by Janis Patterson
I’ll
admit, I didn’t know what a paraprosdokian was until a friend sent me a list of
them. She’s always sending me jokes and funnies and, I’ll admit, I laughed
heartily on reading them. Then the writing brain took over (doesn’t it always?)
and I read them again, finally realizing that they were a lesson all in
themselves.
By
definition, a paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of
a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the
reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently
used for humorous or dramatic effect. Here are a few of the best ones :
-- I
asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way, so I stole a bike
and asked for forgiveness.
-- I want
to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling
like the passengers in his car.
-- To
steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
-- A
bus station is where a train stops. A railway station is where a train stops. My
desk is a work station.
-- You do
not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive more than
once.
-- The
voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas.
-- To be
sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
-- Change
is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
You see
what I mean? Each starts out with a statement that gives you an idea – then the
second part puts an entirely new spin on the idea, usually turning your
perception of it 90 degrees in a different direction. In other words, a turning
point.
In real
life, with real people, I’ll bet that most of us like a smooth stream – learn,
meet, love, prosper, happy every after with no catastrophes or dead bodies or
evil villains or whatnot. Such a progression is comforting and happy – and
boring, at least from a story point of view. In our books, whether mystery or
sci-fi or romance or whatever, we love to torture our characters and that is
best done by surprise and change.
The character
we trust turns out to be the villain. The safe house isn’t. The clue that
proves the hero innocent is false. (See where I’m going?) A single incident
pops up and suddenly the entire story is careening off in a different
direction. Could we call these ‘plot paraprosdokians?’ Sure – if we can
remember that tongue twister of a word! (You’re on your own there.)
Sometimes
these plot twists can happen in a single sentence. Or paragraph. Or, in some
rare cases, a chapter or more. It depends, as so much does, on the style of the
writer and on the story itself, But they must happen, or your story becomes a
sweet, linear telling of events that have no excitement, no challenge, and very
probably no real interest.
For
example, Bob comes home from work and finds a dead body lying in his driveway.
He calls the police. The police find he has nothing to do with the body. Bob
goes on and lives his life. Snoooooooze! Even though, if I were Bob, that’s
what I’d want to happen in real life, but it makes for a boring and unsellable
story.
By
contrast, Bob comes home from work and finds a dead body lying in his driveway.
The body is that of a fraternity brother from his college days, one who
ostensibly died years ago in a frat house. Also, unbeknownst to Bob, the body
was Bob’s new wife’s brother.
See? You
can go on and on, turning each plot twist in on itself, each time giving your
story more depth and complexity, as well as more danger and higher stakes for
your protagonist.
Deepen
your plotting – become a practicing paraprosdokianist. I think I just broke my
spell-check. Whether you can spell it or not, though it works. Give it a try.
