My favorite trope in thrillers, so rarely done, is when it turns out EVERYONE is in on it, a la Rosemary's Baby or Murder on the Orient Express. It's deeply unsettling.
Agreed. There was a bit of it in Serpico except it wasn't a twist but it was clear since day one that the whole corrupt police precinct was against the main character.
one way to do it leave a hint somewhere, where the focus is drawen to something else, like hide a twist behind a twist. Aludeing to a secret, give hints for and against it so the reader is inversted but when the secret is revealed it is only a tiny part of the actual twist. Maybe the investigator jumped to a wierd conclusion at some point, that does not make much sense, but is a hint to their own secret. While leaving the next clue in an ofhand comment ment as a joke, where the investigator does not react to, or brushes of or something else that does not have to mean anything, but could. Romance often geathers a lot of focus so scenes that get the hopes of the reader up there are also excelent for hideing a clue in, while the reader is to invested elsewhere to think anything of it. . . . Grrm is really prolific at that and it is redicioulus how many leading up sentences you can find sometimes while rereading his books . . . like someone stateing " . . . and get you to your . . . .s bloody wedding!" and bloody the wedding went indeed . . . For the romance thing, maby let the guy act secretiv, vanish at times and all of it is explained with him haveing bought and engagement ring and planing to propose . . . only to later uncover that that was only part of it and he had another secret all along too. Or two characters share(ed) a secret and one suspects it was an affair, and that is true, but the actual twist is that they had run someone over with a car or something like that. Practicly it is a red herring, but one that is not just a missdirect but somewhat true and very much connected to the actual thing if not compleatly integral for it.
Without giving away too many details to avoid spoilers, the last gut punch twist reminds me of an excellent Criminal Minds episode where they tracked down a family's murderer, but after all was said and done, they found a stash of trophies from soooooo many other murdered families that they had no idea about, and know they'll never be able to solve or connect to missing people. Turned out what they thought was a sloppy one-time killer was actually a serial killer who just happened to make a mistake that one time. Always stuck with me! Not a book, I know, but still great writing and chilling story telling.
Nikolai Yglesias was it the episode with the wedding rings in the box ? Remember the episode with the family who killed the parents and kidnapped the girls for their son to be his wife and then it turns out that he has brothers and the last thing we see is a different family that does the same...
@@MsPandachen I remember that! Ugh, that family creeped me out so much. But yeah, Criminal Minds has some pretty good thriller plots sprinkled in there.
I hate it when the killer is revealed and they were pretty normal the whole time but then once they are confronted and they snap and go 11/10 psycho in a single instant. Somehow they go from the sweet college intern who loves photography to an eye-twitching, drooling lunatic in a blink of an eye. It's so out of character that it ruins it, feels so corny My favorite: when someone who has been victimized by the killer gets sweet sweet revenge outside of the law
I’ve always loved murder mysteries where the protagonist is trying to uncover a mystery from the distant past. I think it’s the allure of working with limited clues, the concept of intergenerational secrets (which often comes up in this) and the flashbacks that I love. It also leads to two separate but related storylines which I really enjoy
Tegan Martin Check out the series called Unforgotten- it’s on Netflix I think. It’s about a police team who find skeletons of people who died a long time ago and they solve their murders. It shows flashbacks of all the characters involved as well. It might not be exactly what you described but it’s very similar.
I hate the "person isn't dead" trope to my core. If you are going to have someone not dead, I'd prefer something like Gone Girl where the audience is told before the other characters are. I always feel cheated when the big twist is they aren't dead, especially if it is a murder mystery. Why am I here if the person isn't even dead? The one case where I don't like the not dead trope, but I don't dislike it is in things like the Oceans movie series. When your cast is a bunch of master criminals, you already expect them to do something like fake their own death. In that case, I'm willing to give it to them and suspend my disbelief.
Any Endeavour fans out there? That show has a trope which is one of my favorites. I love it when the protagonist is constantly undermined or forced to fight against the establishment, or when the investigation carries a very high cost. Or, best of all, both. The first two seasons of the Killing are good for this reason also.
I really don't appreciate the trope of the love interest being the twist bad guy, almost as much as the love triangle trope in romance. I guess I like relationships to be uncomplicated in my fiction.
There was a spy thriller where everybody and their dog would expect the love interest to be a spy, even the MC. The funny part was when the reveal occurred and he had just so much disappointment in his voice and on his face. Like: "Come on, really?! I suspected you, but I was so convinced that you'd make the right choice!" And the audience was of course on his side :)
Bollywood likes to do that. There's a Russian parody where the girl tells the MC "I'm your cousin", the guy tells the MC "I'm your brother!" then the dad tells the MC "and I'm your momma"
hm, when it is already mostly about family dynamics and drama it can work out, but it does need a good reason and make narrativ sense instead of just out of nowhere leading nowhere. I have a story where most characters are either related or family of choice . . . but it is the main motive of the story, fucked up family dynamics, what is family, what makes one family, how does it change things . . . responsability, expectations, all the stuff that can go wrong . . .
There was an excellent “final gut punch” twist in The Chalk Man, literally on the very last page, because it had nothing to do with the overall mystery but instead with this sub plot thread that you’ve been aware of the whole time. I knew there was some sort of final twist on the last page when I read it but I still got major chills.
I like when the final twist is the "inherited malice" kind of situation. When a bad guy is caught, but his example was strongly impressed upon a survived victim or their significant other/family member; or the bad guy had a son/ daughter, who then naturally has an incline to the same thing their family member was obsessed with and they become possessed with their evil spirit so to say. This is hypnotizing to me and a very good cliffhanger/opening for a sequel.
@@bayoumuddah I was having in mind the premise of the twelfth episode from Lie To Me series (season 1). I just remember being so impressed by the idea of this kind of cerebral imprint. I don't really know if any book did this successfully or had it as a core idea, but that would be a great read and I would definitely follow through series of that.
