Meaning of tomato surprise | Babel Free

Definitions

A plot twist in which the reader or viewer is suddenly made aware of an important fundamental detail that changes the whole perspective of the story.

Examples

“[…] stories are written in the "tomato surprise" format: that is, the author saves the stunning surprise until the very last line of the story. It wasn't even a good technique when Verdi used it in Il Trovatore.”

“There are several classic tomato surprises which editors see over and over: the one about the evil, horrid aliens that turn out in the last paragraph to be humans from earth; […]”

CEFR level