With Undertale and its numerous creative offshoots sweeping the internet, it was only a matter of time before it infiltrated my computer and captured my heart.

All of the characters are entertaining on the surface, and complex and multi-layered underneath, and Sans in particular fascinates me in a way that only two other characters ever have.

One day, a set of lyrics started popping into my head, and I thought they were a great fit for the hopes, fears and secret motives that drive the goofy but enigmatic skeleton's interactions with the protagonist.

So I pulled up Audacity, imported Sans' matter-of-factly-named theme song, added words, and inflicted the result on the internet.

The song contains spoilers for both the pacifist run and the murder run, so make sure you're safely spoiler-proofed before you proceed!
​

​Here are the lyrics, minus Sans' capitalization-averse speaking style:

Come, take my hand
Take a break at my hot dog stand
Although you’re human
It’s my hope that we can be friends

I’ll use my pranks
To read your response and I’ll thank
You not to reset
If you’re the anomaly I think

You’ve seen it before
What lies beyond the Ruins’ door
But guess you never
Found whatever you are looking for

So what do you seek?
Is it home or a family?
You can have those here
And I hope I can help you see

You don’t need to
Use time travel or execute
Your foes to find peace
‘Cause the life that has been given to you

Isn’t so bad
You’ve got friends, good food and bad laughs
I think your new life
Can be better than the one we use to have

Sometimes, it's fun to speculate about what characters would be like if they got drunk. Especially the ones who you know would never compromise themselves like that in canon - leaving plenty of room for creative shenanigans when drowning their wits in fan works.

I recently created a video for Scorpius from Farscape, exploring what would happen if his usually clever and calm personality ended up spinning on an alcohol-soaked emotional roller coaster.

If you like Farscape and want a chuckle, take a few minutes to check it out:

​

In some stories, the plot's resolution takes everyone by surprise. Nobody knew how the story would end, or how the outcome would be achieved.

In others, the ending was a surprise to absolutely no one, because a prophecy had already spoiled the ending long before it could happen.

The downside to having a prophecy:

Having a prophecy about your plot or protagonist has one obvious drawback: it spoils the ending of the story, and removes much of the dramatic tension that you otherwise could have built.

When the audience knows how the story will end, it takes a lot of skill to avoid making them feel like you're simply going through the motions. Some storytellers don't have that skill, so the prophecy ruins what could have been a good story.

Can you include a prophecy without spoiling your whole story?

Sure you can - if you do it right.
​
Here are a few ways you can include a prophecy in your tale, without it being a massive drama-killing spoiler:

1. Make the prophecy ambiguous.

Maybe the prophecy says a kingdom will fall - but it doesn't say WHICH kingdom.

Perhaps it warns of a sacrifice, but you don't know who will be lost in order to resolve the conflict.

Or maybe it was foretold that an angel will bring freedom, but there's debate about whether that means a good angel will bring freedom from imprisonment, or an angel of death will force people to accept "freedom" from this mortal coil.

A good fictional prophecy will have enough specifics to raise questions and make it clear when the prophecy is fulfilled, but enough ambiguity that it doesn't explicitly lay out how the story will end.

2. Make it unclear who the prophecy's about.

​"Is this prophecy really about me? Or am I trying to force myself into a pair of shoes that was never made for me?"

This kind of uncertainty can make the protagonist question their actions, their motives, and their role in the adventure as a whole.

A jealous or egotistical character might become suspicious of anyone who might "steal" their role, while a more passive or weary person might hope that they can find the "real" subject of the prophecy and thus relieve themselves of a harsh obligation.

By making the prophecy unclear, you can turn it into a plot-and-character-development-driving question, instead of a plot-spoiling fact.

3. Have the characters question whether the prophecy is true.

Is the prophecy actually accurate, or are the characters making a fatal mistake by basing their strategy on something that isn't actually going to happen?

Is the character doing what they're doing because it's right, or because they think they're "supposed to" because of a prophecy that might not even be true?

