(Writing Talk is a type of short-for article centered around conversations about various aspects of writing/authorship. These aren’t usually long reads, but I think it’s fun to jot down some of my thoughts about the writing process as someone who loves the art of it all.)
Everyone loves a good twist villain, right? Some of our favorite stories are the ones that included some sort of jaw-dropping twist villain reveal. Just try and think back yourself about your favorite books, games, and movies, and challenge yourself to think of a few that didn’t include a twist villain. Or harder yet, that didn’t include any sort of noteworthy twist in and of itself. It’s tough, right?
We human beings love being surprised. Even when we say we hate being surprised (trust me, I’m one of those people too), we don’t actually. Or, at least when it comes to the realm of creative storytelling. There’s an old saying that any unique idea that will ever be written already has been written, and that stories nowadays are just authors trying to creatively mash these age-old disparate ideas together into something approximating newness. It’s easy to get cynical if you wholeheartedly believe this, but even if you only slightly agree (like I do), that doesn’t have to dim your enthusiasm for new stories and literary memories.
I’m mildly digressing, so I’ll get back to the main point: twists, and twist villains especially, are awesome.
They are also obscenely difficult to handle properly.
Let’s examine a hypothetical situation for a book that we’ll call “Cool Book“. In Cool Book, our hero is tasked by the mighty King Steve to defeat a dragon and save the land. So our hero sets out to do this, but only after the dragon falls is it suddenly revealed that the dragon was actually a cursed citizen, and King Steve created the whole ploy to boost his fame. Thus, King Steve is the real villain all along! What a twist!
Except, the issue is that the story didn’t set this up at all. Not only was King Steve a friendly and happy ruler up until the twist, but there was no evidence to suggest anything untoward happening at all during the story. It was impossible for the reader to guess that this twist was coming. That’s (as I’m sure you can imagine) not good.
So we’ll try again, with the reboot “Cooler Book“. In Cooler Book, the plot is mostly the same, including King Steve recruiting our hero to fight the dragon, and then the reveal of the innocent citizen cursed to be a dragon, and King Steve’s ambitions. However, in this variation, the author has seeded in plenty of tiny little tidbits of evidence for astute readers to find that foreshadows the twist. Little asides from the king’s aides, an ancient magic book in the king’s cabinet, a rumor about the dragon appearing as if from nowhere. Just enough for observant readers to piece it together. Huzzah!
Except, we run into another much more insidious and hard-to-detect issue here. In this version of the story, the twist has been deliberately set-up with the proper evidence, which is good. The trouble comes from King Steve now. He still switches on a dime from happy and wholesome to mustache-twirling and vile at the moment of the twist reveal. His ‘twist‘ nature is a far cry from how he’s interacted with the hero (and by extension the reader) for the entire story. What this results in is the reader feeling as if there is little difference between having King Steve secretly be evil, and a reality wherein the author simply had King Steve replaced by an entirely different character…which is really what it feels like has happened.
This might be something you haven’t thought of before. Rest assured, I’ve only recently begun to think about twist villains in this way. Because, obviously, the twist in Cooler Book is still bound to leave you shocked and entertained. Heck, even the twist in Cool Book will leave you shocked. But it’s even you dwell on your thoughts and feelings over the literary material after finishing that you begin to feel a lingering sense of dissatisfaction. The feeling that the twist in both versions was invariably prioritizing shock value over respecting the reader and the story’s characters.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that building up a twist with foreshadowing and secret evidence is only half the battle when it comes to crafting an excellent twist villain. Honestly, it really only has to do with the ‘twist‘ half of the equation. The other half (that might even be more important) is making sure the ‘villain‘ is an incredible, well-written, three-dimensional, fleshed-out character. If they aren’t, they’ll come across as flat, forgettable, and disingenuous once the latent shock value of the twist wears off.
In essence, the best twist villain is one who really doesn’t change much after the twist. The real impact of the twist is how your perspective of the character and their actions has now changed in light of new information.
To explore this in a bit more detail, let’s look at one of my personal favorite twist villains: King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph.
King Candy almost immediately conveys most of his personality and inner thoughts through his words and actions. He’s a self-centered jerk who enjoys being praised and worshipped by all the candy citizens. He’s obviously not a super good dude. When it is later revealed that he is Turbo (a destructively narcissistic character from another game), King Candy becomes re-framed as the main villain of the film, and the antithesis of Ralph’s journey.
But, at the same time, not a whole lot really changes. We already knew that King Candy was ambitious. We already knew that he was greedy and craved worship and attention. And we already knew he could be conniving and manipulative. The twist simply gave us new perspective on his actions, and deepened our understanding of who he is and just how awful he can be. It works so well because he doesn’t change much, we just see him in a different light now.
Is any of this making sense? I hope so, because it isn’t the easiest concept to grasp. It’s something that sorta just dawns on you the more stories you consume, and I think my journey as a writer specifically helped me to come to this understanding.
I was working on a novel a few years ago that was going to involve a twist villain. Said villain was going to act one way for most of the story, and then flip on a dime and be completely maliciously different after the twist. It would’ve been quite shocking. However, after only a few chapters into the story, I realized just how deflating and disingenuous that sort of twist would be.
In the opening chapters of the story, that character gets a lot of focus on their backstory, close relationships, and impact on those around them. My original twist would’ve thrown all of this out, as the reveal of their ‘true personality‘ would’ve rendered everything that came earlier as either lies or useless character information. The twist would’ve had shock value, but the cost of that would’ve been the ruination of both who the character was before the twist AND after. It would’ve been cheap, ineffective, and a blight on the story.
So, I shifted gears. I looked deep into the character to find out how I could still frame them as the twist villain, but not have it come across in such a shallow and disingenuous way. I utilized a few clever writing techniques that clouded some of the character’s inner thoughts. I re-shaped a few key relationships to give them more depth. I altered the original intent of the villain’s plan that didn’t change the outcome but did affect how it was conveyed to the reader. In the end what was left is a strong and impactful twist villain reveal that my close friends and family still excitedly talk about to this day (which obviously feels great as the author).
If everything I’ve talked about in this article is something you’ve never spent much time thinking about before, I strongly encourage you to do so. At the very least it’s fun to think about, but for the writers out there, it’ll really challenge you to elevate your game when it comes to twists and twist villains!
Keep on writing, friends!
The Contrarian Corner 