Spoilers don't spoil anything?

[Spectrum]

I ran across this article: "Spoilers don't spoil anything". The author claims that knowing the end of a story does not detract from the enjoyment of reading it but enhances it, because it is more fulfilling to anticipate the twist than to be surprised by it. He backs it up with allegedly scientific evidence.

I am skeptical, but I think he is right to some extent. I can recognize the experience of anticipating the climax of a story and seeing all the hints, which can be more fulfilling that being oblivious and not knowing what to look for.

What do you think? To what extent to you think he is right, and what implications does that have for our writing?

 

[LittleMissy]

From my point I'm not sure that I agree with this completely.

I love the first read of a book - start to finish - not being sure quite what's coming next. The thrill for me is trying to work it out for myself... and quite often finding out how wrong I was! It's odd, but in literature I do love to be wrong There's something wonderful to be found in how the story culminates without the interference of having known in advance what was going to happen!

However... that said, if a book is good enough that I want to read it for a second time, I do find that the re-read means I pick up on the nuances and the little hints towards the ending that I missed the first time round. Actually making the second read more enjoyable!

But, then again, sometimes I have found the first read enough and don't want to pick the book up ever again knowing that the story, for me, was not all the interesting come the final reveal!

I do think it ultimately depends on the person doing the reading. And, as scientific as they think they might have been, they are using different people for each reading type (spoiled or not spoiled). Unfortunately this sort of experiment can't be thoroughly proved, as those who read the spoiled version can't then be tested to see if their experience of the book is improved (or not) by reading the same story but as an unspoiled one!

It's like Schrödinger's cat... but with books

It's personal choice... do you want to cheat, or not

 

[Ursa major]

I read these books in an unusual way: I begin with the last five pages, seeking out the final twist first. The twist won't make sense at this point, but that doesn't matter — I enjoy reading the story with the grand finale in mind. (Hell, I even cheated with Harry Potter.)

I've always assumed that this reading style is a perverse personal habit, a symptom of a flawed literary intelligence.

It is spoiling (though only for the individual reader) and it is somewhat perverse: the author of a book has decided that they want to present their story in a certain way. As a reader, Jonah Lehrer** presupposes that the author is always wrong on this - they may be, they may not - at least regarding the denouement and that he, for some reason only known to himself, must always be right (which seems to me to be a dodgy presumption).

Later Lehrer says:

3) Surprises are much more fun to plan than to experience. The human mind is a prediction machine, which means that it registers most surprises as a cognitive failure, a mental mistake. Our first reaction is almost never “How cool! I never saw that coming!” Instead, we feel embarrassed by our gullibility, the dismay of a prediction error.

He may find that "surprises are much more fun to plan than to experience", but I don't think that's universal. Am I allowed to suspect that Lehrer is someone who doesn't want to lose control, i.e. a bit of a control freak. Is his ego so brittle that he can't accept being wrong about the denouement of a piece of fiction?


And the sad thing is that the reader can have it both ways: reading the book knowing only what has gone before, then rereading it, knowing what the ending will be. This gives two pleasures for the price of one. (I'm all for a bargain. )



** - I don't know if "Jonah Lehrer" is the article writer's real name, but its very loose translation, "bringing bad luck with one's teaching", seems somehow appropriate.

 

[Boneman]

Personally, I avoid spoilers like the plague - I want to enjoy the unknown journey, with all the twists and turns and sub-plots that are thrown in. I like to travel hopefully, and still arrive, and I don't want to know the ending. (Unless I'm so bored with the book that the journey is no longer worthwhile, in which case I'll skip to the end to see.)

But I do enjoy 2nd and sometimes 3rd reads, where I discover parts of the journey that I missed first time around because I was staring out of the window at the scene, wide-eyed. In the case of Shogun, I stll find things I've forgotten and I must have read it at least 20 times...

 

[Vertigo]

I certainly prefer not knowing the end when I first read a book (or see a film for that matter). Then if it's good enough I love reading it again a few years later when I've forgotten much of the detail but still remember the ending. Spotting the clues that I'd missed before and how they now slot neatly into the whole picture (at least if it's well enough written).

At the same time I like to have a pretty good idea of the basic structure of the book; "a young recruit thrust into the war between humans and bugs on a jungle planet" sort of thing. And I do like this to be a fairly accurate picture. I can't exactly explain why but it's a bit like checking the weather forecast before going out for a walk; I'll enjoy the walk more if I'm prepared for the weather. This is also why I get annoyed by grossly inaccurate blurbs and cover pictures, it's like going outside in my shorts and finding a snow storm.

