Earlier, I talked about how game theory works, and hinted at the way writers might use it to inform how they design their plot twists. So today, let’s look a little further at how that all plays out!

Once upon a time, audiences were almost always playing the storytelling game at Level 0–which is to say, they had no idea they were participating in the game at all. They had no idea a big plot twist was coming their way. So they weren’t even knowing that they should expect any wild twist, much l...