When Writers Do the Twist

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I like bwat — books with a twist. And short stories with unexpected endings. The element of surprise is a great thing, plus it’s fun to think back to the start and middle of the novel or briefer tale to see what might have telegraphed the twist.

Some VERY famous short stories with shockingly not-foreseen conclusions? Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (first published in The New Yorker just over 75 years ago), Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace,” Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek,” and of course various O. Henry tales — including “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Last Leaf.”

Many mystery novels obviously also have unpredictable endings, as the authors use misdirection and red herrings to try to make you think someone other than the actual culprit did the murder(s). Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, anyone?

And then there are novels in other genres, as well as more general fiction, that fit this category. One master at the surprise ending is John Grisham, as I experienced again this month with his novel The Reckoning. A thought-dead-for-three-years World War II hero comes home and shoots his town’s minister. Why? What was the minister guilty of, if anything? I didn’t see the conclusion coming — a conclusion that had a lot to do with race relations at that 1940s time and place (Mississippi).

Grisham’s The Racketeer also threw me for a VERY cleverly engineered loop.

Moving to other novelists, (Ms.) Lionel Shriver’s Big Brother had a near-the-end-of-the-book twist that few readers would have predicted after many chapters of a sister trying to help her obese sibling lose weight. Liane Moriarty’s Apples Never Fall, about a missing woman, gives us a brilliantly unexpected finish I’m glad I didn’t make a bet on. I would have lost.

Thoughts about, and examples of, this topic?

My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com every Thursday. The latest piece — about awful U.S. Supreme Court decisions and how they contrast with my town — is here.

92 thoughts on “When Writers Do the Twist”

  3. Okay, I’ll go with an older novel.
    “A Tale of Two Cities” ending surprised me. It was a long time ago that I read it, but the ending lingers.

    I’m a big Agatha Christie fan, and it’s always the ending. I especially liked “Murder on the Orient Express”.

    I was thrown off a by your John Grisham “The Reckoning” comment.
    No, I haven’t read it, but it has brought to the surface (again) that my paternal grandfather was in the Canadian Army.
    He was sent to England, prior to WWII.
    Late 30’s, my grandmother got a letter from the Canadian Armed Forces saying that he had died & she would be receiving his pension.
    She had 4 sons to raise on her own.
    They struggled through for over a year on his meagre pension, maybe 2, then Hitler invaded Poland.
    One day in late October, 1939, my grandfather showed up at the door, alive and in uniform.
    He only stayed a couple of days, as he was being deployed to England.

    Not long after, grandmother got a letter saying he had died, a casualty of war. She would be getting his pension.

    She only ever got 1 pension.

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    • Thank you, Resa! “A Tale of Two Cities” and various Agatha Christie novels — definitely!

      That’s a fascinating and very sad history regarding your paternal grandfather. Definitely some echoes of that in Grisham’s “The Reckoning.” Appalling when there’s a meager pension for the survivors of a war veteran.

      As I might or might not have mentioned before, my maternal grandfather was also in the Canadian military — even though he was an American! Not sure anyone in my family knew exactly why. This was in World War I, when he was VERY young.

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  4. I am attempting to write on a most treacherous an ancient pc here in Nashville, and cannot rely on it long enough to write at length.

    I press on!

    “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, when I finished the book, had such an unexpected end that fifteen minutes after I set the book down, turned out the light expecting sleep, I sat bolt upright in my bed, and could not– for hours. A most powerful, if delayed effect!

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    • Thank you, jhNY! Sorry about the balky computer. Great mention of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and its ending! Excellent, evocative description of its effect on you.

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  5. My parents had The Collected Stories of O. Henry on a living room shelf, and after loving an O. Henry story we covered in high school, I read the whole book. As many have said, he is a master of twisty endings. In crime fiction, I sometimes enjoy them, but I can also be very annoyed with them. As I think both Rebecca and Liz already said, the surprise has to be explainable through the previous text. I write police procedurals (and love to read them as well), so I feel strongly that the process of how something hidden is finally revealed has to be clearly explained.

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    • Thank you, Kim! I have a collection of O. Henry stories as well. 🙂 Definitely a master at surprise endings.

      And I hear you about how twisty conclusions in crime fiction can be organic to the book — or not. A big difference indeed.

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  8. Hi Dave,

    Two come to mind. The first is “The Life” by Malcom Knox which I know I read and loved, but cannot remember a single thing about it! I’m very much looking forward to a re-read one day when I will know that there is a twist coming, but have no idea what it is.

    At much the same time, I read Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” which was maybe starting to get a little tedious until Oh My Goodness I did not see it going there! Suddenly with a big plot reveal those characters become way more interesting. I find it funny that a friend insisted to me that Rebecca died of cancer. There was so much secrecy in that book that somehow my friend was still in the dark!

