*This is Sarah — I am not doing chapters this week because yanking myself out of Through Fire to do them would be painful and set me back a week. And I HAVE to get that done. So I took a guest post from ‘Nother Mike. (Thank you, Mike, if that’s your real name 😉 ) — SAH.*
Why Good Books Should Be Spoiled!- ‘nother Mike
That’s right, I was reading a complaint recently because someone had snerked about a book that was recently released in ebook form, and realized that the best books cannot by spoiled, snerked, or otherwise damaged by posting discussion, plot points, characters, or any of that!
What do I mean by that? Don’t I realize the way that this sort of premature revelation destroys the reader experience, tearing away the veil of secrecy that makes books great?
Well, no.
Let’s stop for a minute and talk about what snerks are, what do we mean by spoilers, and so forth. Snerks or spoilers are basically descriptions of plot events, characters, or other elements in a book before everyone has had a chance to read it. For example, telling someone about the monster that comes out and grabs the hero during the final battle, and the almost miraculous way that the hero pulls out a clove of garlic and stuffs it in the monster’s nose, kind of gives away what’s coming! Most books have various revelations, twists, fun stuff that is intended to surprise the reader. Giving it away during discussions before other people have a chance to read it is typically called snerking or spoiling.
All right? We have quite a few fans who get exceedingly upset if you do something like this. They will tell you that you have ruined the book for them, that they no longer have that “new book” experience ahead of them, that you have spoiled the suspense.
The problem with these protests is that they seem to indicate that books can only be read once. After all, if a casual comment in a discussion can totally spoil the book, imagine what having read the book once must do. Clearly, books are only good the first time you read them, right?
Well, no.
I know I have had the experience more than once of reading a book, getting to the end, and saying that was so good I think I’m going to read it again right away. I have quite a few books that I have read several times, and I still pick them up and read them again. I guess I just like spoiled books.
Similarly, one of the criticisms that is often made of beginning writers is that they didn’t provide enough foreshadowing. What is foreshadowing? Well, while having the monster appear out of nowhere and eat the romantic lead certainly might be surprising, if there has been no hint before this in the story that there is a monster lurking somewhere — the story lacks foreshadowing! Foreshadowing, oddly enough, consists of spoilers and snerks written right into a story.
In fact, suspense depends on giving us some hints – some snerks, some spoiling. You don’t want to completely surprise your reader. You want to tell them “there’s a dark shadow over there, near the path where we are going, and something is moving in it.” That’s a snerk!
This is also one of the complaints that people make about blurbs and reader reviews. Far too often, the back page description or the reader reviews actually give away significant parts of the plot. They tell us that Wendy really doesn’t know what to do when she finds Jimmy sleeping in the backseat of her car, with his cat. Suddenly we know that somewhere in this story we’re going to have Wendy, Jimmy, Wendy’s car, and a cat. Spoiled – but it might be enough to convince us to read the book.
See, I think this is the main contribution that snerks and spoilers and blurbs and previews of every kind provide. They give us a reason to read the book!
Realistically, if the only reason that this book is worth reading is for the surprises and revelations, I’m not so sure it’s a very good book. Let’s consider mystery books and stories. They are all about whodunit, with the secret clues and revelations. However, even knowing that the butler did it in the library with a pipe wrench, I’m likely to go back and read the story if it’s really good. The characters, their interactions, sometimes the setting and other business – that’s what makes the story really good.
Incidentally, have you ever talked to someone about how they read books and found out that they flip ahead and read the ending first? Then they go back and read the rest of the book? Talk about spoiling the book! I mean, they already know how it’s all going to end, and they did it themselves.
So let me put it another way. If a story isn’t worth reading after some snerks and other spoilage, it probably wasn’t worth reading in the first place. If all you want is surprises, we can get a Jack-in-the-Box or something else. Stories really should have enough depth and interest to keep snarks and other premature revelations from spoiling the reading.
Which reminds me. There’s a book I’ve read several times already that seems to be calling for me to read it again. Yes, I know how it comes out, but… It’s a really good book.
Well, yes.
Mad Genius Club 
25 responses to “Why Good Books Should Be Spoiled – ‘nother Mike”
I really like some books, and when I downsized and had to shrink my library, I kept the books I knew I would want to read again. Others that I let go, if I find I want to read them again, I download them on my ereader, so I don’t have another book to house. My prescience was not working during the downsizing, so I let a few get away. So what? And the blurbs on my books give away the beginning foray, but not beyond. It can be done, So I don’t know what they’re bitching about.
