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Wow look at the audience sitting all comfortable there, thinking they know how the story is
going to go.
It would be shame if the author suddenly… pulled the rug from under them!
I’m not just talking about a sudden plot twist, though a good plot twist will certainly
help in this regard.
No.
I’m talking about a mid series shakeup to the established story that changes everything.
Nothing will be the same anymore after I cover mid series shakeups in this video!
Now what exactly is a mid series shakeup?
A mid series shakeup occurs when a story has a set plot or pattern that each entry or chapter
in the story follows that establishes a routine or certain set of audience expectations that
is then upended by a dramatic turn of events.
For example, a story can structure itself as a monster of the week story with each chapter
featuring a new monstrous foe for the protagonists to defeat.
This establishes a familiar pattern that the audience grows accustom to.
Then the mid series shakeup occurs when instead of a new monster for the protagonist’s to
face, the protagonists are instead betrayed by the fellow monster hunters, their fortress
destroyed, and are suddenly wanted fugitives by the very people who were formally their
patrons.
This changes the story from a monster of the week plot to a cat and mouse game as the protagonists
are forced to evade their former allies and escape.
A mid series shake up can re-contextualize the plot and dramatically shift the narrative’s
direction to keep a story fresh.
But the real reason to use it is so I can feel as though I pulled one over on the audience
and completely trash the fun story they were enjoying just because I got bored with it.
It also can be a great tool for writers that need a story to have a high rate of audience
retention, but don’t have the skill to pull this off without burning down the entire story
every 10 chapters with the vague promise that the next 10 will be better.
So how can a writer pull off a mid series shakeup?
Rather than one specific method, there are in fact a massive number of ways this can
be accomplished so I will instead be covering some of the more common and useful tools when
it comes to shaking up a story.
Let’s begin with one of the most dramatic!
Brutally murdering one or more important characters!
Killing one or more important characters can mark clear and decisive point of transition
for the story.
There are two kinds of characters that are typically killed this way.
The first is the sacrificial lion.
This is a character that is a major part of the story and is usually integral to the cast
and plot.
Often they are the pillar that supports the protagonists and their allies and are featured
often in the story.
This makes their death extra shocking which is why I’m going to undermine it by foreshadowing
it way too much!
The noble flawless character who is always kind to the protagonist, can solve all of
their problems for them, and can have their death act as an emotional fulcrum to further
the protagonist’s character development?
Yeah no one will see that character’s death coming.
Extra points if they’re a mentor and/or parental figure.
Does the story build up to the sacrificial lion’s death by making it the natural result
of the decisions of one or more characters?
I don’t know, I can’t see because of all these neon colored death signs blocking my
view.
Now if building up to a big character death is hard then maybe just downgrade to a sacrificial
lamb instead of a lion.
Now sacrificial lambs don’t nearly have the weight of lion as they tend to be side
characters or secondary characters that appear only so often the in story, but if set up
well then they can add a decent enough tonal shift to shakeup the story, especially if
no other characters have died yet.
Even with this lesser status the death of a sacrificial lamb can be amplified by making
them foils to the protagonist or even making them far more skilled in order to show just
how dangerous the threats they face are.
But there is no way I’m going to put in that kind of legwork so instead I’ll just
make the lamb a pure innocent character that can be killed only for shock value.
Will cynical audiences see through this?
Of course, but that’s their problem.
Besides if that doesn’t work then just go for quantity by killing off a bunch of characters
without worrying about the principle of diminishing returns.
Because everything changed after what’s his name died.
If killing a character suddenly isn’t your style, then an even more dramatic solution
is to instead reveal that a character is dying of some probably unspecified so I don’t
have to research it illness.
You know it’s fatal because they cough up blood and have no other symptoms.
As the character is dying at the speed of the plot, this leaves the writer lots of time
to make it as agonizing for the audience as it is for the character.
