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One of the greatest “surprising but believable choices” ever made in the history of storytelling is in Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back.
Near the end of the movie, and during the epic lightsaber battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, we finally learn the truth. Vader says, “Luke, I am your father.” And we see young Luke Skywalker crumble under this realization.
This is Surprising, because the story has clearly pinned Luke and Vader against each other. And we don’t expect these enemies to share something so deeply personal: they’re family.
But this is also Believable, because there are only so many Jedi in the world, and in hindsight, the clues make sense. Luke hasn’t known the identity of his parents, but he’s been told his father was a powerful figure.
A story is not merely “a series of things that happen.” Or even, “a series of consequential things that happen.”
The best stories, the ones that lodge themselves into our minds and stay there for decades, are “a series of Surprising but Believable things that happen.”
That’s why generations of sci-fi fans continue to recite that iconic line: “Luke, I am your father.”
Here’s a “Believable” story:
A boy’s mom asks him to walk down the road to the gas station to buy her a jug of milk
The boy, young, only in middle school, walks down the road to the gas station.
He asks the gas station attendant where the milk is.
The gas station attendant points to the milk in the refrigerators along the back wall.
The boy grabs a gallon of milk and walks it back to the counter.
The gas station attendant takes his $5 bill and hands him the change.
The boy walks the jug of milk back home.
Everything about this story is Believable—which is fine, that’s what grounds it in some sort of reality. But from a plot perspective, Believable is Boring. Nothing really happens!
In fact, this is a lot of what gets produced in the world of Literary Fiction.
Most Literary Fiction isn’t about anything Surprising—and if there is a Surprising element, it happens once and that’s about it. The rest of the story is straightforward, oftentimes mundane.
Which is why the “value” of Literary Fiction tends to rely on other storytelling variables besides just plot. If a story is Believable but Boring, then the value has to come from somewhere else: maybe it’s the voice of the narrator that keeps you interested; maybe it’s the beautiful language, the colorful description, the visceral metaphors; or maybe it’s the narrator’s commentary on themes in society that resonates with your point of view, validating or stress-testing the way you see the world.
The point is, the “value” of a story can be any number of things. There is stylistic value. Plot value. Thematic value.
But if you want to maximize the plot value, specifically, then you’re playing a game called: How Do I Make As Many Surprising But Believable Choices In The Story As Possible?
If Believable is one side of the spectrum, then Surprising is the other.
But Surprising decisions, by themselves, are not valuable.
For example, here’s a “Surprising” story:
A boy’s mom asks him to walk down the road to the gas station to buy her a jug of milk
The boy, young, only in middle school, walks down the road to the gas station—but gets abducted by an alien.
He asks the the alien where the milk is—and the alien says, “It’s time you die.”
The boy dies—but then gets reborn as a purple cow.
As a purple cow, the boy befriends a leopard who only communicates in show tunes.
Together, they decide to start their own 2-person show-tune traveling band.
And on the road, the leopard finally confesses his love to the boy, who decides he can no longer be a purple cow, and begs the aliens in the sky to return him home.
The aliens do return him home, but weld a purple cow tattoo onto his arm so he’ll remember this journey forever.
His mom then asks why he didn’t bring home any milk.
Wow! Everything about this story is Surprising!
But does that make it “good?” Not really. A lot happens—but the happening doesn’t hold very much value. It’s just one Surprising thing after another, with no real intention or, and this is the key word, Believability.
Which is what makes Surprising a Shtick—a very easy mechanism to overuse.
So, what are the limits of Surprising but Believable choices?
In creative writing, the limit is typically referred to as “the suspension of disbelief.” Surprising but Believable choices don’t have to be realistic (sci-fi/fantasy proves this). It’s about whether or not each choice is believable within the rules of the story. A reader will happily accept a futuristic mechanical dragon powered by an ancient dragon heart if the magic system of the story has logic that can support it. But a reader will reject a character in a medieval fantasy world suddenly checking their email on a flip phone because that would break the rules of the story—it would be Surprising, but it wouldn’t be Believable.
The story contradicts its own internal logic: A character suddenly has a skill they’ve never shown before, or experiences something that doesn’t make sense in this world.
Coincidences solve problems instead of the characters having to figure things out on their own: This is commonly known as deus ex machina, a plot device where an unsolvable, hopeless problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected, unlikely intervention ****(like a new character, ability, or object) ****that was not previously foreshadowed. It’s a “contrived” ending to a situation that feels unearned, often favoring luck over character action.
Dialogue sounds like a writer talking, not a person: This is where the writer peeks their head out too far from behind the curtain, and makes their presence too felt (often over-sharing their own personal beliefs, opinions, etc.)—which breaks the suspension of disbelief and mysticism of the story. As readers, this is the moment we realize this fiction world is indeed… fictional.
Research fails conspicuously (wrong gun, wrong law, wrong era, etc.): This is an easy one to avoid. Do your homework.