I dunno. There’s still that first, delighted (or horrified) “Oh!” moment in some books. Not that rereading isn’t _also_ enjoyable, but it’s a slightly different experience. I think people reviewing or just talking about books or movies need to keep this in mind and eschew specifics.
Thank you, ‘nother Mike! You got it, spot on. Thank you. It’s more of a problem with movies because– well, in some cases they have to rely more on gimmicks to make it work. That’s fairly common these days. Who here has had Casablanca *ruined* because you knew how it ended?
*crickets*
See what I mean? It’s not the medium that makes it that way. It is about quality and skill.
Now we can start a whole ‘nother discussion about how quality and skill have become taboo to the modern world…
Very very few people skip ahead to the end of the book and read the end first. It’s so rare that in my fifty plus years of my life I have NEVER known anyone who did this. Oh I’ve heard characters on TV claim to do it, and I’ve seen one or two people online claim they did it.
But I’ve never met anyone personally who did. And I’ve met a lot of people.
Posting major plot points in a review of a book DOES ruin it for a lot of people. The big Michael Moorcock series that everyone used to go on about? That huge ten book thing? I had picked up the first book and was going to read the whole series, until someone told me the end.
I threw the book in the trash and never read any of it because now that I knew how it ended, what was the point? Why read all those stories, waste all that time when I knew how it was going to end?
As an author I detest people who give away major plot points in my stories (or in any story) before people have had the chance to read them. If people want spoilers, fine, but most people don’t, and I’m one of those. In my recent novel someone in the third review gave away TWO major plot points in the first ten words of their review! I’d give amazon a hundred bucks right now to have that spoiler removed, it’s ruining something important in the book, something that I spent quite some time thinking about and deciding on. I am sure I will lose readers over it.
No one likes the game given away. If magicians showed you how they did their trick before they did it, you wouldn’t enjoy it.
As for re-reading books, some people do (I’m one of them) the majority of people don’t. I don’t want to lose those readers. Yes when I re-read a book I already know the spoilers, but that’s not why I’m reading the book the second time. So saying that giving spoilers won’t hurt sales isn’t true (did I mention the other ten people in the room when that idiot spoiled the Elrond saga for us who also quit reading it then and there?) and saying that the readers won’t mind is incredibly wrong and selfish.
Most readers mind, and most authors hate it. It’s also just incredibly damn RUDE.
I guess that I’m nobody because I have read the endings of some books first. [Wink]
Seriously, this leads into my favorite expression “Your Mileage May Vary”.
Your “tastes” in reading differ from ‘Nother Mike’s but IMO neither of you are wrong.
When giving reviews, I prefer to error on the side of “not revealing too much” but I’ll admit that it’s rare for a “spoiler” to completely kill my enjoyment of a book.
I also enjoy rereading books that I’ve read before. Many times, I spot something interesting that I missed before. Still Pam is correct that a reread feels different than reading a book for the first time. But there is also the pleasure of re-meeting “old friends” when I reread a book.
This is why I thought it was a great post for discussion. SOMETIMES I read ends of books. Also, well… in at least two of my books, if you reveal the end you will ruin a huge punch halfway there. One is DOITD. The other is the book I’m finishing…
I was thinking of that as an example… and I deleted what I just wrote because people who have read it can probably guess which part I don’t consider a “spoiler” and which part would wreck the story.
I think I might have written a review once that said… “and she’s got a really good reason why there are so many shifters in Goldport, which I appreciated…” which is getting awful close to it.
It is a good topic, especially as I got that review 2 days ago.
I also just got my first real SJW review on book 1of the series the other day from a woman who I suspect has never been in an enjoyable relationship in her entire life. I mean really, pinching is sexist? I have pinched and been pinched many times in relationships!
When I was young I skipped to the end a lot, particularly for romances, though I don’t any more. I think that the ones I was reading then often had some ambiguity about who the heroine ended up with and I’d been burned by cheering on the wrong guy. And then I used to check the end to make sure it was a “happy ending” before I invested in the whole book only to find out that the end was “literary”.
^^^^THIS
Also books where tons of people are dying. I don’t want to attach to the wrong one.
I got to the end of a 7 book series, it looked like the main character had been killed, I was crying and sad and read the end and he was alive. Then I was sorry I had looked.
