Subverting Expectations

The stories that linger in our minds long after reading tend to subvert the reader's expectations. We know the golden rule: the reader likes to know more than the main characters, but you also don't want to bore the reader. We'll examine successful passages where the writer seemed to be taking the story one way and then had the characters surprise themselves and the reader in a way that feels startling but authentic and so right that it could not have gone another way. We'll also do writing exercises to see how we can apply these techniques in our writing to push our characters and ourselves to surprising outcomes.