HOLY SHIT! A CHARACTER TWIST: Ideas on bamboozling your readers with a character twist from Black Mirror.

Art by Gus. It is a phone... because, well, technology...

Massive SPOILERS for:

• Season 3 / Episode 3 of Black Mirror 
• Perdido Street Station, novel by China Mieville 

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Gosh, the character twist!
How I love it.

So we all know about using plot twists to shake up a story, but what about character twists?

In a lot of ways, a good character twist can be even more effective than a plot twist, because it isn't so much about shocking your readers with new information, as finally revealing a piece of missing information that then shines a new light over everything that has happened previously.

It is a pretty interesting way to tell a story and a great tool to learn and think about.

So here we go....

​The easiest way to describe it, is to show you some examples:

​Here are two excellent instances of a character twist being used to change the entire tone and feel of a story, leaving audiences shouting Holy Shit! at how the tiniest bit of missing information can change everything that came before.

Examples of great character twists:
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​EXAMPLE ONE: Black Mirror.

In the UK television series 'Black Mirror' there is an episode in season three about a young teen boy.

At the beginning of the story, his sister accidentally manages to upload some very dangerous spyware to this teen's computer, but he doesn't know it.
So he promptly locks his door and proceeds to, for lack of a better term, have a wank.

But the whole thing gets filmed.
And this kid is suddenly doing the bidding of an anonymous stranger to avoid having this video of him wanking released to the whole world.

Now this kid is literally hyperventilating at the idea of everyone seeing his private shit.

​He is cringing and sweating and panicking to the max.
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Yet as stuff gets worse and worse for him throughout the episode, and he gets forced to do worse and worse stuff, the viewer can't help but think.... Dude! Just let them release the video!.

Art by Gus. Technology for the Black Mirror theme!

Art by Gus. More evviiiiilllll technology.

​Sure it will be embarrassing.
Sure everyone at school will tease the shit out of him.

But is it really worth this sweet terrified kid becoming a criminal, just to avoid the release of this video?
The teen sure thinks so.

And he goes further and further and further trying to stop anyone from seeing it.

To the point where he murders someone.

And this is when the viewer begins to wonder.
Is the video all it seems? Or is there more to this?

And then the show drops just enough hints for the viewer to realise that it wasn't a normal porn video this kid was watching at all.
It was a porn video with little kids in it.

And this character twist is such a wallop to the face.
Because we liked this kid.
We felt so sorry for him.

Yet he isn't at all who we thought he was....

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​EXAMPLE TWO: Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
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Look, I'm not going to lie to you and say I've read this story.
It was my husband who read it (and loved it) and every day he would tell me exactly what had happened within the book, to the point where I kind felt like I did read it. 
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So I guess technically, this is his character twist, not mine.

This story is super weird and I'm not going to explain it all here.

But it does feature a winged man who has undergone a punishment for an unnamed crime, the outcome being his wings have been cut from his body, as per the traditions of his people.

This winged man enlists the protagonist's help to grow his wings back, and throughout the novel, the two become friends.

he protagonist is up against some pretty difficult and weird shit, and the winged man helps him out, and they trust each other....except....  

At the end of the novel, after the readers have come to like and care for the winged man, it turns out the crime he committed was... rape. 

And he did do it.

The protagonist is upset.
The readers are upset.

The character twist strikes again!

So that's it folks.

I've never used a character twist, but I really like the idea of it a lot..... 
What about you?
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Have you used a character twist before?