So I like a good idea of what I'm getting into but I don't want to know the ending. And as Mosaic said the next time you read it, if you do, you get to read it from a totally different perspective. Win win!

 

[GreenKidx]

I personally am not deterred by knowing the end of a book. Never really bothered me knowing "Captain Hero defeats Evil Bad Guy with the Power Sword!" I still enjoy reading how Captain Hero found the sword, penetrated Evil Bad Guy's defensive barriers and managed to defeat him. I want to take that journey with the characters.

I have also found that in books with particularly slow beginnings a can someties muster up more desire to finish/continue reading if I read the end first.

I'm not saying that my reading experience is ever enhanced by knowing the ending before hand, but its certainly not destroyed either.

Besides a really good book will have other aspects to carry you through the entire read then just the goal of 'get to the end'... Right?

 

[MstrTal]

I had a professor once tell me that books, papers, articles and anything else in the written format is very much a "Discussion between the writer and the reader."

While I prefer to avoid spoilers in the written format, though I tend to have a problem when it comes to spouting them to others, I can still enjoy a book even if I know how it ends. If a book is written well and I become engaged in the story then regardless of if I know how it ends I will enjoy myself.

 

[slack]

Makes no difference to me if I know the ending or not. Much of the enjoyment comes from the telling, the details, the language itself. Sometimes I'll skip around and read it out of order if the book has a lot of linebreaks (McCarthy's The Road comes to mind, as well as Don DeLillo's book Underworld).

 

[TheDustyZebra]

No! No, I don't want to know the end before I start, unless I'm reading the book for a second or twelfth time. I'm an avid mystery reader, and mysteries are generally written with numerous twists and turns, leading one to believe many varying things along the way before revealing which one (if any) is the correct solution. Knowing how it ends makes all of that pointless.

I stupidly read Book 4 of Harry Potter before I read Book 3, due to the fact that my mother bought me the series when 4 came out and 3 was backordered and took a month or more to arrive. So upon reading 3 after 4, I discovered that this was a monumental error because I already knew the truth about Sirius Black, and most of the twists and turns of 3 were pointless with that in mind.

Books are written with twists and turns and surprise endings for a reason. If spoilers weren't a bad thing, they wouldn't be called spoilers. They spoil things.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

I hate spoilers! I can't even watch sport if I know the result!

 

[PTeppic]

Interesting thread. Part of the answer lies in the nature of the reader/viewer: some personality types (like me) are fact junkies. For example, if it is widely known that a high profile character dies in the next installment of a book or film series, I'd be hyped to find out who, even ahead of reading/watching the detailed plot unfold. But, even rhetorically, does it "spoil" the surprise. Again rhetorically, I suspect it must.

Going the whole hog, I recall feeling I'd made a big mistake when I read the novelisation of SW:Ep1:TPM a few days before the movie opened. It definitely felt so repeated and familiar (and worse, had little bits missing) that I don't think I enjoyed it as much.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Once, long ago in a land forgot, yay even before I knew the meaning of the words 'book series' I read the last book of the 'Lensman' titles.

Years later, when man was in his infancy, shortly following the invention of printing, I then started to read the series from the other end; knowing not, the horrendous surprise that awaited.

Six or seven books later (and a goodly proportion of my student grant) I grasped the last book in my hand. A paperback, freshly printed with a shiny cover. At last the cycle would be complete, it was all for the taking. So this was the culmination of those long night hours of reading. The excitement was heart pounding, I could hardly wait. Who needs a degree this was important. I'll skip those boring lectures on thermodynamics and high end calculus. For I held in my hand the answer to the ultimate question. This I was going to enjoy. Food first: (I was a student) and then a damn good read.

And so, I read.

Something was wrong, very wrong. The plot seemed familiar, surely this is too much like another authors work, thinks I.

By the third page, I knew the truth. I was devastated. Life was at an end. I would need to take the cowl, All those years wasted. All that anticipation crushed.

So, don't tell me that the pleasure is in the reading. That reading is a conversation. It doesn't really matter if you know the ending.

It matters, I tell you.

When you've wasted 35p on a new book and you can't bear to read past page three. That's when you get to the truth of it.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think surprise is over-rated and anticipation can be just as good, but for me anticipation can be very distracting if I know what is going to happen but not exactly when. I may rush through the early chapters hoping to get to the part where the awesome thing I heard about happens. And then it may be an anticlimax, because that part wasn't as good as I thought it would be.

The second (or third, or fourth, or ...) reading is different. I can slow down and enjoy watching things unfold, picking up all the clues along the way.

Even so, I am not so good at handling curiosity, and sometimes can't resist reading spoilers, even knowing I am likely to regret doing so.

