On last night’s episode of Game Of Thrones, something big happened. (We promise not to spoil it here.) Much like last season’s infamous ‘Red Wedding’, the sequence skillfully blindsided many non-book reading fans of the show. Here’s a tip from the show’s co-producer Dan Weiss on how to execute a perfect plot twist without clueing in the audience.
In a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, Game of Thrones‘ showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff spilled the beans on the making of last night’s pivotal episode. Among a tsunami of spoilers, Weiss dropped this interesting tidbit that could prove handy to anyone trying to craft their own “shock moment” — be it in a novel, comic book or independent movie.
Here’s what he had to say on pulling off an unexpected plot twist:
The trick with any long, lavish, production-heavy sequence like this one is that at a certain point, people start to think something: “It’s been 15 minutes in one setting, something momentous is going to happen in this sequence.” And the only way they don’t think that is if you constantly keep them engaged in the things that are happening. So one of the major tricks to pull off in a scene like this is to keep people in the moments with all the characters interacting with one another and not let them think about the bigger picture, about why we’ve been at this wedding for 15 minutes.
Sounds like perfectly sound advice to us. For more Game Of Thrones goodness, check out George R.R. Martin’s Top 10 fantasy writing tips, as well as our celebratory Season 4 post.
[Via Entertainment Weekly]
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10 responses to “Game Of Thrones’ Creator Explains How To Pull Off A Shocking Plot Twist”
I’d hardly say it was a total surprise that something was going to happen since there was a bit of a build up during the scene in question.
That being said maybe that was only because GoT is not known for pulling punches. To me they are harder to hide in a general sense even if you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. My wife and I both knew something big was about to happen even if we didn’t know what.
I didn’t know WHAT was going to happen, but i could see it building. I could see the tension growing, i could see how everything was coming to a point, everything was focused on one thing and then BAM…
I admit, i thought Joffery was going to do something really bad to Tyrion and then shit was going to get real.. but i like the actual outcome more.
Yeah well, I can’t say I was disappointed.. 🙂
My partner went back and watched some parts a second time just to enjoy them again.
game of thrones doesn’t really have plot twists tho its like the creator just goes whats the worst possible outcome and goes with it every god dam time
The problem is there are so MANY bad outcomes, and yeah you start expecting them, but you see one coming and it doesn’t happen and then what DOES happen comes out of left field, its just as bad… but.. there are so many to choose from.
Readers of the books found the Red Wedding and Royal Wedding to be big shocks as they were reading as well. I haven’t been as surprised like that since the Amtrak Wars.
I wonder if the actor who plays Joffrey will ever shake being typecast in despicable roles.
Apparently he’s going to quit acting, possibly for that reason.
I read that he had fun but he was WAY more interested in academics and he knew the role wouldn’t last forever and he knew that he wanted to get out of it after it was over anyway. He has been quoted saying that its fun, but not for him.