How to Use Reversals to Add Drama to Your Story

A reversal is a form of twist/reveal that involves a big change in the fortunes of the protagonist. This change is most often the sudden reversing of the protagonist from good to bad fortune. This change is also usually against the expectations of the character and of the audience. For example, we are cheering a hero about to attain his goal to capture the villain but instead he is captured by his nemesis.

Reversals can be major ones, such as those at plot points, or smaller ones, such as those at sequence turning points. Big or small, reversals must throw the main character, the story, and the audience into a new direction and emotion. For instance, regarding the example given above of the hero surprisingly being captured by the villain: The audience is now fearful for the hero but also hoping that he will dig deeper into his self and find a solution to his reversal.

Three examples of reversals in famous films are: In The Silence of the Lambs, when Clarice first meets Lecter, she loses control of him and lets Lecter get inside her head. In The Godfather, Michael vows to his fiancé Kay that he doesn’t want to get involved in the family business, but then he does. In The Searchers, the ranchers are hunting a war band of Comanches when they learn that the raiding party is attacking one of their ranches and they must dash back home to protect their families.

Aristotle believed that the biggest reversal in a story is near the end of the plot and works best when combined with some form of a soul and life changing recognition by the character. This recognition is when the character learns some terrible truth and this knowledge reverses his fortunes. In a tragedy, this insight and reversal leads to the destruction of the character. As a great example of recognition and a tragic reversal, Aristotle cited that of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, when a character who is expecting to help Oedipus inadvertently reveals to him that he is the murderer of his father and seducer of his mother. Oedipus blinds himself and is banished.

In a drama that has a positive (non-tragic) climax, the insight the character learns most often leads to the character’s growth and liberation, which allows him to now be able to attain his main goal. Modern film classics that do this include An Officer and a Gentleman, Tootsie, and Casablanca.

Writer’s Takeaway

Every good story has reversals. When you are constructing the long-term struggle of your protagonist, you must consciously work out how to reverse his fortunes.

As a specific writing tip, when you are plotting your act and sequence climaxes, think about how many of these are negative or positive re the protagonist attaining his main goal. Reversals are not only dramatic in themselves, but they also add variety to the types of events your story is dramatizing. So not every climax should be negative or positive. Your character, for example, must suffer defeats in action and reversals are an important and dramatic way to do this. Also note, that if your story has a positive ending, its crisis point is usually negative. If your story is a tragedy, your crisis point most likely will be positive.

Reversals are essential to making a story dramatic. It can be difficult to make reversals logical yet surprising but creating a strong main reversal is one of the best ways to make your story engaging and memorable.

Stories are ideas in action!

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