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.