Oh man, this is my faaaaavorite topic. I'm with you on Sometimes I Lie - I remember finishing that and going...wait. ??? My most HATED thriller trope, though, is definitely Villain is the Barren Woman Who is So Bitter She Can't Have Children, She Steals Another Woman's Child And/Or Plots to Take Over That Woman's Life. It is...astonishing how many thrillers I've read with this twist. (For a GREAT final twist, I recommend Friends Like These. It's one of those twists that takes you a hot second to figure out, and then you get it and you're like HOLY F---)
I also hate when the sudden sociopath happens or the innocent child who no way could have done it. The absolute BEST is when the narrator misinterpreted information and we went right along with it because it seemed so minor, and that info was there the whole time for us to see. We just didn't know we should look. Example - The Woman in the Window.
I just read A Stranger in the House and really liked how it was constantly making me question everything I thought I knew. The ending was surprising yet inevitable. I always get so frustrated when I can see the twist coming from a million miles away. I prefer to figure it out right before it’s revealed so I feel smart 😂
I like if it is a double twist, if you can geather part of it and feel smart and vindicated when it is reviealed, but while you where bussy doing that, you missed something else that overshadowes that guessed part of the twist! First and very shallow example that came into my mind, there are hints of two shareing a secret. Hints it might be an affair and it is kind of a big deal. There are hints for and against it but when it is revieled to be true, you get suprised by the actual twist beeing that they had run over someone with their car and it was hinted on, but under the more obvious and attention grabbing affair suspicion, they had been overlooked. Similar to a redherring, but not really a misslead for it is an integral part of the twist, just not the most importent one.
Some of these remind me of the Sarah Alderson books you recommended. I have never heard of Sarah Alderson before but after reading Friends Like These and In Her Eyes, I have developed an interest in more of her books and since I am not leaving the house much with my kiddo to look for reading material, I have turned to my kindle and downloaded a sample of The Sound. I hope that one is good!
not a book but the "final gut punch" made me think of Lone Star (1996). the whole time you're following a deep small-town secret, with B-plots that are relevant in theme and after the A plot is given a satisfying ending, it turns out the B-plot had a twist you didn't even realize was coming! it's one of the only time i've been really shocked by a mystery films' ending, all the while still having it make complete sense
I wonder if this is part of this genre or not, but what the main characer who is all things consired good suddenly finds out that he Has been the main villain the whole time, but simply does not know it until the very end because some kind of blackouts?
I personally hate the secret sociopath trope. Anytime it turns out the mentally ill person did it all along, I want to vomit. I'm so sick of thrillers that rely on mental illness as a motivation for the bad guy. It villainizes mental illness and it's bad writing. Come up with more unique twists and motivations PLEASE.
THIS. I'm sick of seeing people with delusional or personality disorders (Schizophrenia, DID NPD BPD ASPD) being rolled out as the bad guy. You can have a bad guy and not give an actual disorder to them. Let people speculate. I know plenty of people with PDs who would never dream of behaving like a bad guy in a thriller. In fact, they typically harm themselves.
@@Alicearomidice That's not true. There are plenty of motivations for murder other than mental illness, for example revenge, rivalry/competition, money, eliminating witnesses, eliminating people in the way of the character's goals, etc. And in my experience readers tend to like these kinds of motivations more than "i'm a crazy mentally ill person so i killed this random person for no other apparent reason"
You mentioned Fatal attraction and then said "Bunny Broiler" which made me realise that the phrase is actually "Bunny Boiler" and that phrase actually did come from the plot of Fatal Attraction!!
I read a YA thriller a few months ago with a great last gut punch twist. The last line was so creepy that I still get skeeved out when I think about it. I think Alexa may have even had the book in one of her previous vlogs/wrap-ups. But don't quote me on that.
@@dylanwickersham5610 this is a really late reply, but I read this book at around the same time as you and was so shocked by the last line! It was a great twist
@@darcywinrow5729 Definitely was! I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did a killer job with the delivery. If you enjoy Karen M. McManus' writing, One of Us is Next has a great last page zinger too!
@@dylanwickersham5610 that’s a great point, I can imagine it being very chilling on an audiobook! I read One of Us is Next and the ending of that was great too! I assume you’ve read One of Us is Lying, and I was so impressed with the plot twist in that! What other books do you read?
@@darcywinrow5729 I'm mostly a fantasy reader because that's typically what I write. But I enjoy throwing a few thrillers into the mix to keep things fresh. For thrillers I try to keep an even share of YA and adult. In terms of YA I've read all of Karen's books, some Wendy Walker, E. Lockhart, Kara Thomas, and I adore Tiffany D. Jackson's catalog. For adult it really runs the gamut, but a few of my auto-buys are Riley Sager, Megan Goldin, and Ruth Ware.
I watched this video when it was uploaded last year, but have come back to it, because I have a thriller I want to write, but could not, for the life of me, figure out what actually happened. I knew my red herrings, when the girl went missing, several scenes and twisty moments throughout, just not the ending. This really helped. I am combing several of these, sort of, but this was a great video. Thanks!
Honestly, sociopath tropes just aren't my thing. I have an interest in psychology and while it's cool to go back and look for all the hints that the person was a sociopath, I don't really like the demonizing of sociopaths in fiction.. it's a genuine mental illness and if that's the reason they committed the crime in entirety, it's a. Unrealistic and b. Not the person's fault so I would have a hard time hating them. Lots of sociopaths in our daily life just want to live their lives and stay out of trouble, which is why there's many more sociopaths out there than people realize and while they do have empathy deficits, that doesn't mean they would literally murder someone just because that person got in their way or ticked them off. I have been working on a small empathy defecit (result of autism) myself, and I've grown up around narcissists and sociopaths so that trope just strikes the wrong nerves with me. Like if a murderer happens to be a sociopath, cool, but they'd better still have a really good motive besides just "I'm a sociopath so I don't care about other people"
the obvious bad guy can be intruiging when done well, like makeing you second guess cause it is just to obvious only to find out, that while the murderer is totaly who everyone expected, their motive is something compleatly suprising that makes your brain implode when you go back and notice, how everything you have read and thought before suddenly gets a different meaning. Or when everyone in and out of universe knowes who did it and the whole suspense lies on the how and why for it is just somehow impossible to pin them down for it. but yeah, it really sucks if it is obvious to the reader but treated like this huge twist makeing you feel like the investigator and everyone else in the book is just utterly braindead
Surprise! Not dead - I get a kick out of this one. POV narrative trickery: I love this. I feel like it mirrors my own life experience. Often seeing another point of view makes things suddenly seem pretty different. Justified bad guys: I love it when the "bad guy" has a good reason and is more of an antagonist or "person with a different (but reasonable) opinion. The bonkers twist: I just like things that are out of left field / off the wall. The least expected: I wonder why anyone doesn't just suspect everyone all the time. I kind of do. Final gut punch twist: Murphy's Law could strike at any time. It simply always applies. Dangling threads: It would be nice if everything in life always ended with everything all tied up in a neat little bow - but that's not how it usually works in my experience.
