Plot Twists in Fiction--Good. In Real Life--Not So Much.

 By Thomas Kies

As I write this, my wife and I were supposed to be on an exploration day in Vancouver.  Then, the following day, we were supposed to board a Holland America ship for a cruise of the coastline of Alaska for ten days.  

I’d never been on a cruise before and neither of us had visited Alaska, so this was going to be a real treat.

My wife spent months putting the trip together, planning the shore excursions, picking out the drink and meal packages.  She’s the one who booked the flights from Raleigh to Minneapolis to Vancouver.  She’s the one who booked the hotels we needed when not onboard the ship.

She’s the one who put the sweat equity into what was going to be the trip of a lifetime. 

Then there was a plot twist. 

Even just reading it puts your nerves on edge, doesn’t it? Foreshadowing…yes, there’s trouble brewing ahead.

In order to board the ship, even to gain entrance into Canada, we had to show proof of vaccination (no problem—vaccinated and double boosted) as well as testing negative for covid within 72 hours of entering the country.

We’d decided to catch a favorable flight from Raleigh (a three-hour drive from our home) and figured that if we got tested on our way out of our hometown, the timing would be perfect. Once at the Days Inn in Raleigh, we checked our results.  My wife was negative…I was positive. 

I had no symptoms.  No cough, no runny nose, no fever.  I still had my senses of taste and smell. 

But the results were positive.  Plot twist!

We were supposed to catch a cab at four in the morning for a six-a.m. flight.  At that point, it was after seven in the evening.  Hoping that I’d scored a false positive, we started making phone calls looking for a place that could get me in for another covid test. None…and I mean none…were open at that hour.

Time had run out for us.  We pulled the plug on the trip.

When we got home, I got another test and, yes, I was negative. 

A plot twist is a literary technique that introduces a radical change in the direction or outcome of the plot.  It adds intrigue and suspense and builds reader engagement. 

I could have done without this one.

But let’s face it, plot twists in fiction are the best!

Here are some of my favorite movie plot twists (warning—spoilers ahead):

Planet of the Apes—Who can forget the ending of that movie when the hero, who is riding astride a horse with his love interest up the beach to better days after escaping the “damned, dirty apes”, only to discover he wasn’t on an alien planet after all.  There in front of him, is the remnants of the Statue of Liberty.  He realizes he’s not on an alien world but on Earth, thousands of years into the future.  Mankind had destroyed itself and the planet is now, well, dominated by apes. 

The Sixth Sense—After watching this movie, who didn’t go back and re-watch the film to see how M. Night Shyamalan pulled it off? The plot is simple, a child psychologist works with a boy who claims he can see “dead people”.  The movie itself is creepy enough, but at the end, we find out that the doctor is the one who is dead.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood—This is one of my favorite Quentin Tarantino movies.  The protagonists are a fading film star and his stunt double sidekick as they move through the sixties in Tinseltown.  The plot twist here is when the Charles Manson family drives up into the hills to kill Sharon Tate, they get the address wrong and end up at the house of the protagonists.  The ending is the usual brutally violent bloodbath that’s a Tarantino trademark and the Manson family is wiped out. Revisionist history…another Tarantino trademark. 

My neighbor, a health care worker, has advised me to quarantine for five days even though the second test was negative.  Better to be safe than sorry. So, instead of being onboard a Holland American cruise, I'm sitting in my home office in front of my laptop. 

In fiction, a plot twist makes the story memorable.  Plot twists are an adrenaline kick.   

In real life, I’m pretty sure we can take them or leave them. 

Making a Better Human

After his time in Tombstone, Wyatt Earp and his common-law wife, Josephine Sarah Marcus, set out for Alaska, where they ran the Dexter Saloon. What intrigues me about this photo of their saloon is the humor, a hundred years after the fact, which still holds up.

Humor is an integral part of human nature, and though we are a civilization centuries old with many differences in customs, languages, and shared experiences, I'm amazed when jokes manage to transcend the ages. One of my favorites is from ancient China and discusses the origins of the house cat. The story is that cats had been sent by the Gods to watch over us, but the cats don't do a very good job of it because they sleep so much.

