Plot Twists and Cliffhangers

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Although Charles Dickens didn't actually invent the cliffhanger—it was used as early as The Arabian Nights—he did popularize its use. Like many authors of his day, Dickens serialized his novels, a few chapters of his novels appearing each month until the conclusions of their stories. To keep readers interested in the developing narratives, Dickens ended each installment with a cliffhanger, leaving his protagonists in a difficult situation, in a quandary, with a discovery, or with a revelation. The next installment would resolve the cliffhanger and, at its end, introduce another plot twist.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes “adventures,” introduced another innovation in serialized storytelling. Instead of relying upon plot twists to maintain suspense, Doyle's stories employed the same characters and some of the same settings, but he centered each of his stories upon a new mystery, often with a new villain, for his detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson, to solve. Over time, the characters of both Holmes and Watson were gradually developed, as readers learned more about them.

For any long story or for any continuing story, plot twists, whether in the form of cliffhangers at the end of the story or as unanticipated incidents within a particular story or installment itself, are vital. They seem difficult to devise, but they aren't all that challenging, because writers—and television series' writers in particular—have already developed a sizable number of types of plot twists that represent a source from which other writers may draw inspiration.

In addition to the four types already mentioned (difficult situation, quandary, discovery, and revelation), the American crime drama Justified suggests such types of plot twists and cliffhangers as the double-cross, the triple-cross, the setup, the death (often as the result of a murder) of a character, the rescue, and the assumed identity, to mention but a few variations.

A double-cross occurs when Boyd Crowder's cousin Johnny agrees to betray Boyd to a rival criminal, Wynn Duffy, to avenge himself for Boyd's father Bo's having crippled him as a result of having shot Johnny in the stomach. (Bo was avenging himself on Johnny for Johnny's having tipped Boyd off about an Ephedrine shipment Bo was due to receive, allowing Boyd to blow up the shipment with a rocket launcher. Johnny's betrayal of Bo is another example of a double-cross.)

A triple-cross is shown during a poker game Bo is playing with Roscoe, Jay, and Ali, men who work for Rodney Dunham, a marijuana distributor. Dunham has sold Johnny out to Boyd, who tried to recruit him as a partner in the state-wide heroin-distribution ring Boyd hopes to establish in Tennessee. Learning from Boyd of an upcoming drug shipment from Mexico, Dunham suggests that he and his men hijack it. Asked his source of the information concerning the shipment, Dunham identifies Boyd, as Roscoe, Jay, and Ali point their guns at Johnny, their action suggesting that Dunham has double-crossed Johnny. However, when Johnny reveals that he invested in “people power” by sharing the money he received for his part in an earlier robbery with Roscoe, Jay, and Ali, the men turn their weapons on Dunham, suggesting a triple-cross against Dunham on Johnny's part.

A setup takes place when Albert Fekus, a jail guard, plants a makeshift knife, or “shiv,” in the cell that Boyd's fiancee, Ava Randolph, occupies after her arrest for attempting to dispose of the body of Delroy Baker, whom she shot to protect Ellen May, a prostitute who'd worked for her. Albert had earlier tried to rape Ava, but he was interrupted by the arrival of Susan Crane, a female guard, who informed Albert that Ava was a “protected” prisoner. Albert stabs and cuts himself with the shiv, blaming Ava, whose cellmate backs up Albert's lie. As a result, Ava is transferred to a state prison to await trial on an attempted murder charge. The setup is intensified by the fact that, the day before, charges had been dropped against Ava after Boyd eliminated the witnesses who observed Ava's attempt to dispose of Baker's body (after their scheme to incriminate Boyd for the same act backfired on Ava.)

Deaths occur frequently on Justified as Raylan dispatches outlaws and criminals kill one another as well as the victims of their crimes. Often, such deaths introduce plot twists, as when Boyd's murder of crooked businessman Lee Paxton and Boyd's murderer-for-hire, Hayes Workman, kills Deputy Sheriff Nick Mooney results in the dismissal of charges against Ava for having murdered Baker.