There was one time I played a game where the protagonist was the killer. And we didn't know they did it until it came out during the trial. There were subtle hints, like the narrative never stating that they put an item down that was later used as the murder weapon, or them doing something a bit odd that was really them subtly setting up a trap, but it wasn't something that really made sense until the truth came out. It was utterly gut wrenching and still one of my favorite plot twists EVER. There was so much foreshadowing that were so clear after figuring out what happened, but the hints were so subtle. Granted, it likely wasn't too difficult to hide, considering that the game was about investigating a series of murders (ie. solve one and another happens) rather than just one murder for the entirety of the plot.
9:24 (spoilers for The Cheerleaders) When you were talking about the final-gut punch twists the Cheerleaders was what I immediately thought of because Ginny was so close to Monica and her reasoning make sense and everything all kind of tied into and somehow this plot twist ended up being better than the main one
Final chilling twist at end makes me think of McTeague by Frank Norris. My favorite book ending ever, just a fantastic final image, like a cherry on top emphasizing the theme. I aspire to writing an ending that satisfyingly beautiful and dark.
I go nuts when there is a paranormal twist. If I have not been warned and sign up for a straight up thriller throwing in body changing will drive me bonkers. Worst and laziest twist ever!!!!!!
Weirdly enough I agree with all of these? But I think the WORST ones are either the twist for a twists sake and leaving threads unacknowledged. Like WHY WERE THEY THERE THEN?!?!?!
I'm writing a screenplay with your last favorite type twist. It is difficult. Especially for a time travel story. It's a motive reveal that I hope isn't doing fault to the story by it's omission. I won't know till it's finished.
My main character in a scrapped story is a major cynic / depressed, but some of my friends and family said that it made them uncomfortable.... But I loved writing him, so I'm probably going to use him, or a version of him in future works.
well, I think thrillers should be uncomfortable to read, haveing compleatly wholesome characters in a messed up plot simply does make sense . . . of cause you have to chose carefuly when to read a story with a character that strains you, but I do not think it is a bad thing in itself.
The only time I've liked the "if I can't have you no one can" was on Psych when the two old women were best friends but one was a secret lesbian because of the time she grew up in and killed all the men in her best friend/crushes life out of jealousy.
I know this video's a year old but I just wanted to comment! My favorite trope you covered is probably, "Justified Bad Guy" , I always called it the "No Angel" trope ala the victim was no angel (despite being portrayed as such when dead) and you kind of sympathize with the villian? Especially when you have your POV character(s) be completely un aware so and so was evil/sociopath/psychopath/narcissistic etc and are stunned and have to reevaluate who the victim was and why they were killed and more importantly-when it expands the potential suspect list. When it's done right?.*chefs kiss*. My least favorite is one you sorta covered although I'll asterisk it with "obsessively in love with a side character/MC's love interest". I knew of a thriller where this random dude was behind it all because he was obsessed with the main characters husband and the ending was laughably bad. it was so ridiculous and offensive 🙄.
The final gut punch twits done badly can ruin an otherwise good book. The Memory Watcher was an EXCELLENT book, i absolutely loved it, and I was jazzed getting to the end of it, but then it just threw this twist in that had nothing to do with anything: not the a or b plot, it didnt connect to any of the other characters it was just "and THIS OTHER THING, ALL ALONG THIS OTHER THING HAS BEEN TRUE!" and while thats interesting and all, a good twist like in Shutter Island needs to make me want to go back and reread and look for it, it needs to completely recontextualize what i thought was true.
I need to watch your red herring video because in my book I’m trying to write I want the red herring to be the MC’s ex but I want to slowly introduce the idea that they are a little psychotic but in a different way from murder. So there’s another twist but the red herring character wasn’t committing the murders but actually obsessing over the MC the whole time to the point where they kidnap them or something (still trying to work it out)
Oh, I totaly hate that too, unfinished red herrings that make just no sense to be unfinished . . . sometimes it tells a story if you do not get every single piece . . . and you can actualy do something with that . . . but if they just get abandoned out of lazeyness I can go balistic
I wonder if you'd really like the Korean drama Stranger / Secret Forest on Netflix. It's SUCH a good tv show with such an interesting choice for a main character - a man who can't really feel emotions due to a frontal lobotomy he had as a child. He's apathetic but not heartless and it's a really interesting take. Also the big reveal? Holy shit I lost my mind, because they had essentially told us the motive at one point in character dialogue but it never clicked with other info that already we had until it was revealed. I wasn't a particular fan of the final ending of the first season, mostly because I feel like it tried to make a martyr out of someone who shouldn't have been. They're making a second season though and I'm definitely excited for it.
If you haven't already, let me suggest a few books that I think do some of these twists VERY well: Gone Girl (obviously), Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney, The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, and Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter (severe TW for this one though! It's brutal but SO layered!) Enjoy!
Not to name any names but a certain author who's name rhymes with Tara Kay Bass hits a lot of these bad tropes lol and it's basically why she's really bad at writing mysteries (but somehow keeps getting away with writing them 🤷♀️)
The Wives had potential to subvert the trope it ended up using, and it's a shame that didn't happen because all that did happen was a journey to the land of confusion.
