My plot twist fell flat halfway through a writing group session last night

I was in my monthly online writing group with about 8 other people and I had this big reveal planned for a short story I've been working on for two weeks. The whole thing was supposed to hinge on the main character being a ghost the whole time, but I laid the clues too thick and one guy called it out on page 2 before I even got to the twist. I sat there for a solid 30 seconds trying to figure out if I should scrap the ending or just roll with it. I ended up finishing the read but it felt anticlimactic and everyone knew what was coming. I'm thinking I need to go back and bury those hints way deeper or maybe switch the reveal to something else altogether. Has anyone ever had a writing prompt or story idea get derailed because you made the setup too obvious?

2 comments

2 Comments

evan_cooper738d agoMost Upvoted

This is one of those times where the fault might not be with your clues being too obvious. Sometimes the problem is that you were in a room full of people who are trained to spot patterns and guess endings, so of course someone is going to figure it out early. That guy probably felt like a hero for calling it out but really he just ruined the fun for everyone else. Maybe the real issue is that you had a group of eight people staring at your story with magnifying glasses instead of letting it breathe the way a regular reader would. Honestly your ghost twist probably works fine for its actual audience, you just picked the wrong test audience for that kind of reveal.

the_piper8d ago

Does that mean you think the issue was less about the mystery itself and more about the specific people you were showing it to? I used to believe a good twist would always land if the clues were just right, but this actually makes a lot of sense to me now. A room full of puzzle-solvers is probably the worst place to test a slow-burn reveal like that, so your mileage may definitely vary with a normal audience.