This can be a turning point of the story as it adds a sense of urgency that previously
wasn’t there to either find a cure or for the dying character to complete their task
before their symptoms become terminal, but I’m going to milk this for all it’s worth
and drag it out so long that the audience will be wishing for the sweet release of death
long before the ill character ever does.
Good thing the character’s illness doesn’t seem to bother them during the action scenes.
Even better, just forget the entire illness thing completely after I get bored with that
plot or just chicken out and find a cure at the last minute off screen.
So we’ve murdered some characters to shift the tone into darker territory, but a mid
series shakeup often requires a bit more to give that little push forward.
And one way to push our protagonist’s forward is to smoke them out of their comfort zone
by burning down the setting!
Now a major change-up in the setting can sometimes really open up a story to a wide array of
new possibilities.
Is the post burn setting well thought out with the consequences of the changes fully
realized and accounted for?
No I just got bored and wanted to shift genres on a whim.
Will this traumatic transition actually add story possibilities without loosing the audience
more invested in the older setting and tone?
I mean the old setting was about as solid as a wet tissue so I don’t really see what
the loss is anyway, but um I’m sure the jaded audience will.
Now if a writer doesn’t want to completely burn down the setting then they can instead
opt to merely shift the balance of power.
This can be something like allies and enemies suddenly changing allegiances in relation
to the protagonists forcing them to fight alongside former foes against former friends.
It can also be something as major as the bad guys winning and taking control and thus forcing
the protagonists to continue the fight underground or from the shadows.
Wow.
Both of those sound like really interesting and engaging ideas that require a lot of forethought
and good narrative instincts to pull off.
But I can improve them!
Now I could have the protagonists carry on the battle against the now ascendant villains
from the shadows, desperately scraping whatever resources they can get their hands on while
staying only a few steps ahead of their foes with just their wits.
But a far better use of this arc would be to just have the heroes spend all of their
time in their hidden base arguing about how bad things are and pointing fingers at one
other.
Is this internal strife caused by being put under constant stress?
Well actually it’s mostly a result of the author’s lack of imagination which is why
your going to get more of those scenes for like way too long.
Dealing with the actual details of a major shift in the balance of power in a setting
requires that the setting actually develop with power dynamics often becoming more complex
and difficult for the protagonist to adapt to which is why I would rather spend time
on shallow melodrama because I can just churn that tripe out on the cheap.
Now if a power dynamic shift is too difficult for a writer, then there are still easier
ways to build up to a mid series shake up.
Like a sudden plot twist!
Now I’ve touched on plot twists before and just to reiterate, the best plot twists come
out of nowhere and are mostly there for a writer to feel as though they’ve pulled
one over on their audience.
Springing a plot twist around the same time as another major turning point in the story
can have a multiplcative effect by compounding the complexity and weight of the situation
for the protagonists.
But don’t worry, there’s no way to fumble that with a plot twist that face-plants into
the ground.
The best way to execute a plot twist at a key moment is to never bother to like plan
it out and instead choose plot twists solely on the basis of desperately recapturing a
waning audience’s attention rather than something as silly as a plot twist that actually
makes sense and that has a causal chain that can be traced back to the story’s beginning
foundation with enough red herrings and decoys to keep most of the audience guessing until
the last moment.
And if that doesn’t work then just use the spray and pray approach and saturate the story
with an increasing absurd number of plot twists and sudden reveals one after another in the
vain hopes that at least one of these will get the ratings up.
This is also a great time to pull a true villain reveal.
Finally having the real man behind the man step out of the shadows and challenge the
protagonists directly can also be a good way to let the audience know that something big
is going down.
Boy it’s a good thing I didn’t forget to build up to the reveal, adding tension,
foreshadowing, and menace to make the grand villain’s debut have its maximum impact.
Oh wait.
I did forget.
Oh well no one will notice when this new big bad just comes out of nowhere nor will they
care when the villain returns to nowhere and is never mentioned again in spite of the story’s
sudden instance that this guy is “very important and very bad” even as the writers chuck
him into recycle bin in the very next season.
