Unpredictable story? Share you tips!

[cookiestruck]

I love to play mystery games which are unpredictable. But sadly, finding unpredictable stories is quiet hard. And.. if I'm planning to make an unpredictable story, do you have any tips?

[SundownKid]

For one, it's best to outline beforehand all the possible twists, that way you can prevent them from coming out of nowhere and aggravating the reader. If you suddenly reveal "my girlfriend's a murderer!", the reader will feel like they were betrayed. But if there were hints like her going out to places at strange times, it would make more sense in retrospect. Then, add in a twist when your story might start to get boring. You can also add red herrings (foreshadowing for a non-existent twist) in order to throw your reader off.

Also, a good thing to keep in mind is to get the reader and yourself out of your comfort zone. Much like real life, stuff happens that no one can predict. Negative things could include someone close to you dying, getting hurt, or betraying you. Positive things could include happening onto a lot of money, etc.

Another key thing is to always add friction for your main character, basically, never have them be truly comfortable until the end (if then).

[Sharm]

Outline backwards, figuring out the end first, then pacing the revelations and obscuring elements backwards. Remember that when you do surprising, if it's completely out of nowhere people will dislike it. You need to go for "surprising yet inevitable", where your reader never saw the ending coming, but once it's been revealed it all seems so obvious. Big scenes are more emotionally powerful if you're resolving more than one story element at a time. For example, the mc has been trying to find the murderer and trying to decide if she loves the guy she's working with to resolve the case. Finding out that her love interest is the murderer makes that scene more powerful. For every mystery you bring up, make sure that they start and end in the right order. Think of it like nesting HTML tags, you can't start with one question, start another, end the first and then end the second, that will make the story seem like it has more than one ending. You need to start and end with your main question then add other questions and answers appropriately throughout.

[Sapphi]

Outline backwards, figuring out the end first, then pacing the revelations and obscuring elements backwards. ... Think of it like nesting HTML tags, you can't start with one question, start another, end the first and then end the second, that will make the story seem like it has more than one ending. You need to start and end with your main question then add other questions and answers appropriately throughout.

OMG, perfect analogy!

If you don't know what you want the end result of your story to be, how are you going to get there? You could begin at the beginning and ramble on and on, finally reaching your desired conclusion, but in the best case scenario, you just wasted a lot of time and most of your writing will end up on the cutting-room floor. You will have to hack and slash at it to get it back into a coherent plot. (In the event you don't cut anything, your story will probably suffer from a bad case of bloating, your readers will be bored and tempted to skip to the good parts, and will probably put the story down prematurely. Good luck getting them to want to pick it up again. )

Beginning with the ending is an excellent way to reduce the scope of your story. With the ending in mind, you know where you're going, and where you're not going. This means it's much easier to stay on topic, and much easier to write in both hints and false clues effectively.

Remember that when you do surprising, if it's completely out of nowhere people will dislike it. You need to go for "surprising yet inevitable", where your reader never saw the ending coming, but once it's been revealed it all seems so obvious.

More good advice. The conclusion to your story has to be evident from the beginning. You can't write a human protagonist into a corner at the climax of a story, for instance, and then suddenly reveal that he is a android. It's not only betraying your reader's trust, it's sloppy writing. If the big reveal is that the protagonist is an android, then there should be some good hints to that end sprinkled throughout the story. Your goal as a writer is to distract the reader from picking up on your hints, while ensuring that after the big reveal, everything will suddenly click in the reader's mind and they won't be able to turn back to page 83 and go "But wait, if that's the case then this doesn't make sense!"

But I think I should add a disclaimer here, and say that a genre-savvy reader might notice what you're up to and predict the ending accordingly. There isn't really any defense against this besides resorting to cheap tricks (don't) or becoming exceedingly crafty.

Disclaimer: This is all information I have gleaned from either personal experience, my quest to learn what makes good writing, or reading good books.

[Victoria Jennings]

Seeing as collective is a psychological thriller that plays something like an stretched-out mystery, I guess you'd hope I'd know any specific tips about writing mysteries in general. Sadly, I don't. Never really been into the genre. There are no specific truths to learn, no simple solutions. I'm slightly worried it won't pan out well and people won't be satisfied with the ending, actually. x'D

Beyond that, I wish you good luck, and these people give great advice.

I don't know why I posted, I kinda just wanted to get one of my big worries about collective off my chest orz

[Dim Sum]

I love to play mystery games which are unpredictable. But sadly, finding unpredictable stories is quiet hard. And.. if I'm planning to make an unpredictable story, do you have any tips?

Many types of mystery games.

There are mentioned already "clues" type stories which I am not fond of...but you get advise for that already & separating what is quality there need not be bothered.

...then there are mystery games which are unpredictable because they are real. Because reality is stranger than fiction.

example theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjXWjurXoNA

...then there are mystery games which are unpredictable because they are predictable and you are being bamboozled by author.

example theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4gHCmTQDVI

...then there are variants.