Ellen May is about to be murdered by Boyd's henchman, Colton “Colt” Rhodes, who enters the restroom at a local gas station to cock his pistol, in preparation for shooting Ellen May, while she fills his car's gas tank. (He is driving her to Alabama, when Ava decides it's better to kill than to relocate Ellen May.) When Colt returns, Ellen May has mysteriously disappeared. Did she catch a ride with someone else? Did she run away? The audience is left hanging until the next episode, when it's revealed that a local lawman, Sheriff Shelby Parlow, rescued her.

Parlow also later surprises the series' viewers when it's revealed that he is not who he appears to be. He is introduced as a security agent for the Black Pike Mining Company. He's saved by Boyd during a robbery. To gain control of Harlan County's sheriff's department, Boyd helps Shelby get elected as sheriff. After several other plot twists, it's revealed that Parlow has been living under an assumed identity. He's actually Drew Thompson, a former member of Detroit's Theo Tonin Crime Family. After witnessing Tonin murder someone, Thompson relocated to Harlan, Kentucky, where he started a new life under the name of Shelby Parlow. 

Justified isn't a horror series, of course, but the types of plot twists and cliffhangers it introduces can be used in any genre, so, to make a novel or a short story suspenseful and unpredictable, these types of such devices, used judiciously and with finesse, are recommended:

• difficult situation
• quandary
• discovery
• revelation
• double-cross
• triple-cross
• setup
• death (often as the result of a murder) of a character
• rescue
• assumed identity
  
  

Other television series also suggest a variety of types of plot twists and cliffhangers. Arrow has a multitude, as do most others. By analyzing the episodes in these series, you can compile a long list of types of situations and actions with which to surprise, shock, and intrigue readers while you maintain and heighten your story's suspense. To get you started, here are a few examples from several television series and other works of fiction; there are plenty of others:

Type	Setup	Twist
Death follows survival of death	Arrow: Oliver Queen's father survives a shipwreck.	He commits suicide.
Survival of death or apparent death	Sherlock Holmes: Sherlock Holmes falls from the edge of a cliff.	Holmes survives.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy Summers drowns.	Buffy is revived by Xander, who administers mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy Summers is killed.	Willow Rosenberg uses witchcraft to return Buffy to life.
	Arrow: Sara Lance is presumed dead in same shipwreck.	She was rescued and trained by the League of Assassins.
	Arrow: Thea Queen kills Sara Lance (Black Canary).	Sara is brought back to life by the Lazarus Pit.
Secret, false, or mistaken identity (anagnorisis)	Arrow: Oliver Queen's father is not Thea's father.	Malcolm Merlyn is Thea's father.
	Arrow: Oliver Queen is not Thea's full brother.	They are half-siblings.
Murder of a recurring character	Arrow: Oliver Queen's mother is a recurring character.	Oliver's mother is murdered.
Murder of a recurring character (continued)	Arrow: Laurel Lance is a recurring character.	Damien Darhk kills Laurel.
Star-crossed lovers meet their doom	Romeo and Juliet: Romeo and Juliet love one another.	Romeo and Juliet commit suicide.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy Summers falls in love with Angel, a vampire.	Angel leaves Buffy, moving away from Sunnydale.
A seemingly unbreakable rule is broken	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: There is only one Slayer in all the world.	Kendra Young appears after Buffy Summers's “momentary” death.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: There is only one Slayer in all the world.	Faith LaHane appears after Kendra's death.
Reversal of fortune (peripeteia )	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Cordelia Chase's father is wealthy.	Cordelia's father loses his fortune.
A character discovers a life-changing truth about him- or herself	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow Rosenberg believes she is heterosexual.	Willow discovers she's a lesbian.
Readers discover a secret about a character	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Oz seems to be a typical high school student.	Oz discovers he's a werewolf.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Joyce Summers's new boyfriend, Ted, seems a likable man.	Ted is a robot.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Rupert Giles is a sedate, responsible, mature mentor.	In his youth, Giles, then known as “Ripper,” was wild and violent and dabbled in witchcraft.

Readers discover a secret about a character (continued)	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sunnydale's germophobic mayor, Richard Wilkins, seems personable, if a bit wacky.	Wilkins is a demon.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Professor Maggie Walsh and her graduate assistant, Riley Finn, work at UC Sunnydale.	Walsh and Riley are both secret government agents.
Mistaken belief	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A threat is believed to have been neutralized.	The threat reappears.
Chekov's gun: a seemingly minor character or plot element introduced early in the narrative that suddenly acquires great importance to the narrative.	A beggar woman appears at the beginning of Sweeney Todd.	The beggar woman is Todd's wife.

