Hello, all. I think perhaps the biggest problem I have personally in writing, and one of the ones I see most often when critiquing, is writing that tends to adhere to a particular formula. For example, most of my stories contain some kind of conspiracy/betrayal twist that I never plan, but it just seems to happen. I've tried writing from different perspectives, different genres, reading different material, but it just always seems to happen. Any thoughts?

-Look at a picture and begin blindly writing on it.

-Make a story as random as possible. Make it be a funny comedy about clowns, then have someone like Manson murder them. Just completely wild and random.

If you see that you have planted the twist of betrayal, slash it out and begin re-writing it.

But otherwise, you should make it overly dramatic. Betrayals/twists are not bad as long as you make them different each time, with no relation to each other. Non-predictable, you could say.

Soap Operas! :D

Spiffy adviceness. I shall consider it vastly. *grins*