Plot Twist Story Prompts: Barrier Breaks
Plot twist story prompts aren’t meant for the beginning or the end of stories. Rather, they’re for forcing big and small turns in the anticipated trajectory of a story. This is to make it more interesting for the readers and writers alike.
Each week, I’ll provide a new prompt to help twist your story. Find last week’s prompt, Unlikely Friendship, here.
Plot Twist Story Prompts: Barrier Breaks
For today’s prompt, have a barrier break. The barrier could be something physical, like a wall or door. But it may be even more impactful if there’s a mental, physical, or emotional barrier that suddenly breaks (or maybe both).
(5 Secrets of Creating Tension Between Siblings in Fiction.)
As an example, maybe there’s a barrier between two characters getting together who are obviously into each other. The tension keeps building throughout the story until suddenly the dam breaks and they give in to their emotions. And what does that mean for the story going forward?
Or in mysteries, there is often a barrier between a detective or amateur sleuth and the truth…until a mental barrier breaks and the mystery is solved (or is that another red herring?). And, of course, the physical barrier that keeps the zombies out will eventually come down, in one way or another, and that leads to chaos.
So let have a barrier break, and see what happens next.
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Have you hit a wall on your work-in-progress? Maybe you know where you want your characters to end up, but don’t know how to get them there. Or, the story feels a little stale but you still believe in it. Adding a plot twist might be just the solution.