Plot Twist Story Prompts: Natural Disaster

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, Make Mistake, here.

For today's prompt, feature a natural disaster. Your disaster could be an earthquake, hurricane, forest fire, tsunami, avalanche, sinkhole, mud slide, volcanic eruption, and/or whatever else you can think of. For instance, I didn't even mention tornadoes, blizzards, or stampeding penguins...until now.

(How to Write Disaster Stories Infused With Hope.)

The nice thing about a natural disaster plot twist is that it's natural; so it has the potential to be more believable in many cases than, say, an alien invasion or time travel. Plus, there are often built-in stakes that could lead to death or other complications.

That said, be sure to do a little research on your natural disaster to make sure you're staying in the realm of possibilities. For instance, if you have an asteroid crash into the earth, you might want to make sure that it's actually possible for people to survive after impact. (Also, be sure to know the implications of a penguin stampede.)

So feature a natural disaster, 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.