I just heard about a story called, "The girl with all the gifts." The story follows a girl, that the readers being to empathize with, then the twist, the girl is a zombie. This struck me as a very surprising technique for an author to use.
Readers love plot surprises. They love twists and turns. Plot twists give the reader something to chew on. But as with everything, should not be overused.
I was just reading about two types of plot twists: Peripeteia - a plot twist that results in a negative reversal of circumstances. Things go bad for the character. Anagnorisis - a sudden discovery made by a character, oftentimes placed before the peripeteia For an example of anagnorisis versus peripeteia, consider Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club. The narrator, suffering from insomnia, begins a friendship with a strange man Tyler Durden. Durden develops a friendship with the narrator and drastically changes his life. At the end of the novel, though, the narrator abruptly realizes he himself is Tyler Durden: Tyler Durden was only a figment of his imagination. At the end of the novel, the narrator wakes up in a hospital after an accident caused by his multiple personality disorder. https://literaryterms.net/peripeteia/
