Stories With a Twist That Manage to Break These Rules

Mike Schoultz

7 min readSep 17, 2020

We love excellent short stories with a twist, especially when there are unique twist endings in them. That is especially true when the story also involves people with very different personalities. We came across these three stories so great that we knew we must share them. They are on the list of our all-time favorites.

Stories with twist ideas

Here we go with our first story.

A heart surgeon took his car to his local garage for a regular service, where he usually exchanged a little friendly banter with the owner, a very skilled but not exceptionally wealthy mechanic.

“So tell me,” says the mechanic, “I’ve been wondering about what we both do for a living, and how much more you get paid than me…”

“Yes?” says the surgeon.

“Well look at this,” says the mechanic, as he worked on a big complicated BMW engine, “I check how it’s running, open it up, fix the valves, and put it all back together, so it works well as new. We do the same job, don’t we? And yet you are paid ten times what I am — how do you explain that?”

The surgeon thought for a moment, and smiling gently, replied quietly to the mechanic,

“Try it with the engine running.”

A very subtle but significant difference between perception and reality in this story, no?

Stories with twist examples

This is a true story about which I recently read.

In 2003, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, director of the National Cancer Institute (USA) had announced his organization’s goal of “eliminating suffering and death” caused by cancer by 2015.

The United States of America has a standing committee as part of the United States Senate called “United States Senate Committee on Appropriations” that moderates the Senate spending on issues such as defense, energy, and science among many others.

In one of the appropriations hearings, Dr. von Eschenbach got into a bargaining session on funding matters with Senator Arlen Specter, who was then a Republican from Penn, about the amount of money his organization would need to advance the cure of cancer.

“I asked you what it would take to move that date to 2010,” Mr. Specter asked.

“We have proposed a budget that would support those initiatives that would amount to approximately $600 million a year,” Dr. von Eschenbach answered.

“Six-hundred million a year?” Mr. Specter asked. “And you can move the date from 2015 to 2010?”

“Yes, Sir,” Mr. von Eschenbach said.

https://digitalsparkmarketing.com/customer-complaints/
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Stories with a twist endings

Mr. Specter died of cancer in 2012.

Source:- ‘Moonshot’ to Cure Cancer, to Be Led by Biden, Relies on Outmoded View of Disease

Our final story was another true one from Associated Press, Reported by Kurt Westervelt.

On March 23, 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head.

Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency.

As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly.

Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the eighth-floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.

“Ordinarily,” Dr. Mills continued, “A person, who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide.”

That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands.

In the room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously, and he was threatening her with a shotgun.

The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the bullets went through the window striking Mr. Opus.

When one intends to kill subject “A” but kills subject “B” in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject “B.”

When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant and both said that they thought the shotgun was unloaded.

The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is if the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple’s son loading the shotgun about six weeks before the fatal accident.

It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son’s financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.

Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn’t pull the trigger.

The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the elegant twist.

Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus.
He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother’s murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window.

The son had murdered himself, so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

A 50- something-year-old white woman arrived at her seat on a crowded flight and immediately didn’t want the seat. The seat was next to a black man. Disgusted, the woman immediately summoned the flight attendant and demanded a new seat.

The woman said, “I cannot sit here next to this black man.” The flight attendant said, “Let me see if I can find another seat.” After checking, the flight attendant returned and stated “Ma’am, there are no more seats in economy, but I will check with the captain and see if there is something in first class.

” About 10 minutes went by, and the flight attendant returned and stated “The captain has confirmed that there are no more seats in economy, but there is one in first class. It is our company policy to never move a person from economy to first class, but being that it would be some scandal to force a person to sit next to an UNPLEASANT person, the captain agreed to make the switch to first class.”

Before the woman could say anything, the attendant gestured to the black man and said, “Therefore sir, if you would so kindly retrieve your personal items, we would like to move you to the comfort of first-class as the captain doesn’t want you to sit next to an unpleasant person.”

