Plot Twist Story Prompts: Forget the Plan

Plot twist story prompts aren't meant for the beginning or the end of stories. Rather, they're for forcing big and small turns in the anticipated trajectory of a story. This is to make it more interesting for the readers and writers alike.

Each week, I'll provide a new prompt to help twist your story. Find last week's prompt, This Is Real, here.

For today's prompt, have your characters hatch a plan and then completely abandon it. It's one thing to create an incredible plan that will definitely work and not fall apart, but we're not concerned with those kind of hurdle-less designs. No, we want characters to scheme and then abandon ship.

(7 Things That Will Doom Your Novel and How to Avoid Them.)

Characters may abandon a plan for any number of reasons, but it's very possible that they just fall apart when faced with adversity. Or perhaps things are going good until they're caught by security or a teacher (or well, insert person who catches people here).

Whatever the reason, this plot twist can be fun and help develop characters in an organic way. After all, you'll quickly learn who has fortitude and who does not. Plus, it's a good way to reveal who sticks up for their allies and who throws their "friends" under the bus.

So have your characters devise a plan, abandon said plan, and see what happens next.

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Have you hit a wall on your work-in-progress? Maybe you know where you want your characters to end up, but don’t know how to get them there. Or, the story feels a little stale but you still believe in it. Adding a plot twist might be just the solution.

Click to continue.