I do not recommend THE GIRL WHO LIVED. It falls into a few of your dislikes. Also TRIPTYCH, which has an AMAZING setup but a follow-through that led me to believe the author was retaliating against being forced to rewite the last third of the novel.
Idk if this is a trope, but I'm really sensitive to coincidences in the resolutions of mysteries/thrillers. I hate it if the protagonist only knows the perpetrator for reasons that don't connect at all to the crime. (This happens most in detective books, I think, since in a domestic/small town thriller, every character has a plausible connection to the crime.) I really like POV trickery! There's a classic sci-fi book where one character takes another's name part-way through (with respect to the flashback timeline--it's complicated), and when you find out, you have to reframe everything you thought you'd understood about them. On an unrelated note, does anyone have any thriller recommendations? 😜
I have a gultiplessure with tropes and chlischees that are often really really bad, done right. Just this little twist one it that turn something from cheap and lazy into greatness. lovetriangles, secret family, unreliable narrators, dissociate identety disorder, amnesia, the bad guy was right all along . . . all those thing are so commen for they have the potential for greatness if done right, everyone jumped on the bandwagon and than fucked them up . . . I love when they are done selfconciouly and with a lot of humor in some cases or if something that usualy is played for humor and cheap drama, gets suddenly taken seriously and explored . . .
I love a good use of the unrelatable narrator and I love it, if things do not get spelled out. Where the mysterys solution is solid, but somewhat multiple choice dependend on how literaly you take certein comments and things like that. Grrm does that a lot, where you get from several characters a diverse range of possible explanations and you kind of have to piece togeather, how it actualy went down. Like with who hired a certein assasin, we are given a solution, but the character giveing it is drunk and biased so probably not right . . . . or most instances of things beeing attributed to magic also have a realworld viable explanation dependend on how you interpret the evidance which is a very good solution to the, if you have magic, it explains everything problem. It could have been magic, but you will never know when it is coincedance, something real and well . . . actualy magic. Or how delusions and mental healthproblems can be easely overlooked, if the character is actualy haveing visions and experiencing magic . . . where is he line between what had been real and what not? This conflicting reality thing is something I enjoy imenly but many who attempt it fuck it up really badly and if one does . . . it is a really really cheap and bad story.
I'm weird to I like to hijack the whole thriller thing to criticize society and us. I feel like just writing about A investigating B is a waste. I also like fiction pieces with moral lessons/positive messages as long as they aren't too preachy.
I mean if you check my bio you'll see I have two books out from HMH, and a YA thriller that will be published by Penguin Random House in 2021? If that's what you mean.
@@AlexaDonne Yes! I hope the 2021 Penguin Random House deal goes great. Maybe a short blowing of your trumpet at the start of the vids would satisfy people watching (like me) that you have authority and a history of success. It's quite the done thing, no shame in it. It would have put me at ease at the start and I could have trusted your guidance better, without the niggling feeling that you might not know what you were talking about.
@@AlexaDonne Also, I stumbled on one of your videos and commented rashly, your channel is an experience to be taken in, not just one video in isolation. I am going to drink it in!
My favorite twists are creative twists. Show me something that had never been done before and I would love it! Make a child come out of a box that has been shut for 100 years. Make a house coexist in two places. Make someone's literal blood the antidote to a zombie apocalypse. Surprise me.
oof I hate the "all the sudden this is fantasy now!" twist on an otherwise comtemp. thriller book. It's such a clearly gimmicky "I'm smarter than you! ha-ha-HA-haa-haaa" from the author and it's like no shit sherlock you switch the genre lol
Ok but like for real can authors stop it with did/killer trope?? I have did and it's not Jekyll and Hyde it's depression, flashbacks, eating disorders, anxiety, ptsd and for fucks sake is not obvious to recognize nor do we change clothes every damn time someone switches
My favorite trope in thrillers, so rarely done, is when it turns out EVERYONE is in on it, a la Rosemary's Baby or Murder on the Orient Express. It's deeply unsettling.
Agreed. There was a bit of it in Serpico except it wasn't a twist but it was clear since day one that the whole corrupt police precinct was against the main character.
Freaking hate that trope. 99% of the time it sucks, for my money anyway.
Y E S
yaaaasss
instablaster
Can you do a video on leaving clues throughout the book? I want to write a mystery, but I don’t want to make things obvious
I know one - numbers. The character thinks they mean one thing but it was another. Happened in the first Millennium book, won't spoil more.
Make the clues little things. Like a muddy shoe or a date being incorrect. Those are my jam.
one way to do it leave a hint somewhere, where the focus is drawen to something else, like hide a twist behind a twist. Aludeing to a secret, give hints for and against it so the reader is inversted but when the secret is revealed it is only a tiny part of the actual twist.
Maybe the investigator jumped to a wierd conclusion at some point, that does not make much sense, but is a hint to their own secret. While leaving the next clue in an ofhand comment ment as a joke, where the investigator does not react to, or brushes of or something else that does not have to mean anything, but could.
Romance often geathers a lot of focus so scenes that get the hopes of the reader up there are also excelent for hideing a clue in, while the reader is to invested elsewhere to think anything of it. . . . Grrm is really prolific at that and it is redicioulus how many leading up sentences you can find sometimes while rereading his books . . . like someone stateing " . . . and get you to your . . . .s bloody wedding!" and bloody the wedding went indeed . . .
For the romance thing, maby let the guy act secretiv, vanish at times and all of it is explained with him haveing bought and engagement ring and planing to propose . . . only to later uncover that that was only part of it and he had another secret all along too.
Or two characters share(ed) a secret and one suspects it was an affair, and that is true, but the actual twist is that they had run someone over with a car or something like that.
Practicly it is a red herring, but one that is not just a missdirect but somewhat true and very much connected to the actual thing if not compleatly integral for it.
