It’s Friday, beautiful friends! And today, we’re talking about surprising our readers.

I have been elated by all the mystery books appearing on the YA shelves these past few years. It’s not a new trend, by any means. Nancy Drew has been solving crimes with young readers forever, but I think it’s exciting to see how modern authors for young readers are taking the idea of a classic murder mystery, and turning it on its head.

Of course, you don’t need to be writing a mystery or a thriller to utilize the tools so often deployed by such authors. Readers of all genres love being surprised.

So let’s talk about it. How do you surprise your reader?

Reveal information only as necessary. Author Kate Morton is brilliant at this. She writes these deeply researched Historicals that often span generations, and she’s found a formula that’s made her stories very uniquely hers.

She often moves from one generation to another, through letters sometimes, and through memories in others. Back and forth she’ll go, revealing delicious, compelling moments so seductively you don’t even realize she’s withholding details from the reader.

Guessing her endings is near impossible because she keeps some tantalizing bit of information in her pocket. It’s the key to understanding everything. And there’s no unlocking the truth without it.

Take advantage of reader assumptions. The storyteller who immediately jumps to mind is M. Night Shyamalan. His movie, the Sixth Sense, had most of the audience overlooking the obvious, even as we tried to understand what we were seeing.

We didn’t question what was unfolding before our eyes, and we assumed things we really shouldn’t have assumed. As a storyteller, Shyamalan didn’t have to lie to us; he just left us stewing in our assumptions until we were primed.

And then he showed us THAT THING we had overlooked all along, and all of our heads exploded.

Utilize red herrings. A red herring is anything that distracts or misleads the reader. A faulty road sign, if you will, that leads the reader down the wrong trail. As a device, it’s used most often in the mystery genre–a suspect with motive and means and a shaky alibi, is planted to distract the reader from the real culprit–but red herrings can be creatively used in other genres as well.

Think of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Lots of red herrings in this fantasy book. Who is the Half Blood Prince? Is it Harry? Is it Malfoy? Is it He Who Must Not Be Named? And how much does it actually matter to the outcome of the tale? Red herrings can be a very useful way to distract your reader, surprise them, and then pull off an unpredictable ending.

Throw a good liar into the mix. If your most unassuming and trustworthy character is hiding something, or flat-out lying to the reader, you’ve changed things up in a way that could flip your story on its head.

The best example I can think of is a book I’d hate to ruin for you all–it’s that good!–so I’m going to leave it nameless.

But when a very well-respected, elderly detective is called in to solve a murder, we trust him immediately. In fact, the whole town does. He’s the detective after all and he acts accordingly. He tracks down suspects, reveals secrets, throws an entire town into turmoil, solves multiple mysteries, and in the end, we find that he himself committed the murder.

The story looks entirely different once you understand his connection to the case. The author did a brilliant job unveiling those details throughout the story and for seemingly unrelated reasons, as if the detective’s ties to the location and the people only prove his trustworthiness and not vice versa. What a satisfying read!

Depending on who the liar is in your book, and how you lay it out, this is also a brilliant way to create an unreliable narrator. But, we’ll discuss unreliable narrators in detail another time.

Let yourself be surprised. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader. Or so they say. In fact so many people have said this, I have no idea who to attribute this quote to. But I absolutely believe it to be true.

During the drafting process, let your characters make a few choices you didn’t prepare for. Let them surprise you with the things they’re willing to do. If they want to blow something up, let them. If the fallout can’t be managed, you may have to adjust, but that’s what drafting is all about. Trying different things. Telling yourself the story. Figuring out what happens. And, if you’re very lucky, surprising yourself.

There is no one way to do surprise the reader, friends. I suggest reading and rereading as many unpredictable books as you can. Study how and why the author did what they did. Look carefully at when they unveiled certain bits of information. Watch for the keys they keep hidden, and take note of which doors those keys open.

And discuss these books with others! Get input. Brainstorm with friends. There’s nothing like discussing a compelling piece of literature with another book lover.

Tell me, how do YOU surprise your readers? And can you suggest a few unpredictable books for those of us wanting to study them?

Shannon Dittemore is an author and speaker. Her books include the Angel Eyes trilogy, a supernatural foray into the realm of angels and demons, as well as the fantastical adventure novel Winter, White and Wicked. Its sequel, Rebel, Brave and Brutal is due out January 10, 2023.

Shannon’s stories feature strong female leads grappling with fear and faith as they venture into the wilds of the unknown. She’s often wondered if she’s writing her own quest for bravery again and again.

It’s a choice she values highly. Bravery. And she’s never more inspired than when young people ball up their fist and punch fear in the face.

To that end, Shannon takes great joy in working with young writers, both in person and online at Go Teen Writers, an instructional blog recognized by Writer’s Digest four years running as a “101 Best Websites for Writers” selection.

For more about Shannon and her books, please visit her website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.