Avoid Gratuitous Plot Twists

Avoid Gratuitous Plot Twists

Last week, I talked about ways to keep readers turning pages, and a technique I mentioned was to make sure each chapter or scene ends with some kind of question that the reader will want to have answered.

Often, in an effort to end a chapter on a page-turning hook (which one of my critique partners refers to as “landings”), we throw in a surprise. Given I’m not a plotter, usually these are as much of a surprise to me as I hope they are to the reader.

What’s...