@@claireofclairesville4479 and give an convincing alternativ explanation for those so they do not geather to much attantion
I read a thriller that was alright and the final line of the book was “And then he woke up and it was all a dream” I set that book a blaze
Without giving away too many details to avoid spoilers, the last gut punch twist reminds me of an excellent Criminal Minds episode where they tracked down a family's murderer, but after all was said and done, they found a stash of trophies from soooooo many other murdered families that they had no idea about, and know they'll never be able to solve or connect to missing people. Turned out what they thought was a sloppy one-time killer was actually a serial killer who just happened to make a mistake that one time. Always stuck with me! Not a book, I know, but still great writing and chilling story telling.
Nikolai Yglesias was it the episode with the wedding rings in the box ? Remember the episode with the family who killed the parents and kidnapped the girls for their son to be his wife and then it turns out that he has brothers and the last thing we see is a different family that does the same...
@@MsPandachen I remember that! Ugh, that family creeped me out so much. But yeah, Criminal Minds has some pretty good thriller plots sprinkled in there.
That was a great episode! So horrifying.
Nikolai Yglesias Hey, could you tell me what episode this is please?
@@gracet9 IIRC, it's Season 1, Episode 7
I hate it when the killer is revealed and they were pretty normal the whole time but then once they are confronted and they snap and go 11/10 psycho in a single instant. Somehow they go from the sweet college intern who loves photography to an eye-twitching, drooling lunatic in a blink of an eye. It's so out of character that it ruins it, feels so corny
My favorite: when someone who has been victimized by the killer gets sweet sweet revenge outside of the law
I’ve always loved murder mysteries where the protagonist is trying to uncover a mystery from the distant past. I think it’s the allure of working with limited clues, the concept of intergenerational secrets (which often comes up in this) and the flashbacks that I love. It also leads to two separate but related storylines which I really enjoy
OGH I love that one as well!
Tegan Martin Check out the series called Unforgotten- it’s on Netflix I think. It’s about a police team who find skeletons of people who died a long time ago and they solve their murders. It shows flashbacks of all the characters involved as well. It might not be exactly what you described but it’s very similar.
@@gracet9 thanks! That sounds right up my alley!
Sounds like True Detective, season 1
I hate the "person isn't dead" trope to my core. If you are going to have someone not dead, I'd prefer something like Gone Girl where the audience is told before the other characters are. I always feel cheated when the big twist is they aren't dead, especially if it is a murder mystery. Why am I here if the person isn't even dead?
The one case where I don't like the not dead trope, but I don't dislike it is in things like the Oceans movie series. When your cast is a bunch of master criminals, you already expect them to do something like fake their own death. In that case, I'm willing to give it to them and suspend my disbelief.
"I just don't like things that aren't done well." *grimace* Hahahha!
I think we can all agree that "It was all a dream" is one of the worrrrsttt.
I love when you talk about thrillers. That's my thing.
Any Endeavour fans out there? That show has a trope which is one of my favorites. I love it when the protagonist is constantly undermined or forced to fight against the establishment, or when the investigation carries a very high cost. Or, best of all, both. The first two seasons of the Killing are good for this reason also.
Mine too!
I really don't appreciate the trope of the love interest being the twist bad guy, almost as much as the love triangle trope in romance. I guess I like relationships to be uncomplicated in my fiction.
There was a spy thriller where everybody and their dog would expect the love interest to be a spy, even the MC. The funny part was when the reveal occurred and he had just so much disappointment in his voice and on his face. Like: "Come on, really?! I suspected you, but I was so convinced that you'd make the right choice!" And the audience was of course on his side :)
I also love the "person isn't dead" trope, but only in thrillers
My least favourite: secret family members. They were actually related this whole time omg!! Ugh
Same. Loved it in Star Wars, and then it was done to death. I guess it's the same with other tropes, though.
Bollywood likes to do that. There's a Russian parody where the girl tells the MC "I'm your cousin", the guy tells the MC "I'm your brother!" then the dad tells the MC "and I'm your momma"
Love it when it is done well. Like Betty and Cheryl on Riverdale.
@@destroyerinazuma96 love it ^^
hm, when it is already mostly about family dynamics and drama it can work out, but it does need a good reason and make narrativ sense instead of just out of nowhere leading nowhere.
I have a story where most characters are either related or family of choice . . . but it is the main motive of the story, fucked up family dynamics, what is family, what makes one family, how does it change things . . . responsability, expectations, all the stuff that can go wrong . . .
There was an excellent “final gut punch” twist in The Chalk Man, literally on the very last page, because it had nothing to do with the overall mystery but instead with this sub plot thread that you’ve been aware of the whole time. I knew there was some sort of final twist on the last page when I read it but I still got major chills.
I like when the final twist is the "inherited malice" kind of situation. When a bad guy is caught, but his example was strongly impressed upon a survived victim or their significant other/family member; or the bad guy had a son/ daughter, who then naturally has an incline to the same thing their family member was obsessed with and they become possessed with their evil spirit so to say. This is hypnotizing to me and a very good cliffhanger/opening for a sequel.
Hmm what are some examples
@@bayoumuddah I was having in mind the premise of the twelfth episode from Lie To Me series (season 1). I just remember being so impressed by the idea of this kind of cerebral imprint. I don't really know if any book did this successfully or had it as a core idea, but that would be a great read and I would definitely follow through series of that.
you so have to do a video just like this with spoilers! also, what are some of the most UNIQUE twists you've read?
For real! I eould love a spoiler heavy video with examples as long as it's well stated there will be spoilers.
Also: great sparkly eye-shadow
Oh man, this is my faaaaavorite topic. I'm with you on Sometimes I Lie - I remember finishing that and going...wait. ??? My most HATED thriller trope, though, is definitely Villain is the Barren Woman Who is So Bitter She Can't Have Children, She Steals Another Woman's Child And/Or Plots to Take Over That Woman's Life. It is...astonishing how many thrillers I've read with this twist. (For a GREAT final twist, I recommend Friends Like These. It's one of those twists that takes you a hot second to figure out, and then you get it and you're like HOLY F---)
I loved Friends Like These! Definitely had it in mind for that "final gut punch twist." It was delicious!
I also hate when the sudden sociopath happens or the innocent child who no way could have done it. The absolute BEST is when the narrator misinterpreted information and we went right along with it because it seemed so minor, and that info was there the whole time for us to see. We just didn't know we should look. Example - The Woman in the Window.