The Death of a Beautiful Woman

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Poe did write this, in his essay, “The Philosophy of Composition”—but what did he mean by it?

Some critics might contend that he was merely creating a pithy defense for “The Raven,” which concerns the speaker of the poem's grief for an unnamed woman who had died, a grief which has driven him insane with despair at the thought that he shall see her “nevermore.” If “the death . . . of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world” and Poe's poem deals with this theme, obviously the work concerns the most elevated theme possible, which supports the idea that “The Raven” is itself likely to be one of the most poetic poems ever written.

In any case, horror movies and, quite often, novels frequently include the death of a beautiful woman. In fact, they often feature the deaths of any number of beautiful women. In horror movies, slashers, in particular, beautiful women are killed with abandon.

Some of the reasons for horror writers' bias in favor of female victims are fairly obvious. Typically, women are physically weaker than men and are, therefore, less able to defend themselves. Watching them as they are stalked by a suitably powerful, often grotesque and relentless, monster is likely to make viewers or readers who identify with them (and, yes, research shows that either sex is able to identify with its own or the opposite sex) feel that much more helpless.

Beautiful women do not always die, of course. Sometimes, they are rescued. According to evolutionary psychologists, men may be hard-wired, genetically, to risk their lives in the defense of beautiful damsels in distress, even when the men do not know the damsels personally; men are less likely, perhaps, to do the same for male strangers. Men's motives may not be entirely altruistic; often, in fiction, if not in “real life,” women reward heroes with more than just a thank you and a shake of the hand. Yes, such a subtext is sexist, but sexism, as such, doesn't necessarily make such a plot ineffective, as there is much tension in romance, regardless of its nature or source.

In addition to experiencing the terror of a damsel in distress, male audience members or readers can also vicariously enjoy the accolades and rewards of the victorious hero who rescues the distressed damsel. Most men don't get a chance to be a white knight in their everyday lives, or at least not in as dramatic a fashion as a horror story permits. Being allowed to experience the pride and self-esteem that such a role confers—as well as the rescued damsel's hand—is a perk hard to resist.

A female audience member or reader, on the other hand, can feel special. After all, her predicament—and her beauty—as represented by her stand-in, the story's beautiful damsel in distress, has caused a man to risk his life to save her. That's quite a testament to her charms! Then, should she care to express her gratitude in a “physical” fashion, she again demonstrates the power of her beauty by “conquering” the man who conquered the monster that tried to kill her. If the monster-slayer is powerful, how much more so is she, whose beauty conquers his strength. If he is Samson, she is Delilah.

The human species could survive with relatively few men, as long as there are a sufficiently large number of women. Theoretically, one man can impregnate millions upon millions of women over his lifetime. (In reality, in an extreme situation, he might actually impregnate a few thousand.) However, a woman can bear relatively few children before she is past her childbearing years. Each woman who is killed lessens the chance of the species' survival far more so than each man who is killed. For this reason, women symbolize life more frequently than men do; we speak of Mother Nature, after all, relegating men to the representation of mere Time. It makes more sense, from an evolutionary perspective, to rescue women (and children) before rescuing men. Therefore, we are likely to view as more horrible a woman's life at risk than we are to view a man's life at risk.

Today, male victims are increasingly shown, although there are still fewer of them than there are of female victims. Often, in fact, the last man standing (so to speak) isn't a male character at all, but the “final girl.” As originally conceived by Carol Clover, in her book Men, Women, andChainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (1992), the final girl was viewed “as a stereotype of the pure, virginal sole survivor in 1980’s slasher films such as TexasChainsaw Massacre and Halloween.” Sometimes, as in Backcountry, the male (Alex, in this case) is killed, despite his macho posturing, because of the poor judgments he makes, while the female (Jenn, in this instance) survives because of her greater maturity and common sense:

Alex's Errors in Judgment

Mistake	Type	Reason for Mistake	Consequence
Alex refuses ranger's offer of a park map.	Judgment	Alex's overconfidence; he seeks to impress Jenn with his woodcraft.	Jenn and Alex become lost and have no guidance out of the woods. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Alex secretly leaves Jenn's cell phone in their car	Judgment; deceit	The lack of a prevents Jenn from communicating with others, focusing her attention on camping trip (and on Alex).	Without a phone, Alex and Jenn have no way to call for help. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Alex leaves Jenn alone when he goes to chop wood.	Judgment	Unclear	The stranger, Brad, who happens upon Jenn could be dangerous: he might have raped or killed Jenn. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Alex does not tell Jenn about the presence of a bear in the area.	Judgment; deceit	Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him.	Jenn has bear spray and a traffic flare that they could use against the bear, but she is unaware of its presence. The bear could (and, later, does) kill someone. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Although he is uncertain of the correct path to the lake, Alex continues their trek through the forest.	Judgment; deceit	Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him.	Alex and Jenn may be lost. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Alex does not leave the woods after seeing a bear print.	Judgment	Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him.	Jenn has bear spray and a traffic flare that they could use against the bear, but she is unaware of its presence. The bear could (and, later, does) kill someone. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Without investigating, Alex tells Jenn sounds she hears are merely acorns falling from the trees, onto their tent.	Judgment; possible deceit	Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him. He may believe the sounds are the effects of falling acorns, as he says, or he may not want Jenn to think the sounds are caused by a bear, whether to keep her from being afraid or to prevent her from wanting to leave, in which case he is also being deceitful.	Jenn has bear spray and a traffic flare that they could use against the bear, but she is unaware of its presence. The bear could (and, later, does) kill someone. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Even after hearing the sounds of what might be a bear, instead of falling acorns, Alex refuses to leave the park.	Judgment	Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him.	His behavior could endanger their lives.
Even after seeing a broken tree branch indicative of a bear's nearby presence, Alex refuses to leave the park.	Judgment	Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him.	His behavior could endanger their lives.
Even after seeing the carcass of a dead deer indicating the presence of a bear—and of a bear that is both starving (bears, otherwise, don't eat meat—and predatory)—Alex refuses to leave the park.	Judgment	Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him.	His behavior could endanger their lives.
Even after the bear visits their campsite, Alex refuses to leave the park.	Judgment	Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him.	His behavior could endanger their lives.
Alex leaves his axe outside the tent.	Carelessness		With his axe inside the tent, Alex would have had a weapon with which to fight off the attacking bear; without it, he has nothing but his hands and feet. His behavior could endanger their lives.

Jenn's Errors in Judgment

Mistake	Type	Reason for Mistake	Consequence
Jenn did not insist that Alex accept a park map from the ranger or accept one herself.	Judgment	Jenn probably did not want to embarrass Alex by casting doubts on his knowledge of the park.	Alex and Jenn may be lost. Her behavior could endanger their lives.
In Alex's absence, Jenn invites Brad onto their campsite.	Judgment	Jenn is being friendly.	Since she does not know Brad, Jenn could be endangering her and Alex's lives and could be putting herself in danger of being raped.
Jenn does not insist that Alex make sure the “acorns” he says are falling on their tent really are acorns.	Judgment	Jenn probably did not want to embarrass Alex by casting doubts on his knowledge of the park.	Her behavior could endanger their lives.
Jenn does not insist that Alex take her home after she sees evidence of the nearby presence of a bear.	Judgment	Jenn allows Alex to persuade her to stay because she has feelings for him and may feel sorry for him.	Her behavior could endanger their lives.
Jenn returns to their campsite after the bear has killed Alex so she can retrieve the engagement ring he has shown her.	Judgment	Jenn, who had feelings for Alex, wants a memento of his love for her.	Her behavior could endanger her life. lives.

Note: Although Jenn, like Alex, makes mistakes in judgment, she is not a woodman and the couple's survival is not primarily her responsibility. In addition, she is not deceitful toward Alex, as he is to her. When she is alone, after Alex's death, her decisions are wise, allowing her to survive the bear and the wilderness.

Female characters have come a long way since the days of King Kong's Ann Darrow. Today, many are as kick-ass as Buffy the VampireSlayer. Pity the poor monster that attacks one of these “damsels in distress.”