Yes, my character is weak. I can resist everything but temptation.

 

[The Judge]

I think I must be one of Ursa's control freaks because I usually read the last page of a book, sometimes even the last chapter, when I'm just starting. Actually, part of it has more to do with a kind of boredom -- the less engaged I am at the beginning, the more likely I am to read the end to see if it's worth continuing. But even a good, well-written book will have me peeking at the last few paragraphs. I like to know.

 

[Hex]

I hate knowing. I love it when an author can lead me to expect one thing and then end up doing another -- Iain M Banks does it and it's great.

If I hate a book's beginning I might skip to the end so I won't wonder, but I'd be very unlikely to read the book after that.

I agree that, once I know the end already, it can be lovely to re-read, knowing exactly what happens (and, in some of my favourites, precisely the stages that get you there). One of my favourite books is Hexwood - I don't think I actually understood what happened in it until the second (or third?) time I read it.

 

[HareBrain]

If I'm excited by a book, I'll take pretty much every step possible to make sure I don't accidentally find out what happens at the end. When reading A Dance With Dragons recently, I sometimes turned to the character lists appendix and almost broke out in a cold sweat when I didn't go far enough and caught a glimpse of one of the final pages.

If I'm bored, I might turn to the end in the hope that it's interesting enough to make me want to carry on the journey.

 

[Ursa major]

I think I must be one of Ursa's control freaks....

What have you done, TJ? Spoiled things for me, that's what!

Yes, the evidence of your freakery was becoming increasingly apparent, but then, such situations are the prelude to a revelation, which disabuses us of our wild imaginings, which destroys all those carefully considered "conclusions" we've constructed, which shows us that surprise is still possible for we jaded folk.


But now we know. And what's worse, we didn't get a twist ending. What we've seen is what we got and what we'll get in the future....


* Goes to drown his disappointment. *

​

 

[mosaix]

I ran across this article: "Spoilers don't spoil anything". The author claims that knowing the end of a story does not detract from the enjoyment of reading it but enhances it, because it is more fulfilling to anticipate the twist than to be surprised by it. He backs it up with allegedly scientific evidence.

What do you think? To what extent to you think he is right, and what implications does that have for our writing?

For me he is totally incorrect. I could not disagree more.

One of the genres that I enjoy the most is detective fiction. Both in real life and in literature problem solving is something that gives me great pleasure and I hate that being taken away by spoilers.

To me it's nothing to do with 'surprise'. It's either following the clues to a successful conclusion or looking back and seeing how the author fooled me so I won't be taken in the next time.

 

[Hex]

This was the uni press release: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/soc/2011_08spoilers.asp

Just one tiny piece of extra information -- when the researchers put a spoiler into the story, it wasn't as popular (although there's no pretty graph for that).

Based completely on my own prejudices, I suspect there's a problem generalising to 'real life' from people reading a story (imposed on them by someone else) in experimental conditions (which I expect is what happened). In those circumstances, I would think, where you are being implicitly, if not explicitly, tested, knowing the end of the story would be comforting. You wouldn't need to worry that the experimenter was going to spring some horrible question on you ("so, who was the murderer?"). I wonder if that contributed to the students' "enjoyment" (it might also explain why the 'literary' stories were the least popular).

As I said, this is based wholly on my own prejudices, but I think we could argue that the way people react to things in labs is likely to be quite different from the way they react to things they're doing at home on their own for enjoyment.

Also, not to rant, but who says the responses of american college students can be generalised over the population of the world -- or even the English-speaking world, or even the USA?

 

[paranoid marvin]

Obviously every book is spoilt to certain extent by reading the foreword/synopsis, looking at the illustration on the cover or even from the title. However the first time I read a book , I want to find out the ending for myself. I will read it in the way the author intended, from front to back. If he/she wants to give away the ending early on, then so be it; if their intention is to keep me guessing til the last page then great.

Second time around - if I get that far- (and with most books I don't) the enjoyment is entirely different. There's usually several years gap between reading , and there are suprises in what I didn't pick up first time around and contradicitions of things I thought happened but didn't, or even stuff I'd completely forgotten about.

Having said that, when studying English Literature I virtually dissected Frankenstein. I gained a whole lot of knowledge and learned to appreciate Shelley's work on an entirely different level than if I had read it a thousand times. However now I don't want to go near it any more; it's like becoming ill off eating too much of one particular food or drink - it can sometimes put you off it for life - and that's how I feel about Frankenstein now. Maybe I can go back to it in a few years and enjoy it for what it is, but I doubt it. I hate to think what I would have done if I had done a similar thing with one of my all-time favourites like LOTR or HHGTTG.