2 and 4 are my favs too! First encountered in Agatha Christie when I was little. Same for 8
I just read A Stranger in the House and really liked how it was constantly making me question everything I thought I knew. The ending was surprising yet inevitable. I always get so frustrated when I can see the twist coming from a million miles away. I prefer to figure it out right before it’s revealed so I feel smart 😂
I like if it is a double twist, if you can geather part of it and feel smart and vindicated when it is reviealed, but while you where bussy doing that, you missed something else that overshadowes that guessed part of the twist!
First and very shallow example that came into my mind, there are hints of two shareing a secret. Hints it might be an affair and it is kind of a big deal. There are hints for and against it but when it is revieled to be true, you get suprised by the actual twist beeing that they had run over someone with their car and it was hinted on, but under the more obvious and attention grabbing affair suspicion, they had been overlooked.
Similar to a redherring, but not really a misslead for it is an integral part of the twist, just not the most importent one.
The ‘change during editing problem’ was my exact experience with Riley Sagers ‘final girls’
Some of these remind me of the Sarah Alderson books you recommended. I have never heard of Sarah Alderson before but after reading Friends Like These and In Her Eyes, I have developed an interest in more of her books and since I am not leaving the house much with my kiddo to look for reading material, I have turned to my kindle and downloaded a sample of The Sound. I hope that one is good!
not a book but the "final gut punch" made me think of Lone Star (1996). the whole time you're following a deep small-town secret, with B-plots that are relevant in theme and after the A plot is given a satisfying ending, it turns out the B-plot had a twist you didn't even realize was coming! it's one of the only time i've been really shocked by a mystery films' ending, all the while still having it make complete sense
I think the best thriller/mystery book I've read is Silence Of The Lambs. Such an amazing book.
I'm currently writing a story right now and this really helps a LOT! Thankyou Alexa
First! Thanks Alexa for everything! You're a massive help to me.
Second!
I wonder if this is part of this genre or not, but what the main characer who is all things consired good suddenly finds out that he Has been the main villain the whole time, but simply does not know it until the very end because some kind of blackouts?
I personally hate the secret sociopath trope. Anytime it turns out the mentally ill person did it all along, I want to vomit. I'm so sick of thrillers that rely on mental illness as a motivation for the bad guy. It villainizes mental illness and it's bad writing. Come up with more unique twists and motivations PLEASE.
Homicidal ideation is a symptom of mental illnesses that affect many thousands of people. It's not a false narrative.
THIS. I'm sick of seeing people with delusional or personality disorders (Schizophrenia, DID NPD BPD ASPD) being rolled out as the bad guy. You can have a bad guy and not give an actual disorder to them. Let people speculate. I know plenty of people with PDs who would never dream of behaving like a bad guy in a thriller. In fact, they typically harm themselves.
@@Alicearomidice That's not true. There are plenty of motivations for murder other than mental illness, for example revenge, rivalry/competition, money, eliminating witnesses, eliminating people in the way of the character's goals, etc. And in my experience readers tend to like these kinds of motivations more than "i'm a crazy mentally ill person so i killed this random person for no other apparent reason"
You mentioned Fatal attraction and then said "Bunny Broiler" which made me realise that the phrase is actually "Bunny Boiler" and that phrase actually did come from the plot of Fatal Attraction!!
i love your videos! been binge watching you for DAYS now
I read a YA thriller a few months ago with a great last gut punch twist. The last line was so creepy that I still get skeeved out when I think about it. I think Alexa may have even had the book in one of her previous vlogs/wrap-ups. But don't quote me on that.
@@Avikar88 Two Can Keep a Secret. All I'll say is that I had a great time reading it, and definitely recommend it!
@@dylanwickersham5610 this is a really late reply, but I read this book at around the same time as you and was so shocked by the last line! It was a great twist
@@darcywinrow5729 Definitely was! I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did a killer job with the delivery. If you enjoy Karen M. McManus' writing, One of Us is Next has a great last page zinger too!
@@dylanwickersham5610 that’s a great point, I can imagine it being very chilling on an audiobook! I read One of Us is Next and the ending of that was great too! I assume you’ve read One of Us is Lying, and I was so impressed with the plot twist in that! What other books do you read?
@@darcywinrow5729 I'm mostly a fantasy reader because that's typically what I write. But I enjoy throwing a few thrillers into the mix to keep things fresh. For thrillers I try to keep an even share of YA and adult. In terms of YA I've read all of Karen's books, some Wendy Walker, E. Lockhart, Kara Thomas, and I adore Tiffany D. Jackson's catalog. For adult it really runs the gamut, but a few of my auto-buys are Riley Sager, Megan Goldin, and Ruth Ware.
I watched this video when it was uploaded last year, but have come back to it, because I have a thriller I want to write, but could not, for the life of me, figure out what actually happened. I knew my red herrings, when the girl went missing, several scenes and twisty moments throughout, just not the ending. This really helped. I am combing several of these, sort of, but this was a great video. Thanks!
i love your channel because it gives me so many ideas!.....cheers
wow you're knowledge pool is deep! when did you first start reading thrillers?
Honestly, sociopath tropes just aren't my thing. I have an interest in psychology and while it's cool to go back and look for all the hints that the person was a sociopath, I don't really like the demonizing of sociopaths in fiction.. it's a genuine mental illness and if that's the reason they committed the crime in entirety, it's a. Unrealistic and b. Not the person's fault so I would have a hard time hating them. Lots of sociopaths in our daily life just want to live their lives and stay out of trouble, which is why there's many more sociopaths out there than people realize and while they do have empathy deficits, that doesn't mean they would literally murder someone just because that person got in their way or ticked them off.
I have been working on a small empathy defecit (result of autism) myself, and I've grown up around narcissists and sociopaths so that trope just strikes the wrong nerves with me. Like if a murderer happens to be a sociopath, cool, but they'd better still have a really good motive besides just "I'm a sociopath so I don't care about other people"
the obvious bad guy can be intruiging when done well, like makeing you second guess cause it is just to obvious only to find out, that while the murderer is totaly who everyone expected, their motive is something compleatly suprising that makes your brain implode when you go back and notice, how everything you have read and thought before suddenly gets a different meaning.
