5 Unexpected Plot Devices to Consider for Your Next Story

Let's welcome Reedsy writer, Savannah Cordova who has shared plot devices to consider when writing your next novel. Thank you, Savannah!

Of all the writing advice out there, warning against overly obvious plot devices might be one of the most common sentiments.

But plot devices don’t deserve their bad rap; they’re a fundamental component of any book, as they literally move the story forward. The only problem is when the same old plot devices get trotted out over and over again in books — such that they become predictable and/or contrived to readers who have encountered them a billion times before.

But as Taylor Swift once (basically) said: authors have a blank space, which they need to fill with plot devices in one way or another. So how can you keep them fresh and interesting for your audience? To help you out, here are five classic plot devices that still have the potential to surprise after all this time!

1. The Unreliable Narrator

Yes, the unreliable narrator is a tried-and-true plot device that’s more famous than not. But here’s how to ensure that this one sneaks up on readers: the audience shouldn’t know that your narrator is unreliable until at least halfway through the book.

Instead of giving it away in the first chapter or even the opening paragraph, the best novels plant clues that this narrator might be unhinged in more ways than one, so the audience can eventually figure it out themselves.

That slow, dawning realization that the narrator cannot be trusted is what still makes this plot device so unexpected — and effective. This is in large part because the reveal subverts the implicit contract that authors have with readers; the latter enters a book thinking they can trust the way the story is presented from the get-go. An unreliable narrator takes advantage of that expectation, and upends it entirely.

That’s also what makes this plot device one of the riskiest yet boldest to try, because your character isn’t deceiving another character in the story; they’re tricking your actual, real-life audience. But remember, you want readers to feel surprised, not betrayed. So make sure you do drop those subtle hints from relatively early on — just enough that readers can look back and think to themselves, “Ohhhhh, that’s what was going on there.”

2. The Death of a Loved One

We all know how this tragic story goes: the protagonist (usually a man) comes home to find that his loved one (usually his wife or girlfriend) is dead, maimed, or tortured. With the dead woman spurring the protagonist on as a plot device, he is then motivated to accomplish everything he couldn’t previously manage to do.

Unfortunately, this is an all-too-familiar sequence of events to audiences, particularly in the crime, thriller, and mystery genres. Violence against women being nothing more than a plot device in our media is so prevalent that it even has a name, coined by famous comic book writer Gail Simone: Women in Refrigerators Syndrome.

And of course, we’d prefer a world in which no one has to die for the story to advance. But since loss is sometimes inescapable when it comes to our certain stories — and protagonists need to get their motivation from somewhere — what if it at least came from an unpredictable source?

John Wick does this brilliantly by having John Wick come out of retirement not to avenge his wife or girlfriend, but rather his dog, Daisy (though she was a gift from his wife, to be fair). It’s impactful, universal, and most importantly, unexpected. As Derek Kolstad, the screenwriter of the first three installments of John Wick, once said: “We love the dog, and every motherfucker who killed the dog should die.”

3. The Marriage of Convenience

In this case, I don’t mean the trope in romance novels where two people are forced to marry for practical reasons (though that one’s also a plus in my books)! Instead, this refers to the plot device where two unlikely people have to team up midway through the story in order to overcome some obstacle.

For this to be truly unexpected to your audience, however, the parties involved have to be genuine enemies or rivals — at least at first. Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, therefore, you must successfully execute two things to pull off this plot device:

1. Create a compelling backstory for each character so the audience understands why they’re enemies; and subsequently,
2. Establish meaningful motivations for your characters to team up despite their enmity.

Often authors will try to do one without the other, which only serves to make the audience either go, “What? That doesn’t make sense” or “What? That wasn’t deserved.”

Zuko from Avatar: the Last Airbender is a powerful example of this plot device done right. Mortal enemies with Aang from Book 1 of the series, Zuko eventually grows disillusioned with his own nation and joins the Avatar’s ragtag band of freedom fighters in Book 3. Without the patience that it took to develop his character and his internal struggles through three seasons, however, their eventual team-up wouldn’t have been half as satisfying.

4. The Mistaken Identity

Mistaken identity is a popular enough plot device that you might think “been there, done that” — perhaps recalling Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, in which Cary Grant plays an innocent man whom everyone thinks is a government agent. Or maybe you’re thinking of The Big Lebowski, wherein Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski is mistaken for a millionaire with the same name.

But what about a situation in which a character assumes a mistaken identity on purpose to achieve a specific goal? That’s arguably much more unexpected — though this plot device does have long-standing origins!

Shakespeare is a great example of an early writer who pulled this off. In Twelfth Night, our heroine Viola takes advantage of her looks to disguise herself as her twin brother — followed by the typical shenanigans and love triangles that we all know (and love) from a Shakespearean comedy. But this specific brand of plot device isn’t exclusive to comedy (as evidenced by our Hitchcock example). Chinese dramas, for instance, also love this device to facilitate revenge plots like Wang Xingyue’s The Double, wherein the protagonist takes on a dead friend’s identity in order to avenge her family.

Of course, you’ll need exactly the right story to be able to use it, for this is a plot device that will inform every single event that follows it. But if you do have a book in mind for it, don’t be afraid to go for this one, as it fulfills all the requirements of a satisfying plot device!

Indeed, a mistaken identity clearly moves the plot forward, while also furnishing the character with plenty of motivation and backstory for why they might want to purposefully assume someone else’s identity. It’s a recipe for inherently juicy storytelling, particularly if you go with the “intentional” subversion suggested here.

5. Chekhov’s Gun

As any veteran reader will tell you, this one is arguably the most famous plot device in existence. So you’d be forgiven for wondering, “What is it doing on a list of unexpected plot devices?” But that’s the secret that’s helped Chekhov’s Gun survive (unlike its victims): when done well, it’s completely surprising and makes your audience practically fall out of their chairs.

In case you’re not familiar with it, here’s a quick recap of how Chekhov’s Gun works. On the surface, it describes a semi-insignificant object mentioned in a story that later turns out to be important to the plot. Say, for instance, a gun; if it’s shown in the background of a certain scene early on in a book, Anton Chekhov decrees that it must go off in a later chapter (a classic method of foreshadowing).

Seems simple enough, right? But on a deeper level, this rule of thumb tells us that every element in a story should contribute to the wider narrative: nothing should be accidental in your narrative, whether it’s a short story or a 100,000-word novel.

And that’s why Chekhov’s Gun, when correctly executed (no pun intended), still works so well! Such a seemingly innocuous detail slipped in early on will not only astonish readers when brought back later, but also give them a feeling of payoff when they realize that it was purposefully included at the start of the narrative.

Again, if you can drop just the right number of hints in your story and keep readers on their toes, you’re sure to have success with these plot devices! Even if people have seen them before, you’ll be making them your own in your story — and that’s what readers will remember.

 

Savannah Cordova is a writer with Reedsy, a platform that connects authors with the best publishing resources and industry professionals to help them publish their books. In her spare time, Savannah enjoys reading contemporary fiction, writing short stories, and analyzing literature into the ground.