Raising this question can bring a lot of fear and uncertainty into the story, and can also cause conflicts between characters who believe the prophecy and those who don't.

It can also serve to highlight the cooler heads in the cast - those who are able to incorporate the prophecy in their plans, while creating a backup plan just in case the foretelling turns out to be a load of bull.

4. Fulfill the prophecy in an unexpected way.

​If you can fulfill the prophecy to the letter, but do so in a way that the audience doesn't expect, you can have the cake of solid foreshadowing and have your readers enjoy eating it, too.

Have you ever had a time when you saw a plot "twist" coming from so far away that you found yourself silently telling the story to just stop insulting your intelligence and get it over with?

​If you don't recognize the scene in the picture above, I won't spoil it for you.

But suffice it to say, the red lighting and ominous music made the outcome of that scenario so obvious that by the time the inevitable ensued, I was thinking, "Did anybody actually NOT see that coming?"

It's not that I'm some sort of story psychic who always knows what the writers are planning. I've had stories surprise me plenty of times... when the creators were good at their jobs.

If you want to truly surprise your audience, here are a few tricks you can use when building up to your plot twists:

1. Use the previous moments' atmosphere as a cloaking device

As I said a few paragraphs ago, the lighting and music in the abovementioned scene gave the outcome away long before it could actually happen.

If the lighting had been gentler, and the music more hopeful, they'd have had a better chance of making the critical moment a genuine surprise.

Similarly, if you want to make a plot twist truly surprising, a good way to do that is to convincingly portray a completely different tone or emotion in the scene or scenes immediately prior to it.

Want a shocking rescue? Make the scenes before it feel genuinely hopeless.

Want the hero's comeback from the brink of defeat to startle and dazzle the audience? Portray the moments immediately prior to that as if they were actually a prelude to a death scene, with all the painful emotion that would normally include.

People tend to expect plot developments that match the atmosphere and tone of the scene. So use sensory cues, the scene's atmosphere, and the characters' emotions as red herrings - but be sure to do so in a way that's convincing and realistic for the scene that's happening just before the twist.

2. Get the audience so engrossed in the current scene that they don't think about what's coming next.

If your audience is completely absorbed in the scene that's happening right now, they're less likely to spare the mental energy to speculate on what's going to happen next.

Don't rush the story so much that you ruin your pacing, but also don't give your audience too much time to think about what's coming. If the characters stand around and do nothing, or you focus on the scenery for too long, you might give people a chance to think too much and lose the element of surprise.

A tense action scene, some really good dialogue, a shocking revelation, or some intriguing plot or character development are things you can use to distract your audience from the twist that's coming.

Just please don't immediately follow significant character development with the character's death. At least not too often. It's overused to the point of being predictable, and it can make the new development in their personality feel wasted.

3. When dropping red herrings, think of the herring as the real thing.

Once, when I was roleplaying with my brother, I laid down a challenge for myself:

I wanted to write in one of my favorite characters from the series in which our roleplay took place, and I knew that he knew that I'd bring this guy in at some point or other.

So I dared myself to make the character's alias so convincing that even my brother, who knows me better than just about anyone, wouldn't realize who the newcomer was, despite the fact that the character and alias had similar hairstyles and were the same height.

To my great pride, I succeeded, and I attribute my success largely to the fact that I thought about the alias as if it was a real character.

By thinking about the false identity as if it were real, I found that I could naturally write her more convincingly than I could have if I'd thought of her as a cover first and a character second.

So if you want to drop a red herring that distracts your readers from the coming twist, think about that herring as if it were real.

If you want them to think a doomed character will live, imagine the scene as if they're about to win or be rescued.

If you want a character's identity to be a surprise, think of their alias as an actual character, not just as a cover.

When you believe in what you're writing, the audience will be more likely to believe.

4. Make foreshadowing brief and/or easy to mistake for something else.

I've been amazed by some of the foreshadowing that writers have snuck by me, simply by making it easy to mistake for something other than what it is.

