Plot Surprise Quotes

This element of surprise or mystery — the detective element as it is sometimes rather emptily called — is of great importance in a plot. It occurs through a suspension of the time-sequence; a mystery is a pocket in time, and it occurs crudely, as in "Why did the queen die?" and more subtly in half-explained gestures and words, the true meaning of which only dawns pages ahead. Mystery is essential to a plot, and cannot be appreciated without intelligence.

When, in the third book, we do learn the identity of the Blue Rose murderer, the information comes in a muted, nearly off-hand manner, and the man has died long before.

It goes all the way back to 'Psycho.' Movies with twists like that are memorable because they're so simple.

You always have to be ahead of the audience so that they have to always catch up and know the movie's not quite going exactly where you think it's going, or expecting it to be going.

I like a book better if I can't predict what's going to happen.

I didn't make 'The Sixth Sense' because I thought the ending wouldn't work!

Nothing bores me more than books where you read two pages and you know exactly how it's going to come out. I want twists and turns that surprise me, characters that have a difficult time and that I don't know if they're going to live or die.

The thing with Stephen King is that everyone dies, and everyone comes back to life. So you never know with his mind where things go. It's the same with Steven Spielberg, too.

[Before I Go To Sleep] script was a great journey with all the twists and turns that were kind of unexpected. I had to finish the script, and I thought if we can emulate this in the film, it's going to be a really good film.

One thing George R. R. Martin does is surprising things to main characters. But he says so himself.

There's the moment in 'Saw' where I get up off of the floor at the end. That was shocking, because no one expects it. I thought they did that really, really well.

When you're tied to one show, you are very much at the mercy of the writers, so you can suddenly get a script where you have a heart attack and die.

You set up a story and it turns inside out and that is, for me, the most exciting sort of story to write. The viewer thinks it's going to be about something and it does the opposite.

I always thought the joy of reading a book is not knowing what happens next. (Leonard Shelby, Memento)

I never look at twists as a way to trick the audience. Obviously, I think a good story has surprises and unexpected turns, and you always want to do that with an audience. But it has nothing to do with conning them or making them believe so strongly in one thing and then kind of going the other way.

I think that it's fun to get the script and open it like a Christmas present. That's 'Alcatraz' or anything that I'm working on. If the groundwork has been laid too much, the surprises aren't there.

I will say that Rick will probably die before the end of the book. I'll go ahead and put that in print. Nobody's safe. I've almost killed him three times already.

Every week, there's a different twist and turn you're not going to see coming, and how you handle that is important.

In our show, there's usually a comeuppance. Or, if not, it's an anti-ending. And you're supposed to get that.

The reason I think we hold films like 'The Sixth Sense' and 'Citizen Kane' in such high regard is those are movies that were amplified by their twists but were already bringing the goods.

As a writer, I feel like your favorite character shouldn't be safe.

It was great as an actor to be given the story line I was given but I didn't expect Craig to stay so it was a lovely twist when I found out they'd decided to keep him.

I really want to do a dark character. Not really a bad guy, but someone dark and mysterious. Where everyone says, 'Ooh, it has to be her!' and at the end you find out it isn't. Just someone who looks guilty.

A lot of the fun of 'Gravity Falls' comes from the secrecy surrounding the plot. We want fans to be able to guess and speculate, to be surprised by twists and be engaged when they get things right.

If you like a story that's totally different and won't know which way it's going... where it's go ing to end up and which way it's going to take you, then I think my work fits the bill.