How To Successfully Pull Off A Double Twist

Today, instead of a book,  I’m going to review an old radio show named The Whistler. 

You may or may not have heard of it. It came out during the golden age of radio, which peaked in the 1940’s. It made over 400 episodes and in its day, was one of the highest-rated programs on the west coast. 

Now, in the 1940’s, there weren’t a lot of shows on the radio. It was nothing compared to the countless channels we have now. 

Still, competition was fierce. Mysteries were among the most popular type of show. Enter, the Whistler. When it first came out, people did not’ think it was going to make it. 

After all, it was competing against CBS’s long-running shows Suspense. 

Suspense featured famous stars like Orson Wells, Danny Kaye and Angela Lansbury, just to name a few. It was also the crown Jewel in CBS’s collection, so they spent a lot of money to advertise it. They were sponsored by Roma Wine, who had been around a while and had a huge budget. 

The Whistler had none of these advantages. It was sponsored by Signal Oil, a new company who was still trying to find its footing. 

It didn't didn’t have the star power of Suspense. It didn’t have the start writers or the marketing budget. 

But it had an idea. A way to make it different than every other mystery show on the air.  It had something that made it different. 

All mystery shows had a twist. 

However, the Whistler was the only one with a double twist. It showed you what happened, what everyone accepted happened. Then, it showed you what really happened. It was brilliant because no other show was capable of pulling off the double twist, so they didn’t’ even try. 

A double twist looks like this. A man kills his wife with sleeping pills and makes it look like a suicide. The police are suspicious, then they find out that his wife really was suicidal and attempted it before. He had no idea about that. That was twist one. 

However, while the police are questioning the man at his house the same day of his wife’s death, the alarm clock goes off. So, does the alarm in the detectives’ head. No one would set an alarm unless they were planning to wake up. So, the husband gets caught. 

That’s a double twist. 

So, the question is, how creative are you? 

 

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