Plot Twists and Suspense
Six tricks to misdirect your readers from mystery author Megan Davidhizar
Facing our fear of red herrings
Six tricks to misdirect your readers
Fact check and resources
1. Facing our fear of red herrings
Hello, Team Curiosity! Today, we face our fears and confront our craft weaknesses. That’s right, y’all. We have FINALLY invited a mystery author to teach us their ways.
Megan Davidhizar, longtime TTS listener and critically acclaimed author of Gaslit and Silent Sister, blew our minds with her useful tips and tricks for plot twists and suspense. Seriously. From the very first minute of this episode, we were scrambling to take notes. Even better, she threatened to kill one of us AT LEAST twice, making it very clear we’d never find the body. Mystery authors don’t mess around, y’all.
Let’s get into the nuts and bolts, shall we?
2. Six tricks to misdirect your readers’ attention
We know we say this all the time, but this is definitely an episode you need to hear for yourselves. Megan reads excerpts from beloved texts as examples of each of these tricks, walking us through how she’s built them into her own books. It was intimidatingly brilliant.
Here’s a sampling of the tricks Megan covers in this episode:
Use familiar tropes to direct—and misdirect—the reader’s attention. Tropes signal to our brain that a familiar, often beloved scenario is unfolding. You can play with those expectations to keep your readers distracted from the plot twist you’re hiding in plain sight.
Use repetition to pull your readers’ attention elsewhere. When you bring something up more than once, readers assume it’s important. Use this to deter their attention so you can keep them from noticing something else.
Use ambiguity of words to hide the truth in plain sight. Have your characters tell the truth—or hint at it strongly—but have them do it in language that is easily misunderstood through the lens of the main character.
Twist your plot backwards. Plot twists are often not born until revisions. There are a number of subtle shifts you can incorporate in later drafts that will make your plot feel twistier. Maybe your characters have one hour to complete a lethal task in draft one…but in draft two, you make them think they have a whole week. Discovering they only have an hour is now a plot twist.
Make your Plan A your characters’ Plan B. This one truly made our jaws drop. A good plot twist is all in the presentation. They’re less about shifting your plot in major ways and more about making your characters feel like their expectations are shifting. If we subvert character expectations, we’re subverting reader expectations.
Red herrings are your new best friend. Here’s some nuggets of wisdom about them:
If your characters suspect a character, your readers won’t.
Use critique partners and beta readers to figure out which characters are already suspicious, then revise to make them even more suspicious.
Give an alternate reason for clues to be in the story. If you can tie them to the emotional journey/third rail, for example, the readers’ brains will file them in that category without realizing they’re hints.
Humans are most likely to remember the first and last items on a list (the primacy and recency effects, according to our little-known psychologist, Dr. Lyssa Mia Smith). Hide your clues in the middle.
3. Fact Check
Here’s a fun fact for you: Megan Davidhizar is a TikTok and Instagram sensation who has gone viral several times! Make sure you check out her books, Silent Sister and Gaslit, along with her infamous rubber duck collection.
Megan refers to our Plot Twist Reversals episode, which is pretty relevant to this discussion.
As usual, if you’d like to hear from us more, be sure to check us out on Instagram:
Lastly, Anna’s book, All We Hunger For, is out NEXT MONTH (gasp!) If you pick it up before the June release date, email proof of purchase to (TurningToStory [at] gmail [dot] com), and we’ll email you Anna’s master spreadsheet. That means you’ll see the exact outline: each subplot, chapter, character arc, romantic arc, villain arc, everything. (It’s full of spoilers, so save it until after you read the book).
"Make your Plan A your characters’ Plan B." Such great advice! Thanks so much!