Trick or Treat! The Twists and Turns of the Big Surprise!

Happy Halloween! Do surprise endings really surprise? Do you love being surprised and tricked? Do you enjoy being led down a path filled with a string of puzzling red herrings and a frightening cast of characters only to discover that was not where the author was really headed? Or do you like the straightforward ending where you guessed the climax ahead of time and was really satisfied that you had figured it out correctly? You wanted the main characters to get together, you knew he or she couldn’t be the evil culprit, it was a simple but good story and you were pleased when everything played out just as you suspected.

The ‘Boo!’ I’m behind the door ending or the ‘gotcha’ moment can be great, but only if it’s well done. If it’s contrived or feels fake in any way, you’ve lost the element of surprise or diluted it so much that you probably shouldn’t have bothered. A good surprise is often one the reader did not see coming because of misdirection and because of false clues the author planted in a logical, progressive sequence.

For me, I always prefer to surprise. I like twists and turns, I like the tricks because they always turn out to be treats. When you think the book is about one thing, but it really turns out to be about another completely different thing, that’s what makes me want to read more by that particular author. When I first became interested in writing, I loved the clever puzzles of Agatha Christie and the suspenseful menace of Mary Roberts Rinehart. Rinehart wrote sixty novels and was the favorite of American presidents. Crime fascinated her. An editor once said that the key to publishing success was sex and murder. She, like other famous mystery and suspense writers did the ‘clue striptease.’ They revealed only a little at a time. I also enjoyed reading the stories of the English writer Alistair MacLean. In one of his famous stories “The Satan Bug,” you thought the villain had stolen a deadly virus merely to terrorize the English populace. But in reality, the villain only used the virus as a threat to empty the entire city of London so he could steal its most precious treasures. Surprise! This is what got me! The trick won me over and made me a fan of surprise endings for life. If I’ve surprised the reader and made him gasp (in a good way), I feel I’ve done my job.

What’s your favorite trick, your most devilish surprise ending? Fatal Attraction, when Glenn Close playing Alex Forrest shows up at the end to torment poor Anne Archer one more time and then Anne Archer shoots her or…BOO!


Next week: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy--What is Your Favorite Type of Romantic Hero to Read or Write About?

Metaphors and Similes: The Bane of My Existence

I don't know about you, but I've always had a problem with metaphors and similes. First, telling the difference between them, and then coming up with imaginative ones to make my writing pop.
Why are metaphors and similes so important? According to Aristotle, figurative language can lend "metaphorical life to lifeless objects." And isn't that what we, as writers long to do, create something from nothing, make readers believe the truth of our story and our characters' story world? Make things come alive so that the reader can shout "Yes, that's right; that's exactly how it looks! That's exactly how I feel! I can identify with that!"
Aristotle said language should be appropriate in "sound and sense" and make the audience see things by using expressions that represent things in a state of activity. In other words, not just create word pictures, but moving pictures.
Here's the difference between a metaphor and a simile.
Simile: uses like or as (I try to remember the "s" in simile as referring to the "s" in the word "as". If you have a better way, let me know).
Example: "Your hair is like a river."
Metaphor: "Your hair is a dark river."
My next problem: How do you think of creative similes and metaphors? The simplest way and one that helped me is to ask: "What does this object remind you of?" Do the clouds remind you of gum drops? Do fireworks look like shimmering fairy dust? I just finished reading Sandra Brown's "Chill Factor", a wonderful book I recommend. She describes a face that looked like wild dogs had been gnawing on it and a falling power line tower as resembling a landing spacecraft with red warning lights flashing.
Here are some other ways that can help (From a marvelous book called "Word Painting" by Rebecca McClanahan):
1. Create your own "Constellation of Images" based on an event in your life. For example, the author lost her twin sister and found her writing laced with images pertaining to that loss--like sidekicks, twins, doubles, rubber dolls.
2. Play mind games with common objects like a colander, an egg beater, or chopsticks. The chopsticks could look like drumsticks or oars to you.
3. Spend time with children and watch how they create things from unusual sources: forts from Popsicle sticks, swords or riding horses form broomsticks.
4. Read a lot of poetry rich with metaphorical images.

If you have other ways for creating colorful metaphors and similes, let me know. I would love to hear them!

Next week: Keeping Track of your Plot Ideas