The Art of the Shocking Plot Twist

*Warning* ― Contains spoilers for books and movies included in the discussion.

An unforgettable plot twist can leave a reader slack jawed and blinking in disbelief at the page. It can make the story more compelling and, depending on the timing, can up the stakes and intensity, or take the story in a completely different direction. But this isn’t a device for books alone; it can happen in any form of storytelling. M. Night Shyamalan stunned viewers when his final act of The Sixth Sense revealed that Bruce Willis’ protagonist had been killed in the opening scene and that the only real interactions in the movie took place with the small boy who stated that ‘he could see dead people’. Willis was a ghost.

When I was a teenager, years before the Young Adult category of books even existed, I moved from reading children’s books to reading many of the classic mystery novels around the house ― Arthur Conan Doyle, Earl Stanley Gardner, Agatha Christie and the like ― and there were two distinct times in my memory when Dame Christie left me gaping at the written page with her plot twists.

• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd ― A Hercule Poirot novel, told from the first person perspective of Dr. John Sheppard, Poirot’s assistant during this case. Following the suicide death of a wealthy widow who admitted to killing her husband, the man expected to marry her is found murdered. The numerous suspects include the victim’s family members, the household staff and the victim’s neighbours, but, in the end, Poirot accuses Dr. Sheppard, the narrator, of committing the crime. This was my first experience with an ‘unreliable narrator’ and it left me stunned. It was an interesting literary device ― using omission and evasion on the part of the narrator to hide the fact that he was, in fact, the murderer.

• And Then There Were None (also published as Ten Little Indians in the U.S.) ― A group of strangers are invited to an isolated island off the coast of Devon, England. During their first dinner together a gramophone is played, accusing each of them of the crime of murder. Over the course of the next several days, the guests are killed off one by one, each in accordance with a verse in the poem ― The Ten Little Indians ― found framed in each guest’s bedroom. Nine guests die and then the final guest, exhausted and overwhelmed with guilt, finds a noose hanging in her room and kills herself. Later it is revealed that Judge Wargrave, the sixth victim, staged his death with the help of one of the other guests, who he then killed as the seventh victim. Once everyone on the island was dead, Wargrave ingeniously took his own life to resemble his original ‘death’, leaving the police with a truly mindboggling puzzle. The judge’s confession and explanation is later found as a message in a bottle, revealing the details of his nefarious plan. The conclusion to this story caught me totally off guard. Essentially, it is sleight of hand ― once Wargrave is declared dead, the reader discounts him as a suspect, and, at least for me, the possibility that any of the deaths might be questionable never occurred to me.

These are only two examples, and certainly not an exhaustive list. As a reader, what are the most memorable twists that you can remember?

Photo by CarbonNYC

Forensic Case Files: The Lost Remains of Joan of Arc

Forensic science can be used for so much more than victim identification or determining cause of death in criminal cases. One such alternate use is shedding light in historical venues. An example of this was the modern day examination of the putative remains of Joan of Arc, originally discovered in 1867. Were they real? Forensic science was able to reveal the truth.

Joan of Arc (1412 – 1431) was a French peasant girl who claimed that she had visions of several saints telling her to drive the invading English from her country. Four years later, she appealed to the Dauphin to allow her to lead the army into battle, saying that God himself had instructed that she do so. As the French were at a very low point in the war, the Dauphin gave his permission.

Joan’s accomplishments during battle are still under discussion, but it is believed that she was a successful strategist and tactician, allowing the French to win many crucial battles and helping to turn the tide of the Hundred Years’ War. What is generally agreed upon, however, is that Joan used her position to turn the conflict into a religious war.

Joan was captured by the English in May of 1430, and was tried for heresy and witchcraft based on her statements that God had commanded her to lead her army into battle. She was found guilty and was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431 at 19 years of age. After death, her body was burned twice more until it was reduced to ashes. Then her remains were cast into the Seine to prevent their recovery by the French.

In 1867, a dusty glass jar was discovered in the attic of a Paris pharmacy. Labelled ‘Remains found under the stake of Joan of Arc, virgin of Orleans’, the jar contained what appeared to be a charred human rib, a chunk of burned wood, a swatch of linen and the thigh bone of a cat (it was common practice in the 14^th century to throw a black cat on the pyre of an accused witch to burn with her). The Roman Catholic Church believed these artifacts to be real and included them in a museum that was part of the Archdiocese of Tours.

