“Unveiling ‘Strange Darling’: How a Game-Changing Midpoint Twist Redefines Screenwriting Techniques”
“But I wasn’t setting out to compete with any of those filmmakers or any of those movies because that’s been done. It’s so hard to do, especially nowadays, with spoilers and how intelligent audiences are.”
His point is a great one.
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In 2024, viewers raised on the internet in a post-The Sixth Sense, post-Lost world have come to expect narrative curveballs and are adept now at sniffing them out in a way they weren’t generations ago.
Showing your hand early in your script gives audiences less time to figure out the surprise you have in store for them. It also makes it more satisfying. Even if viewers guess what the twist is, if that shock comes around the midpoint, then the twist is not the destination of your movie—it’s a journey point. The rest of the film can be about what the twist means for the characters instead of solely what it means for us in the audience.
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