Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26409
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Readers of popular fiction (usually) want a clear protagonist, a clear goal, and a clear path of the protagonist to that goal. Readers also want the protagonist to struggle for his goal, so that when he achieves it, this achievement will feel deserved and satisfying to the reader. The purpose of twists is to increase the hero's struggle, to raise the suspense, and to make the story generally less predictable and boring.

So twists are a good thing.

But when the protagonist no longer progresses towards his goal but is stuck in an endless succession of twists that keep him from achieving anything at all; or when we read more about the characters that cause the twists than about who we thought was the protagonist; or when we no longer know what end the novel aims for – then you are overdoing it with twists.

In the end, every twist must only distract the hero for a certain time and then help him forward. After a twist, the hero mustn't return to where he was before, but "solving" or "overcoming" the twist must provide him with a means to progress, either toward his goal or in his development as a person (which in turn helps him toward his goal).

_I assume you write popular fiction for my answer. In literary or experimental writing there are no rules or conventions._

Original score: 7