    For me, the point of a short story is often the twist. I mean, there’s no character development, we don’t spend days or weeks falling in love with these people, and I almost expect that when I spend a few hours (or maybe even minutes) with one story, it’s going to go somewhere I don’t expect. “They’re made out of meat” by Terry Bisson was good fun. Ray Bradbury’s “The Sound of Thunder” was amazing (but everything Bradbury wrote was amazing). I also enjoyed O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi”. And Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is one of the best things I’ve ever read.

    The opposite of bwat? “The House in the Cerulean Sea”. An incredibly comfortable read that went exactly where I wanted it to go. And I promise I’m not nagging you to nag your library. I just love talking about it. But I’ll stop now. Thanks for letting me be so repetitive. ❤

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    • Thank you, Susan! I appreciate the examples of “twisty” novels and short stories. And nice to have forgotten the specifics of a surprise ending when rereading the book. 🙂

      Daphne du Maurier was definitely deft with twists, as were Ray Bradbury and of course O. Henry. I need to read more of Ursula K. Le Guin!

      It’s quite okay to mention “The House in the Cerulean Sea” another time. If my library doesn’t have that book again, I’ll feel cerulean (blue). 🙂 😦

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  9. I’m glad you mentioned Lianne Moriarty, her Big Little Lies also has a pretty decent twist at the end. I also might mention the very popular “Where the Crawdads Sing,” although the twist is kind of teased for a lot of the book, it still punched me in the face a little bit! Another twist ending that I’ve thought a lot about since is Ariel Lawhon’s “I was Anastasia.” Definitely didn’t see that ending coming, even though I’m very versed in the history and should have known better haha!

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    • Thank you, M.B.! Three great mentions! Liane Moriarty indeed often has surprises in her novels — in addition to the great characters, the humor, and more. One of my favorite contemporary authors, and I think “Big Little Lies” is her best.

      I’ve heard about “Where the Crawdads Sing” having a twist, but haven’t gotten to that novel yet.

      Re “I Was Anastasia,” if we sort of know a twist is coming but are still partly surprised, that’s some good writing!

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  10. Lighter fare, “Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. ” Book had twist at end, by Gail Honeyman. Excellent book, poignant, described on Kirkus Reviews as “a very funny novel about the survivor of childhood trauma.” Not that this is a funny subject,of course, it’s her way of working through her trauma,it’s a recommended read, a page turner in my opinion.

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  11. Hi Dave, I don’t read a lot of thrillers or cozy mysteries (except for Aggie Christie), but I think Poe had some good twists in his stories. He was a master story teller. Roald Dahl also wrote some brilliant short stories. The ending of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress was quite unexpected and very good. The ending of She was also rather a surprise. I didn’t expect Ayesha to die like that.

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  12. Ages ago I have read “Lamb to the Slaughter” in the novel Completely unexpected Tales by Roald Dahl, where the dear wife, who seemed to tolerate all her husbands whims, finally took her own cruel but successful decisions! Many thanks Dave for your twisted tales:)

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  13. I find writing short stories, I’ve only written two of them but nevertheless feel qualified to comment, more challenging than a full novel, where it’s easier to hide the ending. In a novella, everything is on show, as it were. The ‘gun on the wall’ theory is so relevant.

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  14. Hi Dave! It must be quite a satisfying achievement for an author to pull off a good twist that gets everyone talking! The Lottery is just quite awful to contemplate and The Necklace is quite devastating.

    Agatha Christie managed an excellent twist in ‘The Murder of Roger Acroyd’ – I think so anyway – in fact it was quite masterful really and probably one of the first of its kind maybe? ‘Gone Girl’ by Gillian Flynn has a twist (will say no more about it if people haven’t read it or seen the movie). Although it’s been quite a while since I read it I seem to recall that ‘The Human Stain’ by Philip Roth had an unexpected ending – but I can’t remember exactly at what point we might know or suspect where it’s going.

    I haven’t read Grisham in years but I’m quite intrigued by the one you mention in your post.

    Are you going to do a post about books that have no surprises at all – but still remain captivating to read (I’m going to nominate ‘Stoner’ for that) 😉

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    • Thank you, Sarah!

      Devastating is the word to describe “The Lottery” and “The Necklace.” They both definitely haunt a reader.

      I’ve had “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” on my list for a while. Sounds like I need to get to it!

      “The Reckoning” is definitely worth a read; I thought it was one of the excellent John Grisham’s better novels.

      Not sure whether I’ll do a post about no-surprise novels (have to think about that) but I LOVED “Stoner.” Wonderful, heartbreaking book.

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      • Oh! You will enjoy reading ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’. I hope you can get to it soon! I’m putting Grisham’s novel on my list! And yes, ‘Stoner’ is a great read.
        I was also thinking for this week’s theme that Scooby Doo is a good fit – nobody EVER expects it to be the janitor 😉

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    • Thank you, Carol! From my one experience with Georgette Heyer’s work, I’m impressed with her writing and can imagine how well she’d do with a twist. 🙂 I didn’t know she also wrote some detective stories!

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      • GH wrote about a dozen mysteries. Her husband was a barrister & helped with the research. She loved doing them but they didn’t sell as well as the romances & she was always in financial difficulty.

