Also, in order for the plot twist to come out, and for the hero to find out about it - the writer had to change the hero's circumstances in a rather cliche and somewhat abrupt manner. (That is not the reaction you want when doing a plot twist, you don't want the reader to be disappointed and wish it was something else.) Medeiros in her attempt to ensure the reader didn't figure out the plot twist - inserts a lot of red herrings or character related tid-bits to mislead you but they also make you think - okay, this can't be work because well it makes no logical sense and if we ignore logic and it is the twist, then dang, the heroine is a complete nit-wit and not all that likable or sympathetic. Sort of hoped I was wrong and it was something else. So when it was revealed, I wasn't surprised, nor was I was happy about it. In Yours Until Dawn this is unfortunately not the case - while I did figure out the plot twist ahead of time partly because I was aware there was one - from reading reviews on Good Reads and Amazon, I didn't think it made sense and tried to come up with another possibility, but no that was the only scenario that halfway worked. And a good plot twist works regardless of whether or not you've figured it out ahead of time. Or when information is revealed to the protagonist - such as the scene in Empire Strikes Back where Darth Vader reveals he's Luke's father. Example of this approach is the movie The Sixth Sense.

The plot twists when we change points of view. We're in the point of view of someone who is either clueless or in denial or doesn't have all the information. Most if not all plot twists are done using an unreliable narrator. The best plot twists - can be predicted by a reader, but are so good the reader is thrilled that they figured it out and can't wait for it to happen. Actually I'm having troubles thinking of any books that have recently.maybe Henry James Turn of the Screw? Or Dauphne Du Maurie's Rebecca - but those were mystery novels. Plot twists are actually quite hard to pull off. You can write a perfectly wonderful book without a plot twist. So the reader as result is left sputtering in rage and disbelief.ĭon't do this writers! Seriously, the plot twist is not worth it. And they succeed - it is a plot twist.that no reader could possibly predict, mainly because it doesn't make a lot of sense and the writer had to jump through hoops to make it work, in some cases not all destroy characters, and often jump outside the realm of logic. And it will not be revealed until the last 50 or so pages of the novel. Where the author expends almost all of the their energy to create a great jaw-dropping plot twist, and it must be jaw-dropping, it must take the reader completely by surprise. Yours Until Dawn suffers from an age old problem in genre related fiction, although not usually in the romance genre, thrillers and mystery novels on the other hand.

Yours Until Dawn by Teresa Medeiros