The thread is supposed to be a discussion of twists in literature (film/tv series can also be mentioned), with some theoretical elements, but mostly geared towards presenting examples you find of note.
I think that the literary twist can be divided to a few distinct categories, most of which have to do with form.
Scope-wise, any author/creator will give the audience ample time to identify the setting, before coming up with a twist - otherwise it's not the same effect, but something more akin to a cynical or otherwise moody introduction (an example of such a non-twist, because it happens already in the prologue of a story, would be Level's very nice short story about a bank employee who is presented as very good and thorough in his job and a model employee, but soon we learn he stole money and then did surrender to the authorities and admit he stole the money but also lied that he lost it by being himself robbed later on. In reality he entrusted it somewhere, with the plan to get it after he would be released from serving a few years in jail). So one parameter would be time given before a twist, if it's intended to be such.
Another parameter is whether the twist is discussed to any degree in the story, prior to happening - that is to say, if the reader is given reason to suspect something may be different than presented. A good example of that would be Tanizaki's tale about a student at whose dorm some objects have gone missing, and there is a mystery as to who stole them. The student (the text is in the first person narrative) goes into length examining who could be the thief (but later he tells us that he is the one). So this is a case of a twist which potentially could be foreseen since its subject is at the very forefront of the tale.
For an example of a work where the twist is simply not discussed at all, and nothing prepares for it, I always think of Lovecraft's The Outsider. Because there we as readers simply never have any reason to suspect
. Of course this type of twist is form-wise the safest. You can't look for something, when you are unaware that it even exists.
There are various hybrids. Agatha Christie's plots are typical of a subcategory of hybrid twist which is both discussed and we are given specific reason to look away from the direction the answer is - she usually achieves that by providing a seemingly more than adequate reason for the reader to identify the guilty character as innocent (eg by placing the murder in a location which brings other suspicions, or using doubles). Another hybrid is common in works by ETA Hofmann (such as The Sandman), where instead of having other characters being antagonistic as to the guilt, they just overshadow the chosen to be revealed as wondrous, by being presented themselves as mysterious and even possibly supernatural (eg while we focus on the titular character of The Sandman, who may be anything up to a flying monster,
Ok, after this very brief mention of a few of the types, feel free to suggest your own favorite twists in literary stories.
Ps: you can mention Shyamalan, if you absolutely have to
Personally I only find the twist in I See Dead People (twist, the title is different :/ ) as being of note. Of course he didn't help himself by (after his second movie) making people expect every single project of his to have a twist.
That said, the twist in ISDP is part of the group where the reveal changes a significant part of the meaning of the story. This often happens in Philip Dick's works, although there it is based on tech that makes the distinction between reality and hallucination difficult to pin down (as in Ubiq, but most of his other novels too).
I think that the literary twist can be divided to a few distinct categories, most of which have to do with form.
Scope-wise, any author/creator will give the audience ample time to identify the setting, before coming up with a twist - otherwise it's not the same effect, but something more akin to a cynical or otherwise moody introduction (an example of such a non-twist, because it happens already in the prologue of a story, would be Level's very nice short story about a bank employee who is presented as very good and thorough in his job and a model employee, but soon we learn he stole money and then did surrender to the authorities and admit he stole the money but also lied that he lost it by being himself robbed later on. In reality he entrusted it somewhere, with the plan to get it after he would be released from serving a few years in jail). So one parameter would be time given before a twist, if it's intended to be such.
Another parameter is whether the twist is discussed to any degree in the story, prior to happening - that is to say, if the reader is given reason to suspect something may be different than presented. A good example of that would be Tanizaki's tale about a student at whose dorm some objects have gone missing, and there is a mystery as to who stole them. The student (the text is in the first person narrative) goes into length examining who could be the thief (but later he tells us that he is the one). So this is a case of a twist which potentially could be foreseen since its subject is at the very forefront of the tale.
For an example of a work where the twist is simply not discussed at all, and nothing prepares for it, I always think of Lovecraft's The Outsider. Because there we as readers simply never have any reason to suspect
Spoiler :
There are various hybrids. Agatha Christie's plots are typical of a subcategory of hybrid twist which is both discussed and we are given specific reason to look away from the direction the answer is - she usually achieves that by providing a seemingly more than adequate reason for the reader to identify the guilty character as innocent (eg by placing the murder in a location which brings other suspicions, or using doubles). Another hybrid is common in works by ETA Hofmann (such as The Sandman), where instead of having other characters being antagonistic as to the guilt, they just overshadow the chosen to be revealed as wondrous, by being presented themselves as mysterious and even possibly supernatural (eg while we focus on the titular character of The Sandman, who may be anything up to a flying monster,
Spoiler :
Ok, after this very brief mention of a few of the types, feel free to suggest your own favorite twists in literary stories.
Ps: you can mention Shyamalan, if you absolutely have to
Personally I only find the twist in I See Dead People (twist, the title is different :/ ) as being of note. Of course he didn't help himself by (after his second movie) making people expect every single project of his to have a twist.That said, the twist in ISDP is part of the group where the reveal changes a significant part of the meaning of the story. This often happens in Philip Dick's works, although there it is based on tech that makes the distinction between reality and hallucination difficult to pin down (as in Ubiq, but most of his other novels too).
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