Plot twist ideas – The best stories in the world, whether you find them in books or movies, always have twists that make them stand apart. Fault in Our Stars by John Green isn’t popular because it’s just another love story that keeps us clung till the end; It’s the way things turn upside down at the end. Be it any category of a story – a short story – plot twist ideas are always eye-openers to a reader.
Speaking of a short story, it is written for various age groups. Short stories for different ages come with different mindsets.
These are some ideas to use. But how the idea further develops and settles in with the rest of the story depends on how you structure it. There’s a whole lot more than the idea. How you lead your story, keep your readers engaged till its climax, and then take that unexpected u-turn, all of it matters.
Plot Twist Ideas For Children
Young children are creative. They are more interested in fantasy. Give them something more to think about rather than trivial life stories. They would rather hear about dragons and haunted houses.
However, the story needs to be a fantasy yet within the limits of the child’s imagination – it needs to be just simple enough to grasp.
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- A boy has three wishes. He thinks he’s smart and wishes for more wishes.
- On a foggy night, a child who doesn’t believe in anything mythical comes across a witch’s house (which he can’t escape without entering)
- A musician wishes to play in a concert but has no music band, the instruments start playing by themselves along.
- A little girl has no friends to play with and she sings sadly about it. Hearing it, all the animals gather around her.
- The village is warned not to visit the woods for there lives a big ugly monster. A child accidentally lands in the monster’s house and finds the monster gentle. (Like The BFG by Roald Dahl)
- Siblings catch a pair of birds and lock them inside a birdcage. They wake up to find themselves as the birds in the cage and the birds in their bodies!
- You feel down because you have no talent like your friends. But you suddenly realize you have the power to move things with your mind.
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- Writing Short Stories: The Essential Guide
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Believe it or not, I came up with some of the ideas while writing this.
More Ideas For Short Stories With A Plot Twist
- A successful businessman finds a great deal which makes him more money. Out of greed, he proceeds to take it and ends up bankrupt.
- A little boy walks into an abandoned building out of curiosity. He walks into a room with no windows and someone locks him into the darkness – a survival instinct plot.
- A police inspector investigates a murder and realizes it’s none other than him.
- An orphan comes to an alcohol addict and asks for food. The addict manages to buy her food. Taking care of her, s/he gives up drinking.
- An introverted girl who mingles with nobody finds herself bonding with a guy. As she falls for him, he disappears. Cliche, isn’t it? The plot twist: The guy never existed, it was all her brilliant imagination.
- A strange hungry man comes by a little boy’s house who has only one piece of chocolate cake with him. Out of pity, he gives his cake. A chocolate cake tree grows in the little boy’s house garden the next day!
- A family goes to a beach on vacation and stays at a peculiar hotel. Everything is fine and they enjoy the beach. But when they sleep in the hotel, they wake up only to find themselves living the same day as before again :)
- A girl breaks her favorite pencil by mistake while writing a story. Someone mysterious hands her a magic pencil and tell her to be careful with it: When something’s written with the magic pencil, it becomes true.
Other articles for you to check out:
- How To Write a Short Story: The Complete Guide
- How To Outline a Short Story
- Best Time To Write Anything
Make your own plot twist!
Pick up a storyline, a simple one, and turn the story around in a way no one expects. The list of ideas is endless when it comes to plot twists. Again, it all comes back to how you structure the story in a neat frame: where you place that plot twist matters.
Tip on writing stories here: It’s best when your writing’s error-free. While it costs to get yourself a proofreader, online proofreaders such as Grammarly are very helpful. Check that out, it’s free, to begin with!
Unlike a novel or a novella, a short story’s purpose is to make an impression on the reader within its limited word count. While the short stories for children need more agile creative thinking, it’s easier to start with generic short stories. Start with a simple beginning. Even outlining your short story isn’t difficult. It’s doable. What matters the most is how you end it.
And that’s where the twist lies – in ending it. I’ve made another whole list of ideas on this piece:
Conclusion
The possibility of ideas with stories is endless. These are a handful of ideas. Altering the same ideas a little here and there, you can make tons of new outcomes. What matters is how you make the best use of your imagination.
The whole point of a plot twist is to take a swirl that your readers never expected. Lead them to a hook, making them believe they know how it’s going to turn out, implant an idea they’ll expect to turn out as that climax. But when they reach it, brainstorm! Settle in a sub-plot. Check out how to create a great plot twist here.
Say you have any cool plot twist ideas apart from these, comment down below! We’ll see how a story builds itself through it.
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