For example, one anime series gave some important items an English name that I assumed was supposed to just sound cool, in the grand tradition of gratuitous English in anime.

Turns out, the name was absolutely literal, and when the characters and I found that out, we were equally stunned.

Take advantage of your readers' assumptions, and the tropes and cliches in your genre, to make your foreshadowing look like something it isn't.

Or mention things briefly, without really drawing attention to them, so that your plot twists are adequately foreshadowed, but the foreshadowing was so lightly touched upon that your audience didn't see it for what it was.

This can add some great re-read value to your story, because it makes the audience want to see all the little cues and warnings that they missed the first time around.

There you have it! You now know four effective ways to make your plot twists more surprising.

Did any of these tips help you to improve your plot twists?

Do you have any advice for surprising our readers?

Please let me know in the comments!

In some stories, the outcome is so obvious that it isn't even a spoiler. It's pretty much stated from the beginning, and little if any doubt is left that the prescribed solution is going to take place.
​

In others, the premise is intriguing enough to catch our interest, questions have been raised, and there are some immediate goals or problems to keep the plot moving, but the big picture is partly hidden, and we can only speculate about how it's going to end.

To compare these two storytelling styles, I like to contrast Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie with an excellent anime, Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

In Alice, the solution was stated so early that - in my mind - it removed all suspense, mystery and dramatic tension.

The moment the characters claim that Alice must use the Vorpal Blade to slay the Jabberwocky, it's obvious that that's what's going to happen. I don't even think it's worth putting a spoiler tag on it; it's just that cut and dried.

They didn't even bother trying to hide it, put a twist on it, or include additional requirements to get a happy ending. Solution stated, solution implemented, and that's it.

As you may be starting to notice, it didn't exactly blow my socks off.

What could they have done differently, to make it more interesting?

To illustrate how a writer can make the plot more surprising and interesting, while not being so cagey or sparse with the details that the audience gets bored or feels like you're deliberately holding out on them, I'll turn to the example of Madoka Magica.

Madoka starts with an awesome battle scene, and a conversation and scenario that immediately inspire questions.

Who is this mystery magical girl, what is she fighting, and what is the strange, alien creature that seems to know so much about the situation?

Will Madoka accept its offer and change the city's fate by becoming a magical girl, and what will happen if she does?

Before these questions can be answered, Madoka wakes up, and believes it was all nothing more than a strange dream... but a few scenes later, that same magical girl shows up in her classroom as a transfer student, and the creature can be seen spying on her while she's at school.

Nothing about this reveals the solution to the plot, the reason why magical girls and the witches they battle against exist, or why the transfer student seems so intent upon watching Madoka and giving her cryptic warnings.

It does, however:

• Give us a premise that's immediately interesting.
  
  
• Raise questions without obviously and needlessly holding back details.
  
  
• Offer an immediate threat - the witches - without telling us about the big-picture plot and resolution.
  
  
• Give the protagonists an immediate goal - learning about witches and magical girls, and countering witch attacks on their loved ones.
  
  
• Offer the characters a dilemma: will they accept the contract and become magical girls, resigning themselves to a life of battle, danger and loneliness in exchange for one granted wish?

As you can probably see, there's a very good reason why I consider this anime to be a great model for how to start a story.

How could all this have applied to the other tale I mentioned?

If Alice in Wonderland had had Alice fall down the rabbit hole, but then left her to wonder why Underland was in such a bad state, and required her to figure it out and seek a solution as she went, it might have been much more intriguing and memorable.

As it was, I couldn't help but feel like it was just going through the motions.

What's your opinion on predictable plot outcomes, and on the stories I used as examples?

Do you prefer it when the solution is a mystery for the characters to solve, or when the solution is obvious but difficult to implement?

Did the explanation I gave of Madoka's approach help you to make the start of your stories more intriguing, while maintaining a degree of mystery?

I look forward to your comments.