Should I make my character suspect an upcoming twist or not?
I have reached a point in my story in which the characters, who are in a sort of gang, will have to turn against each other. The specifics of it are not important; what is, is that capturing the main character presents an opportunity for them to gain more power, and they gather to capture the MC and bring them in for their prize. However, I am having trouble figuring out if the MC should anticipate this betrayal at some point, or for it to come as a complete surprise to them and thus the reader, making it a better twist.
Note that before this the gang had a large period of mistrust and absence where they were almost starved with siege warfare, so they are now pretty much separated and desperate for power, which is why I am hesitant on just playing the MC off as clueless.
So, what do you think I should do?
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2 answers
An alternative answer:
You can leave it up to the reader to wonder whether the character knew.
This depends on your writing style, but it is actually possible to show everything the character actually physically does and much of the character's immediate reactions and responses to events, without describing anything at all of what the character knows, thinks, suspects, plans.
A mild form of this is in an action story of some sort when:
He described in a few words what he wanted done. The sentry nodded brightly and saluted, a sly grin spreading across his face. 'You can count on me, sir,' he said, slapping his rifle butt for emphasis, and Daniel moved on, satisfied.
Then the reader learns the plan later by seeing it in action.
Likewise, you don't have to show suspicion; you can just show the result. Someone suspecting an imminent betrayal is hardly likely to demonstrate the fact, which makes it difficult for an outsider to tell whether it is in fact suspected or not. So show what actually happens. Does the betrayal succeed? It sounds like you want it to. So, you could have it succeed, but have it be a near thing due to unexpected difficulty encountered by those betraying him.
Ultimately, it's your story, and what happens in it is up to you.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32437. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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If I were writing, they would have to be suspicious, no matter how this affected the story. The only good reason to NOT be suspicious is some form of love, romantic, sibling, parental, etc. For example, a son may not believe his own beloved father would betray him. I have a best friend of forty years that might as well be my sibling, we have been through multiple family deaths together (in his family and mine), victimizations, a fire, car crashes, murders in our family. I would not believe my friend could betray me.
For anybody else, a friend of a few years, a coworker or something like that, and especially anybody I knew that had betrayed somebody else in the past, suspicion is raised whenever some "anomaly" or "strange coincidence" occurs.
If I were writing, I think the lack of suspicion would break suspension of disbelief, it would look like a deus ex machina, like the bad guy accidentally leaving an obvious gaping hole in their defenses.
One thing you could do, for the better twist, is come up with a better twist for the suspicion. Make your traitor also realize the MC will suspect betrayal, so the traitor leaves behind clues or hints to the MC, so the MC suspect the wrong person of being the traitor.
If you can do this under the covers so the reader doesn't realize who the true traitor is (or thinks the true traitor is an ally) Then the MC is blind-sided when the true traitor is revealed, as you want.
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