Is this too ridiculous a plot twist?

[joy_of_cooking]

I have a wonderful plot twist, but I'm worried it's completely implausible Here's the setup:

"I don't know who John's father is. I slept with at least ten men the week he was conceived. None of them my fiancé."

"I...what?" I sputtered. The contrast between her outlandish words and their matter-of-fact delivery was surreal. <em>Ten?</em> There weren't that many days! Then the last part sank in. "You were engaged? You cheated on him?"

"Every night, I'd put on a shrink-wrap dress, lots of makeup, heels so high I could barely walk. I'd tell him I was going dancing with or without him. I'd tell him if he let me leave alone he shouldn't bother waiting up for me."

"You wanted him to stop you." I seized on that like a drowning man grasping at straws. "Why didn't he?"

She wavered for the briefest moment. I saw an old pain in the twist of her mouth. "Someone, uh, close to him got attacked. He took it hard. It was all he could talk about. Who had done it. Why. What he'd do if he found the guy. He didn't have time for me."

Kelly took a breath. She looked me in the eye, calm again. No, numb. "I felt neglected. He wasn't giving me the attention I needed. So I found it elsewhere."

"I can't believe you would do that." It was a betrayal so monstrous the thought took my breath away. Try as I might, I couldn't reconcile this with what I had seen of Kelly over the last year.

"There's a website called <em>Kelly Svensson Cheated On Me</em>. It has pictures."

I remembered how she had looked me up, how she had assumed I would do the same, how disturbed she had been to find that I hadn't. "That's why you thought I knew."

Kelly nodded, staring into the middle distance. "You have no idea how I felt when you said you hadn't. I thought my heart would stop. I didn't sleep at all that night. And then you showed up the next morning at the park and said hi like nothing had happened. I thought for sure you knew by then."

Her dead-eyed facade shattered. She hissed, "For Pete's sake, Si Yuan, have you no fucking curiosity whatsoever?"

I shrugged helplessly. I didn't know what to say. I'd had other things on my mind.

Kelly's rage evaporated as quickly as it had appeared. Sounding only tired, she continued, "I can't do this again. I can't. So, now you know. This is what I've done. It's not who I am anymore. I was...in a bad place, mentally. I'm better now. If you can accept that, I promise you won't regret it. If you can't, I'd rather find out now, before I get my hopes up again."

It is later revealed that "the person close to her fiance" was Kelly herself, and the attack was someone inflicting a Glasgow smile on her. She wanted to be reassured afterward that she was still pretty, but her fiance focused all his attention on her attacker, his motivations, his whereabouts.

She withholds this information as a test: if the narrator can accept and forgive the worst possible account of her behavior, then she'll trust him not to dump her when he learns the truth. Or so she tells herself. In fact, there's also a self-punishing aspect to it. She can't quite accept and forgive it herself, and she's sabotaging her new relationship because at some level she thinks she deserves to be alone forever.

Does this make any sense at all? It's way more melodramatic than anything I've tried to write before, and I can't help but worry that readers are going to scoff at how overblown it is.

 

[Britva415]

I don't think it would work if you spend the entire story leaving out this detail of Kelly's appearance and only reveal that when you're ready for the twist. A Glasgow smile is too prominent to spend the whole story pretending it isn't there or that the narrator doesn't even notice it.

Are you willing to allow that detail to foreshadow the twist before it's revealed? Or do some lampshading later when readers wonder why the narrator didn't know about it, by hanging "the best plastic surgery in the world" on her?

 

[Bamagan]

I suppose the likelihood of scoffing depends on the category. Kelly, at least, does not seem mentally healthy, which might make her irrational behavior more plausible, since it seems a bit deranged. It does not really make her more sympathetic, but that may or may not even be relevant if the story is going in LW, for example. I'm fairly confident I'm not part of your target audience, though, so my distaste for that kind of plot twist (this friend of the protag is worse than you knew) probably isn't very helpful feedback.

 

[Yarglenurp]

i think it’s fine. Do it… it doesn’t have to be realistic in reality, just realistic in the context of the story.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have a wonderful plot twist, but I'm worried it's completely implausible Here's the setup:

My observation over the years of threads like these is that the OP has already answered their own question.

Trust your instincts - if you need to ask whether it's implausible, it probably is.

A story that reveals a Glasgow Smile as a surprise twist would be denying the woman what must be a significant part of who she is now, surely? How could you depict her without making some mention of her disfigurement along the way? I can't see how that could be a twist (I might be missing something, though).

 

[THBGato]

I think this works (I mean, in my head I'm imagining the narrator as another woman, but it still works!)

 

[LoneMilf]

Is it really that much of a twist? I don't know how it fits into the rest of your story, but it seems that the key here is that her fiance wasn't there for her when she needed him. Whether the reason for that was an attack on one of his friends or on her doesn't seem all that important

 

[Bramblethorn]

Seems plausible enough for fiction, at least.

 

[mildlyaroused]

It depends wholly on the story leading up to this point. Is it melodramatic? Yes, but a lot of fiction is. If it's tonally consistent then it works; if not then it won't. As far as the twist itself is concerned, it feels to me that there is some expected degree of emotion and reflection missing from this reveal scene. Yes, Kelly might want to confess quickly and get it over with, but our characters need introspection. Though I understand this might come down to context (or following deliberation) being cut from this excerpt in particular.

The justification of her husband not giving her enough attention seems a little weak for such an overt coping mechanism, unless we learn more about the specifics of that period and how it affected Kelly so much. It doesn't do her likability any favours, but that isn't always a bad thing. Again, depends what you're going for (sorry, I know this isn't much help).