Maybe I can turn a previously established joke villain into a serious threat that forces
the unprepared heroes on the back foot thanks to the villain’s sudden competence?
Where does this new found competence come from?
Character development?
A villainous training arc?
Nah.
The villain just suddenly becomes a real threat after entire chapters of being nothing more
than slapstick comedy fodder.
Does this sudden streak of competence make the villain difficult to write as the villain
is so competent that I simply can’t figure out how the heroes will defeat them?
Then don’t worry.
Just have all of their menace and scheming suddenly vanish into the same void that YouTube
threw the dislike ratio into.
Now that I've covered the small scale tactics that can be used to create a mid series shakeup,
it’s time I cover the overall strategies that can be employed to tie all of these tactics
together.
Pansters AKA discovery writers AKA writers who don’t really follow an outline might
especially struggle with this as shake-ups usually require at least some ability to plan
in order to not completely destroy an audience's willing suspension of disbelief.
And even planners with detailed outlines might struggle to execute something as complex as
a mid series shift.
But that’s all a misconception.
Pivoting a story, especially in a long series, is like making a sharp maneuver with a large
unwieldy vehicle in that it can be made on a whim and without worry that it will shear
the entire thing in half.
What about sprinkling in smaller details that build up gradually to the story’s shakeup
by having said details planted early as possible?
Foreshadowing small details won’t work because all of those scenes will get cut so I can
shove in more banal, snarky dialog to distract the audience from the makeshift patchwork
of incoherent scenes I call a “plot”.
Will this undercut any major story shifts down the road by making them appear as though
the writers were grasping at straws rather than actually telling a competent story?
Eh don’t worry about that!
By the time cynical YouTube video essayists and reviewers point this out it will be far
too late for everyone else.
In fact, this means that I can even ignore one of the most important facets of shaking
up a story’s status-quo!
By simply not having one!
Then when the big story shakeup occurs the audience will be totally duped by me simply
saying that “everything is different now” in spite of the story being nothing more than
an over budget clip show with a depth measured in nanometers.
Much like a successful YouTube thumbnail the key is “bait and switch”.
Just keep promising that a major story shift is coming, but then simply deliver what is
basically a stale preview for the next episode promising the same thing.
Or do what comic books do and have massive change in the entire universe and promise
that “this time everything won’t be reset” only to then reset everything back to its
default state anyways because no one breaks their own money printer.
I mean, you know, intentionally.
See its all about what a story promises in the very beginning.
If the story starts out a light hearted romantic comedy before changing into grimdark cosmic
horror then don’t worry because I’m sure it won’t need a solid fulcrum to pivot on
or the whole thing will go flying into pieces.
When the story suddenly wreaks everything the audience liked about the early parts,
that will just increase the impact of the mid series shakeup and not the impact of the
story as it’s thrown back at the author’s face by a disgruntled audience mad that the
thing they liked about the story was suddenly ruined so the author could brag about being
a smartypants.
This is why its far more important to write for audience retention rather than actually
put in the foundational work to earn the audience's trust.
Desperately trying to retain an audience's fleeting attention even if the story crumbles
under the weight of excessive story shakeups is far more sustainable than laying down the
groundwork for a mid series turning point that leaves the audience in awe and encourages
them to go back and see all of the little details they missed that set everything into
motion.
It’s a mistake to leave the audience pleasantly surprised and wondering how the heroes are
going to pull it together in the next installment rather than hopelessly confused and wondering
how the writers are going to pull it together in the next installment.
SOLDIER: Alert!
Alert!
Imperial forces are approaching.
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KNIGHT COMMANDER: Alright.
Clear.
Knights!
It’s time.
The inner vault is ahead.
All we have to do is…
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An AD!
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Anyone else notice a tone shift?
Like things seem a little more serious than usual.
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The source!
We’re close!
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CONSPIRACY GUY: Hey!
Why did the next to last chain break?
KNIGHT COMMANDER: Oh no…