Dr Philippe Charlier, a Parisian forensic scientist, wanted to subject the remains to modern science to prove their validity. After receiving approval from the Church, he conducted a series of tests. The black residue that covered the rib bone was discovered through mass spectroscopy to be a vegetal and mineral matrix consistent with embalming materials used by the Egyptians centuries before the Common Era. Carbon-14 analysis of the relics dated them between the third and sixth centuries B.C.E. Odour analysis of the remains detected a vanilla-like scent. As vanillan is produced by decomposing remains, this only strengthened the argument that the remains had not been cremated. In the end, Dr. Charlier concluded that the remains were from an Egyptian mummy, dead for centuries before Joan lived. His results were published in the journal Nature in April 2007.

The Church accepted these results as fact, declaring that it is now likely that Joan’s remains are lost forever.

Painting of Joan of Arc, artist unknown, circa 1485.

Playing Hooky Is Good For The Soul

Ann and I were supposed to be working most of this weekend on a new project. After a week of research, this was when we’d agreed to start putting our respective heads together to get the planning off the ground. But when it’s Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, it’s 26^oC/79^oF without a single cloud in the sky, and you know that within six weeks the snow will be flying... well, let’s just say it’s not hard to talk yourself into heading outside instead of sitting inside staring at your monitor.

On Sunday, after a really productive morning of joint planning, I played hooky and went out with the family for a hike in a nearby conservation area. So, instead of my regular blog post on writing or forensics, today I bring you instead the beauty that is fall in Southern Ontario (because apparently I’m playing hooky on the blog too). Special thanks to my oldest daughter for her photography skills as well as her mad Photoshopping skills because all nature looks nicer with no people in it!

It was a beautiful, peaceful and fun few hours away from work. And I came back recharged and ready to hit the keyboard again. I don’t do it very often, but occasionally playing hooky is good because sometimes we all just need a break and a breath of fresh air.

  Spencer Gorge

Sunlight breaking through the trees

Logies Creek at the top of Tewes falls

  Tewes Falls

  Looking towards Dundas Peak

  The view from Dundas Peak

So who else played hooky this weekend? It was a beautiful weekend in the northeastern States and Ontario. I know I wasn't the only one. Come on, 'fess up!

Photo credit: Jess Newton

Writing Workspaces ― The Usual and the Unique

As writers, most of us have an established workspace. A space we've claimed as our own, where we can be comfortable enough to spend hours getting lost in that creative mindset we love so much. But where we write can be as individual as what we write.

When we moved into our house fifteen years ago, my husband claimed the den as his workspace (he's a computer guy and always has programming etc. on the go). As I hadn't returned to the world of writing at that point, it made sense. But later, I needed a place to call my own and we didn't have a room to repurpose with two kids and a full house. But, in the end, our spacious oak dining room table perfectly suited my needs. Located on the main floor, it's in a shared space with the kitchen and living room, allowing me to write and simultaneously cook/assist with homework/generally oversee family life. It's right in the middle of our family chaos and that makes it perfect for me. If I need privacy to work, I put on my headphones, crank up an appropriate soundtrack and off I go into my own little world. And I have the added bonus of my daughters often sharing the space with me as they crash on a living room couch with their own laptop, so writing is rarely a solitary act for me.

But what about odd spaces? We've all had moments when we've had to carve out writing time when we aren't in our usual spots. For me those spaces have been many and varied:

• Having an idea hit hard while traveling on a family vacation and spending hours sitting in the passenger seat while my husband drove, typing madly to get the scene down before it disappeared.

• Needing time out of the lab and finding it under a tree in the middle of the campus quad, surrounded by students lying in the grass reading or playing Ultimate Frisbee.

• In elementary school hallways between volleyball tournament games when my youngest daughter was off-court.

• Sitting by my mother's bedside in the ER after she broke her hip. This definitely wins the prize as the oddest spot for me. How I managed to write one of our most emotional and intimate scenes to date in the middle of that chaos and emotional turmoil is beyond me. Perhaps turning that turmoil around and pouring it into my characters really helped give it that extra emotional boost.

What about you? What space do you use for your creative pursuits and have you ever been forced to make use of the space that is handy versus the space that you've made? How successful were you in those odd spots?

Photo credit: JimboRocks