Bottom line: yes, it can work well. As long as it complements the rest of the story! If anything is too much, maybe it's the website aspect?

 

[onehitwanda]

so I had to look up what a Glasgow smile is and now I really, really wish I hadn't.

 

[Bamagan]

so I had to look up what a Glasgow smile is and now I really, really wish I hadn't.

At least you didn't have to look up what a Sydney Smirk is. (Basically the same, but down under. )

 

[onehitwanda]

At least you didn't have to look up what a Sydney Smirk is. (Basically the same, but down under. )

today really is a terrible day to be able to read.

 

[SimonDoom]

The one part of this I don't understand is how you withhold revealing the origins of what must still be terrible scars. I don't think the scars would ever heal completely, and they'd be difficult to impossible to conceal. Everyone who deals with Kelly will see them.

 

[NoviceAspen]

I agree the scars would be the first thing this friend noticed unless she has had a lot of work done to get rid of them.

I’m also a little confused by the rage she is showing towards Si Yuan in this scene. She’s mad that he didn’t Google her before they met, but that was a year ago? It makes sense for him to be shocked by this new information but if she knew all along that he hadn’t seen the website, it seems a little late to be upset about that now.

 

[SimonDoom]

I agree the scars would be the first thing this friend noticed unless she has had a lot of work done to get rid of them.

I’m also a little confused by the rage she is showing towards Si Yuan in this scene. She’s mad that he didn’t Google her before they met, but that was a year ago? It makes sense for him to be shocked by this new information but if she knew all along that he hadn’t seen the website, it seems a little late to be upset about that now.

"Rage" also seems like a significant overreaction, and it makes her seem unappealing. It's a petty thing to be outraged about. Irked or puzzled, perhaps, but outraged?

 

[MrPixel]

At least you didn't have to look up what a Sydney Smirk is. (Basically the same, but down under. )

The architect? What does he have to do with anything? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Smirke

 

[Bramblethorn]

The one part of this I don't understand is how you withhold revealing the origins of what must still be terrible scars. I don't think the scars would ever heal completely, and they'd be difficult to impossible to conceal. Everyone who deals with Kelly will see them.

Good makeup, even without cosmetic surgery, can conceal a lot:



via https://www.skincamouflageservices.co.uk/horrific-dog-bite-attack.html (content note: link includes photos of child shortly after serious facial injuries)

 

[XerXesXu]

The one part of this I don't understand is how you withhold revealing the origins of what must still be terrible scars. I don't think the scars would ever heal completely, and they'd be difficult to impossible to conceal. Everyone who deals with Kelly will see them.

The clue's in her name. She speaks in 'Strine and wears a bucket over her head.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'll just keep it blunt, It doesn't work at all, none of it, period.

Sometimes, as writers, we just miss the mark. This is one of those times.

 

[MrHereWriting]

I have a wonderful plot twist, but I'm worried it's completely implausible Here's the setup:



It is later revealed that "the person close to her fiance" was Kelly herself, and the attack was someone inflicting a Glasgow smile on her. She wanted to be reassured afterward that she was still pretty, but her fiance focused all his attention on her attacker, his motivations, his whereabouts.

She withholds this information as a test: if the narrator can accept and forgive the worst possible account of her behavior, then she'll trust him not to dump her when he learns the truth. Or so she tells herself. In fact, there's also a self-punishing aspect to it. She can't quite accept and forgive it herself, and she's sabotaging her new relationship because at some level she thinks she deserves to be alone forever.

Does this make any sense at all? It's way more melodramatic than anything I've tried to write before, and I can't help but worry that readers are going to scoff at how overblown it is.

Anything can be done and anything can be made to work, the only suggestion I have is: When her fiancé wasn't giving her attention, despite her cheating, she gave herself the smile and made up a story about being attacked.

You're going to have to give hints that there is something wrong with her face. You can't hide that kind of damage. Her friends may be sympathetic to her, but strangers won't be. People will stare, some will ask how it happened. You'll have to put her in the company of her friends most of the time, and when she's not with them, you'll have to do something to explain how people interact with her. In the end, she could be the looniest of loonies and blocks out people's reactions, which you'll have to pass on to the reader somehow.

• When people stare, you can have a friend say it's for a beauty but her mannerisms need to tell the reader something is off when she responds to the polite diversion from her facial scars.
• You can have plastic surgery pamphlets at her home, or plastic surgery searches on her computer, and when she is asked about it, she says it's for her nose, but her friends mannerisms says, "I understand and won't press." Maybe they tell her it's a good idea and she tells them to drop the subject in a way that makes the reader question her tone or choice of words for what seems like nothing to get angry over.
• She doesn't use mirrors that often, or looks away from her reflection, switches seats with a friend if she can see herself. If she's in a public, she walks with her scar facing a wall, or wears coats with the collars worn up, or even found any excuse to war a mask (if you want to add that to your story) something to look forward too.
• Selfies or pictures always have her scarred cheek hidden, make a point to say which cheek she faces the camera with, and several times she can say, "Let me give you my good side."

When she tells her friend, "Someone got hurt," have him put his hand on her shoulder. Her scar is obvious, you can't hide that grin, so he has to realize it was her (but, he doesn't know she inflicted it herself).

Anyway, be creative and for something like this, don't rush it. Choose your words carefully.

I'll just keep it blunt, It doesn't work at all, none of it, period.

Sometimes, as writers, we just miss the mark. This is one of those times.

If the scar is introduced with no foreshadowing, I agree.

 

[oneagainst]

No.

sorry just put a story into LW and still smarting from all the readers who clearly didn't get past the title before 1-bombing-due-to-the-mention-of-hotwife