Stakes deflate (no one really gets hurt, nothing really changes): This is what’s known as a Red Herring, which is a distraction, clue, or piece of information intended to mislead or divert attention. Murder mysteries notoriously overuse this mechanism, trying to make every action in every scene leave you questioning: “Wait.. are they guilty? Or wait… is this other person guilty? OR WAIT… IS IT THIS OTHER PERSON WHO IS GUILTY?”
Now, here’s how to think of Surprising but Believable choices as a skill that you can improve.
In any given situation, characters have multiple different choices they can make.
And it’s not that any choice is “right” or “wrong” (so long as the choice doesn’t break the suspension of disbelief). It’s just that some choices are more Surprising (aka: effective & memorable) than others.
Whenever something “happens” in a story, you (the writer) have to make a choice.
What happens next?
And 3 categories of choices immediately present themselves:
The Believable but Unsurprising Choice: The high school football star gets hit by a drunk driver. (We’ve all seen this movie a hundred times. Very predictable.)
The Unbelievable Choice (breaking the suspension of disbelief): The high school football star gets hit by his arch rival’s mother who wants to murder him to see her own son succeed. (Surprising, sure. But Believable? Ehhhh… that’s pretty extreme.)
The Believable but Surprising Choice: The high school football star gets hit by his alcoholic coach and mentor, whom we’ve watched struggle with alcohol the whole story, and whom we’ve also watched the high school football star try to help and repeatedly fail. (Now that’s a story!)
Notice how none of these choices is “the right choice” to make in the story (right and wrong are subjective). They’re just different available moves on the chessboard.
But, like chess, some moves are more effective than others.
And you must search a little harder, and stare at the board a little longer, to discover those Surprising but Believable moves.
First, make a list of things that “happen” in your story:
Main character, a mechanic on a remote desert planet, discovers a foreign ship has landed in his backyard.
When main character explores the ship, he tries to steal the comms system but accidentally discovers a map.
When the main character returns home with the comms system and map, he’s jumped by a group of rebels who have been searching for the same map—and taken hostage.
Next, within each “action,” build your pattern recognition by coming up with ideas inside all 3 categories of choices:
The Believable but Unsurprising Choice:
The Unbelievable Choice (breaking the suspension of disbelief):
The Believable but Surprising Choice:
This will help you learn to recognize which direction your ideas tend to default.
(Pro tip: the brain almost always tilts toward the Believable but Unsurprising Choice first, second, and third. You usually have to sit there and think about it for longer than 30 seconds to see the Believable but Surprising Choice on the chessboard.)
Main character, a mechanic on a remote desert planet, discovers a foreign ship has landed in his backyard.
The Believable but Unsurprising Choice: The main character recognizes the ship. It’s the same type of ship as every other ship on this planet.
The Unbelievable Choice (breaking the suspension of disbelief): It’s a ship from a completely different time period—a Pirate Ship!
The Believable but Surprising Choice: The main character doesn’t recognize the ship, but when he gets closer, he realizes the logo on the side of the ship is the same logo on the leather-bound cover of his father’s old journal—and no one has seen his father in years.
When main character explores the ship, he discovers a map.
The Believable but Unsurprising Choice: It’s a regular old map, wedged into the corner, that the character finds easily.
The Unbelievable Choice (breaking the suspension of disbelief): He doesn’t find the map, the map finds him! The map jumps off the table and walks over to the main character, introducing itself.
The Believable but Surprising Choice: The character sees a brand-new communications system in the cockpit and decides to try to jack it—maybe it’ll be worth some money. But as he tries to break it off, he accidentally triggers the system to show him a holographic display, a map. And on the map, it shows the same logo again, with coordinates to a home base on a planet the character remembers hearing at some point in the past. Maybe that’s where his father is?
When the main character tries to return home with the map, he’s jumped by a group of rebels.
The Believable but Unsurprising Choice: The main character, carrying the comms system hoping to sell it in town, gets jumped and they steal the comms system for themselves. Map gone.
The Unbelievable Choice (breaking the suspension of disbelief): The main character gets jumped, but then two seconds later the crew says, “We know your dad. We’re here to take you to him.” (This would be a mini deus ex machina, the coincidence ruining the stakes of the story.)
The Believable but Surprising Choice: The main character gets jumped by a group of bandits who also saw the ship crash, and take him hostage. The main character offers them the comms system, thinking they just want the loot, and that’s when they reveal their true identity. They are part of a remote, secret group affiliated with the ship’s logo, tasked with bringing the map back to home base. And that’s when the main character asks to come along, saying that’s where he thinks his dad might be.
You should be able to see how there are many different “right” answers as to where you could take the story. And every time something happens, a new set of choices present themselves—over and over again.
Storytelling, then, is just a game of stringing together Surprising but Believable choices.
Which is what makes this such a valuable skill to build.
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