How to Add Surprise to Your Stories That’ll Make Your Readers Love You
We all love a good twist, but sometimes the foundation of a story is where the real magic lurks.
What gave you the idea that started your story? Did it have a surprise in it that would cause your reader to burst into laughter if you told them about it?
There is a surprising amount of power behind giving your audience a good surprise. (See what I did there?)
As readers, we love to be surprised. Sometimes surprise shocks us. Sometimes it makes us laugh. Whatever it is we enjoy the emotion we are experiencing.
As writers we need to hone this craft of finding good surprises to give to our audience and the best way to do it is to keep an eye out for them. As you read, consume, and walk around in your daily life there is excellent inspiration in plain sight for you to add to your media that can surprise your audience in fun ways.
Here are some examples and explanations that will hopefully help you come up with great story ideas that have the foundational note of surprise.
Example 1:
“You are one of the world’s greatest bakers. Customers ask daily what your secret is. You always tote back, “the secret ingredient is Love of course!” With a giant grin. But deep down you hate baking and you hate all the customers too. Your real secret ingredient is hate.”
To be honest, I didn’t come up with this writing prompt. I read it somewhere. But it actually made me laugh out loud by myself, sitting in a room alone staring at my phone screen.
When this happens to me, it makes me reflect on the moment. What just made me have that reaction?
It was the surprise.
But here’s what makes the story prompt and its twist so genius. It plays off of something all of us have heard a million or so times, “I made these cookies with love!”
Take this in. Look for ideas like that. Ones that you hear often and twist them to give them a surprise your audience isn’t expecting.
Avoid inside jokes. If only you and two of your friends know about it. It won’t be as powerful to evoke emotion (unless you can bring your readers into it as well). But otherwise, stay away from inside things.
Look for common everyday occurrences that everybody hears or knows about.
“2020 Canceled”
“Mansplaining”
“Snowflakes”
“Riots”
“Trump rallies”
BREAKING NEWS: THIS JUST IN: “The 2020 mansplaining snowflakes canceled the remaining trump rallies. Peace in the Galaxy restored!”
“Wait, wait! I’m getting something! THIS JUST IN: Kamala quoted, “Biden not fit for presidency,” declares war on the Biden’s!”
Now, let’s be honest, this isn’t the most amazing piece of satire, but if you’ve seen anything political this year, it makes a point and uses surprise to do it.
It uses satire to poke fun at both sides and then “peace is finally achieved!” You would think everyone would be happy and go on with their day and enjoy peace, but not politicians. They almost always seem to be looking for a leg up the political ladder.
So surprise! The new President and Vice President of the satire declare war on each other for top dog spot.
Look for things like this where a majority of the world experiences it and add a surprise twist to it for your readers to enjoy.
Example 2:
“You’ve had the same sweet little nanny for 10 years now. You love her. She’s like a second mother to you. Recently though as you were leaving school you see her hand a baggy to one of the kids at your school and drive away in a red Ferrari.”
Why does this prompt work? It plays off of something a lot of people know and love: the sweet nanny figure. (Not everyone has or had a nanny, but have you at least seen the tv show? Or worked as a nanny? Or know someone that had a nanny?)
She’s kind, gentle, always loving. We assume innocence.
We would never expect her to be doing anything possibly illegal. And since when did she make enough money to drive a Ferrari?
It makes the reader curious because it plays off a seemingly innocent character in our society.
Story writers have been doing this for years with teachers, janitors, presidents, priests, pastors, moms, dads, grandparents.
Anyone you inherently trust as a child is at risk to become a surprisingly flawed character in a story.
Example 3:
“Just because she goes to work all day and I sit around the house doesn’t mean she has the right to come home and beat me. She thinks I’m lazy and good for nothing. She thinks I don’t know how to take care of myself. She thinks I’m a leech and a stain on society.
She doesn’t know that I’m actually quite a hard worker. If she’d let me outside more I can dig holes really fast. I always tell her right away when the evil intruder comes down the driveway to leave his trash at our front door. I make sure the evil cats and squirrels don’t get anywhere near our house. I don’t have opposable thumbs so I can’t always open the door for myself, but at least I’m polite enough to go in a corner where no one will step in it.”
The reason this works is because you start off explaining something as if it’s someone else entirely. You give woods and clues that lead the reader astray on purpose.
At first, I was describing what a lazy man that chooses not to work might say about his wife, and the fact that she beat him is meant to steer their emotions even further into the charade.
But then you have to find a way to make them start to question what they believed about what you first said. This is a fun moment for readers. They think, “Oh wait. Is that really what I thought it was. Make them curious with lines like, “she thinks I don’t know how to take care of myself,” and “If she’d let me outside I can dig holes really fast.”
Surprise! We’re not talking about what you thought we were!
Use language that means one thing but don’t spell it out for them. Say it in such a way that their brain wheels have to turn to try to figure it out.
That’s what many readers want. They want to be given a puzzle that over time will be given more and more clues until finally, they think they’ve solved it and then you reveal the true answer and it is a surprise.
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Hope this helps!
Happy writing!
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How to Add Surprise to Your Stories That’ll Make Your Readers Love You
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How to Add Surprise to Your Stories That’ll Make Your Readers Love You
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