Or when everyone in and out of universe knowes who did it and the whole suspense lies on the how and why for it is just somehow impossible to pin them down for it.
but yeah, it really sucks if it is obvious to the reader but treated like this huge twist makeing you feel like the investigator and everyone else in the book is just utterly braindead
Surprise! Not dead - I get a kick out of this one.
POV narrative trickery: I love this. I feel like it mirrors my own life experience. Often seeing another point of view makes things suddenly seem pretty different.
Justified bad guys: I love it when the "bad guy" has a good reason and is more of an antagonist or "person with a different (but reasonable) opinion.
The bonkers twist: I just like things that are out of left field / off the wall.
The least expected: I wonder why anyone doesn't just suspect everyone all the time. I kind of do.
Final gut punch twist: Murphy's Law could strike at any time. It simply always applies.
Dangling threads: It would be nice if everything in life always ended with everything all tied up in a neat little bow - but that's not how it usually works in my experience.
Can you leave recommendations for books that have the tropes that you love?
I would love to see your thriller recs with these tropes (but not mentioning which one it does well)!
I felt like #5 trope you don't like was the best explanation of how I felt the first time I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Psychotic cause of man or woman is my favorite I can get in that mindset and it’s SO FUN TO WRITE
There was one time I played a game where the protagonist was the killer. And we didn't know they did it until it came out during the trial. There were subtle hints, like the narrative never stating that they put an item down that was later used as the murder weapon, or them doing something a bit odd that was really them subtly setting up a trap, but it wasn't something that really made sense until the truth came out.
It was utterly gut wrenching and still one of my favorite plot twists EVER. There was so much foreshadowing that were so clear after figuring out what happened, but the hints were so subtle.
Granted, it likely wasn't too difficult to hide, considering that the game was about investigating a series of murders (ie. solve one and another happens) rather than just one murder for the entirety of the plot.
Ahhhh! Thank you for these!! But also the murder mystery I’m writing used one of your least favorite tropes so now I want to change it.... 😂😂
Haha final gut punch - I’ve done this!! 🤣
9:24 (spoilers for The Cheerleaders)
When you were talking about the final-gut punch twists the Cheerleaders was what I immediately thought of because Ginny was so close to Monica and her reasoning make sense and everything all kind of tied into and somehow this plot twist ended up being better than the main one
Final chilling twist at end makes me think of McTeague by Frank Norris. My favorite book ending ever, just a fantastic final image, like a cherry on top emphasizing the theme. I aspire to writing an ending that satisfyingly beautiful and dark.
I can’t believe you got to the end of that book. I couldn’t read the whole thing 🥴
you have to give me some of these book titles because all the twisty books you telling me are what I crave.
Could you please do a ,,Hate to Love'' Video? Thank you so much, you really helped me improve my writing with your Videos :).
I go nuts when there is a paranormal twist. If I have not been warned and sign up for a straight up thriller throwing in body changing will drive me bonkers. Worst and laziest twist ever!!!!!!
are you talking about BHE
Thank you!! Your content is so solid!!
Weirdly enough I agree with all of these? But I think the WORST ones are either the twist for a twists sake and leaving threads unacknowledged. Like WHY WERE THEY THERE THEN?!?!?!
I'm writing a screenplay with your last favorite type twist. It is difficult. Especially for a time travel story. It's a motive reveal that I hope isn't doing fault to the story by it's omission. I won't know till it's finished.
8:23 an unwanted guest has that!
We have the same type of twists.I love sociopaths as the plot twist and chilling motives
My main character in a scrapped story is a major cynic / depressed, but some of my friends and family said that it made them uncomfortable.... But I loved writing him, so I'm probably going to use him, or a version of him in future works.
well, I think thrillers should be uncomfortable to read, haveing compleatly wholesome characters in a messed up plot simply does make sense . . . of cause you have to chose carefuly when to read a story with a character that strains you, but I do not think it is a bad thing in itself.
The only time I've liked the "if I can't have you no one can" was on Psych when the two old women were best friends but one was a secret lesbian because of the time she grew up in and killed all the men in her best friend/crushes life out of jealousy.
I know this video's a year old but I just wanted to comment! My favorite trope you covered is probably, "Justified Bad Guy" , I always called it the "No Angel" trope ala the victim was no angel (despite being portrayed as such when dead) and you kind of sympathize with the villian? Especially when you have your POV character(s) be completely un aware so and so was evil/sociopath/psychopath/narcissistic etc and are stunned and have to reevaluate who the victim was and why they were killed and more importantly-when it expands the potential suspect list. When it's done right?.*chefs kiss*.
My least favorite is one you sorta covered although I'll asterisk it with "obsessively in love with a side character/MC's love interest". I knew of a thriller where this random dude was behind it all because he was obsessed with the main characters husband and the ending was laughably bad. it was so ridiculous and offensive 🙄.
#6 you don’t like: I guess this means no LMN on your TV because that is nearly EVERY movie on that network.
I'm not gonna spoil anything but you should definitely read The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy! It's soooo good
The final gut punch twits done badly can ruin an otherwise good book. The Memory Watcher was an EXCELLENT book, i absolutely loved it, and I was jazzed getting to the end of it, but then it just threw this twist in that had nothing to do with anything: not the a or b plot, it didnt connect to any of the other characters it was just "and THIS OTHER THING, ALL ALONG THIS OTHER THING HAS BEEN TRUE!" and while thats interesting and all, a good twist like in Shutter Island needs to make me want to go back and reread and look for it, it needs to completely recontextualize what i thought was true.