        This is the third one she wrote & would be a good place to start as Footsteps in the ark is quite clunky & the oly good thing about Why Shoot a Butler? is the title!

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  17. The most recent one that fits this week’s theme is Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent. I won’t spoil it, but I never saw it coming and probably should have! The ‘tone’ towards the end changed so dramatically that many reviewers protested. I enjoyed it immensely.

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  18. Dave – you will have me thinking about this topic for a few days.Surprise endings will make a narrative memorable, but whether we like the surprise ending, is another question altogether, isn’t it? The shockingly not-foreseen conclusion of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” was memorable, but I didn’t particularly care for it. I was 13 and I still remember my absolute horror of the ending. But the storyline was powerful. Years later, I recognized that the Lottery was a thought-provoking and suspenseful narrative that explores the dark side of human nature that challenges our societal norms and the capacity for cruelty within themselves and others. But I am glad I read it when I was 13.

    What I like best about surprise endings – they often reveal hidden layers of the narrative. This past year I have enjoyed reading fiction (a break from my non-fiction stack of TBR books) and have found that twists and turns, surprise beginnings and endings remind me that life is all about twists, turns and surprises. If I look back, I would never have considered that life’s twists, turns and surprises (and serendipity) would have brought me to where I am today.

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    • Thank you, Rebecca! Yes, the ending of “The Lottery” was VERY upsetting. But it did say a lot about the nature of too many humans. I didn’t read Shirley Jackson’s story until I was well into adulthood; reading it at age 13, as you did, is a whole different experience.

      And surprise endings, when done right, do reveal a lot about the preceding narrative — often leading to some very interesting rereads. 🙂 And I agree that a twist type of conclusion to a story or novel can reflect real life.

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    • Hi Rebecca, you always write such interesting comments. The best books are those which simulate real life with its many downs and ups. Often the downs are more vivid in our minds and memories because times of illness or loss are more devastating to us than work promotions and other achievements – well, in my mind anyway.

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      • I agree, Robbie. Loss triggers a deep sense of grief and sadness, which is amplified when we experience a significant change or absence in our lives. Achieving great things may bring us a sense of accomplishment and pride, but the emotional intensity is not as strong as the pain of loss, especially when the loss is sudden and unexpected. I just finished Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking” which prompted me to consider grief through her experience.

        “A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.” Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

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  19. Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, since Jane never crippled her sister. A lot of Bradbury’s short story collections, i.e. The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles. Vonnegut’s shorts in Welcome To The Monkey House esp loved Tom Edison’s Shaggy Dog. Stephen King’s Dead Zone. And a nice link to some others featuring my daughter’s IG acount re some books that are twisty, ie Gone Girl being the only one I’m familiar with: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cucf9syA-LP/?igshid=YmM0MjE2YWMzOA==

    Great theme Dave, thanks Susi.

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    • Thank you, Susi, for all those twist examples!

      I’ve seen the “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” movie; I noticed after a peek at Wikipedia that the film was based on a novel by Henry Farrell.

      And your mention of Ray Bradbury reminded me of his famous, twisty short story “A Sound of Thunder” about how a time traveler messing with the past can potentially change the present and future.

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      • Oh, how incredibly sad that movie ending was!!! If only, if only, if only! Nothing had to end the way it did! I wonder if Jane’s sister lived? I wonder what they did with Jane? Of course, I realize that they were fictional characters….., but still.

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        • Thank you, lulabelle! That movie’s ending was indeed intense. Sometimes fiction and fictional characters can have a REALLY strong emotional impact on a viewer (or reader).

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      • Henry Farrell’s books are considered tops in the Dame Guiginol tradition. A lot of them became movies because he was a screenwriter as well. To list a few: Whatever Happened To Cousin Charlotte? and/or the film Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte, Whatever Happened To Aunt Alice? film with the same name starring Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon, etc. Kinda prolific with the whatevers, but as they say if it works don’t fix it. Re other books of this sort: https://www.goodreads.com/genres/grande-dame-guignol

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  20. My fallback position on “the twist” mirrors what I was taught by my first creative writing prof: the ending should be unexpected but inevitable. Thou shalt not trick the reader! The worst offender I’ve read is that Civil War novel that left the entire marital relationship conflict by having the wife shoot the husband in the face by mistake at the end. I was so angry, the name of the book escapes me.

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  21. I loved reading O’Henry’s short stories. I read “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” long before I saw the film version. It was a French film that was purchased by CBS to be aired on The Twilight Zone. This was the only time that series aired an episode they hadn’t produced themselves. The original deal only allowed CBS to show the film two times. I didn’t see the episode until I purchased the DVDs. It is available now on Paramount+

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  22. If you think of the Bible simply as literature, it starts out in a beautiful garden but then turns to murder, slavery, mayhem, major sinfulness everywhere, crucifixion (at least in the Christian Bible) and on and on. So how many readers imagine the God-wins ending of the book of Revelation?

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