regshoe

There were about three or four different articles, and when I checked my bookmarks, I only remembered to save one of them. *facepalm* Brain like a sieve.

Anyway, the one I kept was Surprising Your Readers in Every Scene by September C. Fawkes. I also like the book she mentions by Robert McKee, but only one chapter of it covers the surprise thing.

One was some meta about an episode of Person of Interest called 'Matsya Nyaya', and I'm kicking myself that I can't find it again. But basically, the setup of Person of Interest is that Reese and Finch can predict future crimes through unrealistic computer shenanigans I won't go into. In the episode, they're protecting a guy who works for an armored truck company, so it's pretty obvious that the truck is going to get attacked by thieves. But instead of that happening directly, there are several false alarms where the crew stops at a jeweler but actually they're just picking up employee payslips, etc, and then at the end there's nothing left but a medical supply company, medical equipment isn't exactly easy to fence. Oh, they're picking up platinum for pacemakers, which is massively valuable, oh no! and then they're attacked. It was pretty much just an example of how to feint to keep the audience engaged.