and Murder on the Orient Express (1934), for example (though I do love aspects of both books, not least their settings). I’d call these overly ingenious twists ‘eye rollers’, and I’m afraid I’d dump a good few Dickson Carrs in with them too. (Apologies to any fans . . .)

Then there are nicely credible twists that are low on ingenuity, but which are still satisfying. Ruth Rendell was an expert at this kind of utterly compelling, quiet switcheroo, never more so than when she was writing as Barbara Vine. See A Dark-Adapted Eye (1986) and the wonderful Asta’s Book (1993). See also Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs (1943), and P D James’s short story, A Very Commonplace Murder (1969). I call these twists ‘quietly satisfying’.
 
Then we have twists that are low in both ingenuity and credibility, and seem to be there purely for the sake of another surprise. See the bizarre ‘Pip and Emma’ reveals in A Murder is Announced (1950). These I call ‘so what?’ twists.
 
So, which crime stories meet my gold standard by being both ingenious and credible? I commend three to you, though there are plenty more:
 
·         Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution (play: 1953), where the twist is gobsmacking and utterly believable as a lot suddenly makes sense;
 
·         Dennis LeHane’s Shutter Island (2003), where the twist is ‘extrinsic’, according to the classification I proposed in an earlier post. It’s a stormer of a reveal, not only for the main character but for the reader too. It’s also very poignant; and
 
·         Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938), where the key twist (two-thirds of the way in) is immediately believable and changes everything. Rebecca also happens to be one of my favourite novels in any genre.'
 
 
Daniel Sellers is author of the Lola Harris Glasgow-based mystery series,
published by Joffe Books.