I need to watch your red herring video because in my book I’m trying to write I want the red herring to be the MC’s ex but I want to slowly introduce the idea that they are a little psychotic but in a different way from murder. So there’s another twist but the red herring character wasn’t committing the murders but actually obsessing over the MC the whole time to the point where they kidnap them or something (still trying to work it out)
Oh, I totaly hate that too, unfinished red herrings that make just no sense to be unfinished . . . sometimes it tells a story if you do not get every single piece . . . and you can actualy do something with that . . . but if they just get abandoned out of lazeyness I can go balistic
Me not listening to Alexa Donne but looking at her bookshelfs. lol
I wonder if you'd really like the Korean drama Stranger / Secret Forest on Netflix. It's SUCH a good tv show with such an interesting choice for a main character - a man who can't really feel emotions due to a frontal lobotomy he had as a child. He's apathetic but not heartless and it's a really interesting take.
Also the big reveal? Holy shit I lost my mind, because they had essentially told us the motive at one point in character dialogue but it never clicked with other info that already we had until it was revealed. I wasn't a particular fan of the final ending of the first season, mostly because I feel like it tried to make a martyr out of someone who shouldn't have been. They're making a second season though and I'm definitely excited for it.
Can you do one on spy/espionage stories? What makes them good? Etc?
If you haven't already, let me suggest a few books that I think do some of these twists VERY well: Gone Girl (obviously), Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney, The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, and Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter (severe TW for this one though! It's brutal but SO layered!) Enjoy!
Not to name any names but a certain author who's name rhymes with Tara Kay Bass hits a lot of these bad tropes lol and it's basically why she's really bad at writing mysteries (but somehow keeps getting away with writing them 🤷♀️)
very sneaky ^^
Feels like you are talking about pretty little liers lol
Given what you hate in thrillers (i won't say what to avoid spoilers) I would avoid The Wives by Tarryn Fisher
The funny thing is I saw it on NetGalley and did not request it b/c my gut told me I wouldn't like it.
@@AlexaDonne Your instincts were definitely right with that one.
The wives is a *hot mess*
The Wives had potential to subvert the trope it ended up using, and it's a shame that didn't happen because all that did happen was a journey to the land of confusion.
Old book...Whispers and Lies by Joy Fielding....wow!
Examples please
I do not recommend THE GIRL WHO LIVED. It falls into a few of your dislikes. Also TRIPTYCH, which has an AMAZING setup but a follow-through that led me to believe the author was retaliating against being forced to rewite the last third of the novel.
And then he woke up and it was a dream.... No
Idk if this is a trope, but I'm really sensitive to coincidences in the resolutions of mysteries/thrillers. I hate it if the protagonist only knows the perpetrator for reasons that don't connect at all to the crime. (This happens most in detective books, I think, since in a domestic/small town thriller, every character has a plausible connection to the crime.)
I really like POV trickery! There's a classic sci-fi book where one character takes another's name part-way through (with respect to the flashback timeline--it's complicated), and when you find out, you have to reframe everything you thought you'd understood about them.
On an unrelated note, does anyone have any thriller recommendations? 😜
Can you fully explain what this is...I really want to write it
I have a gultiplessure with tropes and chlischees that are often really really bad, done right. Just this little twist one it that turn something from cheap and lazy into greatness. lovetriangles, secret family, unreliable narrators, dissociate identety disorder, amnesia, the bad guy was right all along . . . all those thing are so commen for they have the potential for greatness if done right, everyone jumped on the bandwagon and than fucked them up . . . I love when they are done selfconciouly and with a lot of humor in some cases or if something that usualy is played for humor and cheap drama, gets suddenly taken seriously and explored . . .
I love a good use of the unrelatable narrator and I love it, if things do not get spelled out. Where the mysterys solution is solid, but somewhat multiple choice dependend on how literaly you take certein comments and things like that.
Grrm does that a lot, where you get from several characters a diverse range of possible explanations and you kind of have to piece togeather, how it actualy went down. Like with who hired a certein assasin, we are given a solution, but the character giveing it is drunk and biased so probably not right . . . . or most instances of things beeing attributed to magic also have a realworld viable explanation dependend on how you interpret the evidance which is a very good solution to the, if you have magic, it explains everything problem. It could have been magic, but you will never know when it is coincedance, something real and well . . . actualy magic.
Or how delusions and mental healthproblems can be easely overlooked, if the character is actualy haveing visions and experiencing magic . . . where is he line between what had been real and what not?
This conflicting reality thing is something I enjoy imenly but many who attempt it fuck it up really badly and if one does . . . it is a really really cheap and bad story.
02:53 ???? Example? I dont' understand this one.
13:14 Herrr?
I'm weird to I like to hijack the whole thriller thing to criticize society and us. I feel like just writing about A investigating B is a waste. I also like fiction pieces with moral lessons/positive messages as long as they aren't too preachy.
So, dare I ask it, have you sold many books?
I mean if you check my bio you'll see I have two books out from HMH, and a YA thriller that will be published by Penguin Random House in 2021? If that's what you mean.
@@AlexaDonne Yes! I hope the 2021 Penguin Random House deal goes great.
Maybe a short blowing of your trumpet at the start of the vids would satisfy people watching (like me) that you have authority and a history of success.
It's quite the done thing, no shame in it.
It would have put me at ease at the start and I could have trusted your guidance better, without the niggling feeling that you might not know what you were talking about.
@@AlexaDonne Also, I stumbled on one of your videos and commented rashly, your channel is an experience to be taken in, not just one video in isolation.
I am going to drink it in!
Love this video! Thank you
My favorite twists are creative twists. Show me something that had never been done before and I would love it! Make a child come out of a box that has been shut for 100 years. Make a house coexist in two places. Make someone's literal blood the antidote to a zombie apocalypse. Surprise me.
so you prefer more fantastical twists, not realistic ones?
oof I hate the "all the sudden this is fantasy now!" twist on an otherwise comtemp. thriller book. It's such a clearly gimmicky "I'm smarter than you! ha-ha-HA-haa-haaa" from the author and it's like no shit sherlock you switch the genre lol
I hate ableist tropes
Ok but like for real can authors stop it with did/killer trope?? I have did and it's not Jekyll and Hyde it's depression, flashbacks, eating disorders, anxiety, ptsd and for fucks sake is not obvious to recognize nor do we change clothes every damn time someone switches