Mystery Box:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpjVgF5JDq8

Rube Goldberg Personality Quiz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1lgXhFbXy4

Blair Witch Project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D51QgOHrCj0

The pro makers of unpredictability know all don't matter.

...and why doesn't it?

Cause like illusion, once you know the trick...it becomes predictable...so if it becomes predictable to you, how would you be able to know when it's unpredictable to your audience especially if it's story rather than flair?

Reversing it: If you don't know how it's unpredictable. If you don't want to know how it's unpredictable. Than why would most of your non-audience? Your audience will be there to support you but if they support everything how do you measure quality?

Long terming it: If something becomes too popular like the Portal games, how do you build upon it's unpredictability? Having fans for it is one thing. Being able to reproduce unpredictability totally whole new solar system.

Sometimes easier to sell parody of original unpredictability than be able to produce unpredictability.

Sometimes even pros steal and copy and try to steal some more instead of "make".

The reason is cause even tips are hard to "be" tips.

Over-arching tip for all unpredictable mysteries: Control your audience. Do scenes not for you but for your audience.

When Usual Suspects switched revelation, it become all time legacy not cause it was "unpredictable" story but cause revelation was "predictable". People wanted to wonder but people also wanted to accept after movie. Quality of unpredictability did not matter.

Was I fan of it? No. But it became hallmark.

But you can't do usual suspects straight up nowadays. Wouldn't work. Too predictable.

Still future mysteries continue to control the audience. Making them think one way then another. Revealing predictability but being hailed as unpredictable. All cause of one formula.

Why does obvious formula continue to work but obvious plot twist not?

All cause human unpredictability and human predictability have very little difference.

If different, it's just bad movie.

If the same, it's all about what audience is being forced to comprehend.

Black people in white people's movie is just skin color change but in earlier eras it would be incomprehensible but good black person movie would then become unpredictable.

Same applies for the mysteries.

Every real great mystery is but an artifact. A piece of situation that is predictable to someone before but is not predictable to many other people's eyes.

Therefore if control the eyes, control the predictability.

Don't chain the characters nor the audience. Control.

Take cliche mystery of unsolved real life murders.

If you try to chain the characters or the audience, the killer would become predictable too cause you need to be able to show a scene that is better than the killer's act but make it so that it's also predictable rather than incomprehensible to your audience.

If you try to control the characters or the audience as if you were only allowed to in reality, you can't swivel your character's face because that would piss off your character if they were sentient beings. If you flash obvious clue via your character's line of sight then audience would comprehend that you are trying to make piece of object important unless it's red herring or has no real meaning.

Therefore: To control means to guide the predictable to seeing the predictable and interpret it as unpredictable.

but soo hard...just on one tip.

That's why tip for mystery is not tip itself. Tip = predictability. Unpredictability = crush the expected insight of your tip givers and to do so you must not only learn who your audience and character and story is...you must sense their secrets. Even if you know no specific skeleton in closet, you must infer it into your story and defer it through your revelation. If your audience secretly believes that exorcism is real, you make them doubt it's false...then you make them doubt it's real. Then when they become savvy, control their savviness and crush it. Then when they become shallow and suspicious, control their suspicion and crush it. That is unpredictability.

[cookiestruck]

Thanks to you guys! You guys is such a big help!
I'm not yet planning to write, I'm still collecting information about this and that. ^^"
Thanks again for those advice! Really thanks!
And for the examples, obviously!

[MarineScripter]

Hmm...mysteries are best when they catch you off guard. Still, too many surprises can tire out the viewer. In my case I usually outline my plots even if not down to the exact specifics, and try to give subtle clues without it being too obvious. Personally, I think it's best when you are surprised, but also when you can still think back and say, "Oh, now I see!" or something. For example, long-running mysteries usually find new ways to keep their stories fresh without getting too predictable, like the manga Detective Conan (Case Closed) and others along that line. You can also fluctuate how you reveal things depending if your characters are regular humans or have supernatural powers or superhuman powers, like the Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro manga.
...Hope that's not too confusing.

[fleet]

Kill a likeable character.

[Lishy]

Unpredictable does not always equal good. My tip.

[Destiny]

Well, just try to find series that you find unpredictable and try to find out, why they are like this.

For example:
Taking a murder case...
It will help if the murderer is one of the most appearing characters, being totally unpredicted as a murderer (like the lovable sidekick, the annoying [but seemingly totally harmless] character or the total psycho that would be too obvious to be the murderer).
It adds when the way the murder happend is surprising or a riddle itself.

And you can do that with all.
Even a normal dating sim can become interesting if a character does something that the player didn't think at first (like the nice guy being a total ass behind his facade).

Unpredictable is also if a MC dies (not THE MC, even though that would be the ultimate surprise) like the best friend, the brother or something. Unpredictable is when one of the MCs suddenly runs amok. Unpredictable is when suddenly a person appears that will become extremly important (like the sudden appeareance of a fiance or the dad that was thought as being dead).


It helps reading/watching/playing stuff where unpredicted things happen.
It inspires a lot about what could happen