I haven't even got a release date for my first YA novel The Bird WithThe Broken Wing and I'm already 10,000 words into my next novel titled Feedback.
At first draft stage Feedback has a basic plot line and I already know the surprise ending, unlike my first novel The Bird With The Broken Wing, which I didn't know the exact ending until I had rewritten the story a few times and even I came away thinking, "Ah, of course."
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, Stories by O'Henry and Jeffrey Archer's A Twist in the Tale are all fabulous collections of novellas/short stories with surprise endings. Some of my favourite movies are The Sixth Sense, The Others, Fraility, The Usual Suspects. The list goes on. I love a good twist. And I mean a good twist, something clever. Not the Scooby-Doo type of ending although I remember I loved them when I was five.
A good twist ending needs to come from something the reader isn't expecting, but which makes perfect sense on retrospect. The reader should come away thinking, "Of course, I should have known."
