Plot Twist Story Prompts: Good Guy Bad
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, Dangerous Challenge, here.
Plot Twist Story Prompts: Good Guy Bad
For today’s prompt, make the good guy bad (and as with the previous Bad Guy Good plot twist prompt I’m using “guy” in a non-gendered sense here). Often, there’s the very helpful friend, mentor, or love interest who is always there for the protagonist, but then, it’s revealed they’ve been scheming all along.
This twist has been used so frequently that I often suspect goodies more than baddies in mysteries and thrillers. But as a writer, it’s good to keep this in mind, because you can have your goodie seem like a probable baddie who is revealed to actually, yes, be a goodie (except maybe not).
It’s also possible that the goodie was always a goodie until something happened that suddenly sent them down another path. Maybe it’s a lost loved one. Maybe it’s a taste of power. Maybe they’re finally tired of being overlooked all the time. Whatever it is, the good person turns bad.
So make a good guy bad, 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.