My Main Character has no idea she has a sister. Her nemesis knows the truth but doesn’t want to admit it unless it serves her purposes. She actually wants to step into the MC’s life, to have everything the MC has. How do I make it so that people don’t immediately recognize them as twins. . .but sometimes mistake the two?—Iapetus999
Again, we’ve got a great question coming out of this basic conundrum Andrew’s wrestling with.
Hidden relationships are the meat in the sandwich of fiction. You don’t absolutely need them, but, wow, can they (I’m sorry) beef things up.
Using hidden relationships with twins, though, is like forcing the writer to eat twenty jalapeno peppers while they’re building the sandwich. This technique is so tricky you can hurt yourself attempting it.
But that’s not to say it can’t be done.
Here’s what you do:
First, you make them FRATERNAL rather than identical twins. This eliminates the issue that everyone who loves and knows either one will blow their cover the instant they run into them. What you wind up with is siblings you can make as similar or dissimilar as you like who just happen to be exactly the same age.
Second, you give them—not a physical characteristic—but a shared MANNERISM based on a hidden physical or chemical characteristic. Do they both have one leg slightly shorter than the other? Trick wrists that tend to dislocate at inconvenient moments? Unusual fingers or fingernails? Distinctive toes? Particularly thick or difficult hair that has to be constantly lifted out of the way? A weakness for or sensitivity to chocolate/alcohol/gluten/strawberries/peanuts/emotional or unemotional scenes?
Think about what kinds of physical traits cause behavorial indicators. Do some medical research.
Then think about the circumstances under which you want these two to be mistaken for each other. Someone eats a meal with each of them? Someone follows one or the other of them down a street at night? Someone catches a glimpse of a gesture across a crowded room? Someone conducts business with one or the other under secrecy, when only particular telling body parts like the hands or jawline or bare feet are visible?
Finally, know the conditions under which you want the relationship revealed. How is that going to work? Remember that a climax must always accomplish two goals simultaneously:
- It must catapult the characters someplace unforeseen.
- It must feel inevitable.
This is a fabulous technique to play with. Just don’t hurt yourself.