Life is rarely straight and narrow
I love a good ‘twist’ in the tale, that unexpected turn of events in a story that you didn’t see coming, one that makes you gasp.
The film ‘Conclave’ wasn’t on my radar, it didn’t appeal to me. But a friend saw it and said, “That plot-twist, I didn’t see it coming!” Suddenly ‘Conclave’ was on my must-see list and I put aside an evening to watch it.
Personally, I’m invested in the plot-twist. With my online story-telling, one reader described me thus.
“This author is the Chief Executive Officer of plot-twists.” It’s a compliment I’m most proud of, and one that motivates me to write my next tale with more twists than a twisty toy. So, I sat down to watch ‘Conclave’ with my writerly ‘plot-twist’ cap on; determined to figure it out. I know all the narrative techniques that writers use to surprise us: the red-herrings, characters who mislead us, the seemingly innocent event that turns out to be anything but. And yet, I didn’t get the turn in Conclave’s tale. The writer(s) got me, they reeled me in, then threw me back with a reveal that made me gasp.
I’ll move away from Conclave now and ask you to put your thinking caps on, as I want to share a story/riddle with you, here goes – ‘There was a nine year old boy being driven home by his father. Father and son were best friends, and they chatted animatedly about their shared interests. But such was the engagement of their chatter, the father took his eye off the road, resulting in a head-on collision. The father was killed instantly; his son was rushed to hospital and into emergency surgery. The surgeon, about to operate pauses and says, “I can’t operate on this boy, because he’s my son.”
How can that be, have a think?
Apparently, a large portion of people can’t guess the answer to that riddle, which is really rather simple – the surgeon is the boy’s mother.
The riddle is a fiction, but the fact is, many of us perceive the word ‘Surgeon’ in the male guise.
From a movie about a pope, to unconscious gender bias, that’s quite the twist in this column. It was that riddle, and its impact on me, that inspired my most popular online story ‘The Surgeon’ – a story full of twists and turns, just like our lives. And it’s true, for we all have to deal with the real-narrative twists and turns in our daily lives. Wouldn’t it be great if we could write our own lives and edit out all the horrible twists while keeping the good ones.
Our Life’s twists can be disappointingly ordinary. Like recently, two folk were due to join a group of us to see a play in Cavan town. They set off from Virginia in good time for curtain-up; yet unexpected jamming-traffic diverted their drama, and they missed the entire play. Conversely, those irritatingly ordinary twists can pivot extraordinarily; like the countless real-life stories of people missing flights etc, only to realise their misfortune redirected them from disaster and saved their lives (which is a narrative-twist-trope that’s most often used in fiction writing).
Our life’s twists can be delightful; like the time I was sure I’d failed maths in my Leaving Cert exam. Looking at that maths ‘pass’ on a piece of paper is a ‘twist’ in my young life I’ll forever cherish (more of them, please). Then of course, there’s life’s sudden tragic twists that shatter worlds. Yet, when life takes an unexpected turn, they can help to build our resilience. We humans can be incredible in the face of adversity; there are many inspiring people amongst us. We all know someone who tackles their life’s curve-balls with such strength they make our problems seem small – warriors one and all. I may have been called the CEO of plot-twists, but I must humbly take my cap off to the absolute MASTER of the twist in the tale, and one of my favourite writers: Roald Dahl. His ‘Tales of The Unexpected’ are works of genius.
The fact is, I like to write stories that twist and turn, because the truth is: life is rarely straight and narrow.
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