Plot twists are nothing new. They’re defined like this:
A plot twist is a literary technique that introduces a radical change in the direction or expected outcome of the plot in a work of fiction.
But what about a setting twist? Those don’t have definition I could easily pull up in Google, but but they can be employed to great effect in a novel or script. When I consider examples, these easily come to mind:
- The TV show From appears to be set in a small midwestern town, but (spoilers!) it turns out to not exactly be located anywhere in particular and cursed.
- The movie Planet of the Apes seems to be set on a distant planet, but (again, spoilers!) at the end of the film, the main character discovers the statue of liberty, revealing that the story is set on earth.
A setting twist can be a significant plot point in the story all along—like in From—or it can be a revelation, like in Planet of the Apes.