I’ve recently come across the trope several times and I’m getting extremely sick of it.
For one example, I read this quirky queer sci-fi fantasy with a perfect cast of unproblematic characters...when suddenly we met a new character...and she was RUDE to the perfect main characters!! I waited for her to be killed in instant karmic retribution but to my surprise...she lived for the rest of the book and it looks like she's going to be a main character of the sequel. Wtf??
As a second example, I'm reading a fantasy book about a schoolboy who's the chosen one and I'm thinking that I get where this is going right? The boy is gonna gradually learn about his powers, defeat enemies without much sacrifice, and it's all gonna be really wholesome. Imagine my surprise when they reveal that there is no "chosen one" and these fuckass wizards were just grooming this boy into their cult the whole time.
Why?? Why would an author pull the rug out from under a reader like that? Do they think readers WANT to be suprised? Do they think we want something unexpected to happen in our cozy fantasy books?? Well not me. This is making me lose my trust in authors to the point where I'll only be reading AI from here on out.
Ah, yes, the "Something Unexpected Happening" trope. I've managed to escape that trope, myself. I wrote a book about nothing.
I love books about nothing. Those are the best books!
Good on you for avoiding the most common pitfall.
the real sauce was the friends we made along the way
October Surprise
It's called "save the ketchup"
I believe it's save the catsup, actually.
Surely save the cantrip?
/uj Are these inspired by real books? The first book seems to be Gideon the Ninth, but what about the second? It seems like an interesting concept.
wait is it Harry Potter
/uj can't be harry potter, he's always the chosen one. Could be some sort of satirical remake though?
/uj The second one sounds a lot like Carry On by Rainbow Rowell to me, but tbh could be Harry Potter
The third act?
This implies that there is a second act.
You may be on to something here. If we work on this we might be able to deduce some sort of cohesive narrative structure these stories could be built around.
Schrodonger's Dong
OP discovered the midpoint
/unjerk
Just came from the post that inspired this one and had typed out a long explanation and then realized I was just explaining a basic twist/reveal/general subversion, and got really discouraged and just erased it and scrolled away.
Maybe it would've been good to educate, but I'm tired, Atlas is gonna shrug that one off today.
A 'twist'. As in, "omg whattatwist!!!!!!"
The Big Bamboozle
/uj id read that second book
Have I got GREAT news for you! You can! And even better than that, you can read SEVEN of them!
This. Don't expect the grooming to have much of an impact on the character, though. In fact, by the end he seems pretty cool with it, actually.
Agreed. It’s actually climaxing but I’m so tired of climaxing. Every time the author decides to give us a twist, we have to stop before the climax. We are calling it “The Reader’s Edge”. Look into it
The twist? Third Act in many manga and light novel writing structure.
Crisis/climax of act 2, sets up the resolution of act 3