This interest about human character stems from panels at science-fiction conferences where we discussed future developments involving humans and high-technology. One favorite topic addressed the human-computer interface and potential changes to human biology. For example, connecting our brains directly to computers would allow us to access information from vast libraries and process that data at incredible speeds. The eventual goal would be "singularity," where every mind would be wired to the Internet to create one global super brain. What a schizophrentic mess that would be. Who would set the agenda? Proponents of that technology argue in purple prose that such a development should be hailed as the next step in human evolution. Homo-Google.

That ability would surely make us smarter. Right? And by extension, better. What's missing in this talk of becoming more advanced humans is any discussion about what truly makes us better. I've yet to see a software app that'll make anyone more honest. Or more empathetic. Or wiser. Conversely, I haven't seen an app that would prevent dishonesty, theft, treachery, or even murder. Human nature as expressed through humor, or doing good, or doing bad, won't change. To that end, here's one of my favorite quotes from Scripture, Job 5:7 Man was born into trouble just as surely as sparks fly upward. 

And that trouble is what keeps us crime writers busy.

A Thought About Research

I was in awe when I read Barbara's post on Wednesday about her working vacation. Reading about the time she spent on Georgian Bay doing research for her book reminded me of what I am never likely to do in the name of research. I love water, and I would happily have gone to Georgian Bay. But I would not have camped out. The only time I have ever slept in a tent was during basic training in the Army. I did not enjoy it. And the idea that I might wake up in a tent during a thunderstorm is an additional reason why my idea of "roughing it" is staying in a cabin. I don't like bugs. I don't like rattlesnakes. I worry about ticks.

Being reminded that I am not the outdoor type is depressing. I would love to plunge into research that takes me into the wilderness. In fact, I do field research. I go to my settings. I take photos and make notes. But since I write books and stories set in the past or the near-future, I am looking backward or imagining forward. I read other people's accounts of living through a flood or a hurricane. I watch news videos. I read geographic reports. I try to get as close as I can to the actual experience.

I have done experiments such as being locked in a car truck while tied up. I've visited a virtual reality lab.

What would happen if I challenged myself to more outdoor adventures?. Would that affect what I write about and how I write? I did go to Alaska on a cruise, and I allowed my traveling companion to talk me into white-water rafting and a helicopter ride to a glacier. . .but what I really need for the book I'm working on is to be aboard a train in a Pullman coach in 1939.

Time and Space

I'm back home from my Alaska adventures. But – the reason I'm late today – I'm experiencing a slow transition back to every day life. It's rather odd because my body and mind seemed to be lagging behind – back in place, but not quite there yet.

It began when I opened the front door to my house late last Thursday afternoon. The quality of the light seemed off. Even when I raised the blinds, the light seemed not quite right. The rooms seemed to have shrank a bit in my absence – except for the bathroom which now seemed larger, but I automatically stepped up as I had been doing for a week in my cruise ship cabin.

I put this distortion of light and space down to the fact that I'd been up at three a.m. that morning to catch a flight from Vancouver, Canada to Albany. And over the course of the past two weeks, I had changed time zones a couple of times. And I'd come from jacket weather, including hat and scarf to Albany, in the midst of a September hot spell.

But here it is a week later, and I am still a little sleepier than usual. Still trying to catch up with the world that went along without me for two weeks – although I did occasionally check my email. Undoubtedly, over the weekend, I will make the transition and by next week I will be back in the rhythm of my life. But I wonder if this isn't a bit of psychological resistance – the need to hold on to what I loved about the wilderness of Alaska. To remember white-water rafting and riding horseback in a rain forest.

I think there is a story here about stepping out of one’s daily life and then coming back – about a character who is gone for a longer period of time, who does resist settling in again. I'll have to give it a bit of thought. Meanwhile, here are photos taken as I was standing on a glacier. I was a bit hesitant about getting into a helicopter for this ride, but the friend I was traveling with convinced me. It was awe-inspiring.

This photo doesn't capture the awesomeness of a glacier. Here's a crevice in the glacier that was quite deep and a little scary. There is a name for it, but I had on my gloves and no pen at hand to write it down.

Seeing Glaciers

Frankie here. I'm on board a ship in Alaska. I had intended to do a full post with photos. But, alas, I had not taken into account the time it takes to write a post and expensive Internet minutes. And, of course, there is also the matter of time zones.

See you next time with photos and stories from my travels.