The bottom line

Want to be a story maker? Make your stories vivid by including what comes naturally to you. For example, you may not be able to imagine sequences of images very well, but you may excel in imagining other modalities such as smell, touch, and sound.

You may be excellent in infusing your visualization with emotional charge and great feelings.

DO not feel compelled to stay within any single modality but make your visualizations and imagination vivid and rich by including numerous modalities.

Make your imagination your ally and your best friend.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improve your enthusiasm?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Stories With a Twist That Manage to Break These Rules

Stories with twist ideas

Here we go with our first story.

A heart surgeon took his car to his local garage for a regular service, where he usually exchanged a little friendly banter with the owner, a very skilled but not exceptionally wealthy mechanic.

“So tell me,” says the mechanic, “I’ve been wondering about what we both do for a living, and how much more you get paid than me…”

“Yes?” says the surgeon.

The surgeon thought for a moment, and smiling gently, replied quietly to the mechanic,

“Try it with the engine running.”

A very subtle but significant difference between perception and reality in this story, no?

Stories with twist examples

This is a true story about which I recently read.

In 2003, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, director of the National Cancer Institute (USA) had announced his organization’s goal of “eliminating suffering and death” caused by cancer by 2015.

The United States of America has a standing committee as part of the United States Senate called “United States Senate Committee on Appropriations” that moderates the Senate spending on issues such as defense, energy, and science among many others.

In one of the appropriations hearings, Dr. von Eschenbach got into a bargaining session on funding matters with Senator Arlen Specter, who was then a Republican from Penn, about the amount of money his organization would need to advance the cure of cancer.

“I asked you what it would take to move that date to 2010,” Mr. Specter asked.

“We have proposed a budget that would support those initiatives that would amount to approximately $600 million a year,” Dr. von Eschenbach answered.

“Six-hundred million a year?” Mr. Specter asked. “And you can move the date from 2015 to 2010?”

“Yes, Sir,” Mr. von Eschenbach said.

https://digitalsparkmarketing.com/customer-complaints/ —

Stories with a twist endings

Mr. Specter died of cancer in 2012.

Source:- ‘Moonshot’ to Cure Cancer, to Be Led by Biden, Relies on Outmoded View of Disease

Our final story was another true one from Associated Press, Reported by Kurt Westervelt.

On March 23, 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head.

Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency.

As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly.

Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the eighth-floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.

“Ordinarily,” Dr. Mills continued, “A person, who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide.”

That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands.

In the room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously, and he was threatening her with a shotgun.

The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the bullets went through the window striking Mr. Opus.

When one intends to kill subject “A” but kills subject “B” in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject “B.”

When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant and both said that they thought the shotgun was unloaded.

The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is if the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple’s son loading the shotgun about six weeks before the fatal accident.

It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son’s financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.

Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn’t pull the trigger.

The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the elegant twist.

The son had murdered himself, so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

A 50- something-year-old white woman arrived at her seat on a crowded flight and immediately didn’t want the seat. The seat was next to a black man. Disgusted, the woman immediately summoned the flight attendant and demanded a new seat.

Before the woman could say anything, the attendant gestured to the black man and said, “Therefore sir, if you would so kindly retrieve your personal items, we would like to move you to the comfort of first-class as the captain doesn’t want you to sit next to an unpleasant person.”

The bottom line

Want to be a story maker? Make your stories vivid by including what comes naturally to you. For example, you may not be able to imagine sequences of images very well, but you may excel in imagining other modalities such as smell, touch, and sound.

You may be excellent in infusing your visualization with emotional charge and great feelings.

DO not feel compelled to stay within any single modality but make your visualizations and imagination vivid and rich by including numerous modalities.

Make your imagination your ally and your best friend.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improve your enthusiasm?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

More inspirational stories from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

A Story About Living as Told by a Six-Year-Old Boy

Never Give Up Your Dreams

The Story of Tank, the Dog or Is It Reggie?

Written by Mike Schoultz

https://digitalsparkmarketing.com/customer-complaints/
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