I almost never skipped to the end when I was a kid/young adult. It was hard as it was to find enough enjoyable books to read. Then along came The Wheel of Time series. Cured me of that after book 6. Never did read books 7 to 11, just the endings. Is it done yet, is it done yet? Did the plot even advance?
Now my motto is: Life’s too short and my Kindle TBR list is too long to waste time on a bad (or even mediocre) book.
I love rereading books. It’s like visiting an old friend. Also, I’m not a big fan of tragedy and angst so I want to know if the characters the author wants me to become emotionally invested in are going to have good ends or heroic deaths.
I’m not a big fan of gotcha twists and I’m much less likely to continue reading an author who relies on that. Or television shows that rely on that.
And I have skipped to the end of a book and read it, more than once. Real life provides me with all the miserable, cruel and tragic endings I could ever want. I want my fiction to give me hope.
Very debatable subject: Sometimes I want that spoiler- I don’t like tragedies and try to avoid them when I can. A spoiler from another reader will save me the trouble of tossing disappointment into the trash. Read Donald Hamilton, Louis Lamore’ and RAH (early works) over and over. Foreshadowing is alright in it’s place; but, if the surprise is not out of context, go for it. If someone tells me that the hero is going to get the girl in the end, I’m not hurt by it. So, I think you’ve got a good point.
If someone tells me that everyone dies in the end, I’m not going to read the book. Some people like that sort of thing (yeah, people are weird) so they probably wouldn’t mind if someone told them, “Everyone dies at the end, I bawled and bawled, it was *awesome*.” Okay then, it’s a crying book. If you like crying books you probably won’t mind knowing that. I don’t mind knowing that they *win*. Or that the hero gets the girl. “What happens in Guardians of the Galaxy?” “Oh, they win!” Yeah, I don’t mind knowing that.
I’ve got a post up on my blog titled “Why the Movie Transcendence Sucked…” that no one should read if they want to see that movie and haven’t yet because not only do I include most of the plot, I explain what was wrong with the plot and why all of the narrative choices sucked even worse than you think they do when you watch it. Even so, a person reading it would have a nice long time to realize that after some relatively general “this was really bad and I’m going to tell you why it was really bad” statements, that they ought to stop reading if they don’t want to know.
Which brings up another thing… *ambush* spoilers. “Two main plot points in the first 10 words of the review” is entirely unacceptable.
As someone who rereads books, I have to point out that there is a large difference between reading a book for the first time, and following along where the author takes you, and picking up an old friend and rereading it just to enjoy the story.
Like the difference between my first hike this weekend at Savage Gulf State Natural Area, and my umpteenth hike last weekend at Fall Creek Falls State park. Enjoyed both, but totally different experiences.
I dislike reviews with spoilers. I partly dislike them because the tone is usually preening and stuffy… listen close now, because I’m a professional, notice how use all these analytical words and give a *thorough* review….
professional spoiler!
I want to know how the reviewer felt about the events, I want to know if it ended in a satisfying way. I don’t want to know what all the events are or how the story ends. It’s okay if some things are revealed… they win… they don’t die… or even… not *everyone* makes it, but the ending is good, the ending makes you feel good. Then I’m like, okay, that’s good to know. And that’s quite different from “Fred sacrifices himself for Ben…” because then every moment from page one “Fred” has “Fred Will Die” floating over his head in neon any time he walks onto the page.
I think it’s really true that an *excellent* story will not depend on the mystery of what happens next. A *good* story might, but not an *excellent* one. In which case the review can say… “This story is compelling even when you know what’s going to happen next.”
I want to know that the author will keep faith with me. This is especially important if it is a writer I don’t know in these benighted times, who might commit literary writing at me or kill off people for no good reason to show they are “serious”. Or say “it was all a dream, because mother didn’t love me and I want you to feel abandoned too.”
As far as the big reveal of plot points, part of the fun of reading a book for the first time is seeing if you can figure it out before the author tells you, and spoilers do spoil that. It’s like training wheels, or affirmative action. It cheats you of a feeling of personal accomplishment. Now if a book has been out a year and is very popular, I think you can’t expect to live a spoiler-free life. But a week after it comes out–be polite, and let others have a chance to run on trackless snow.
You can only read a book for the first time ONCE.
You can re-read it later, and enjoy it, but large part of the enjoyment lays is recalling your reaction the first time you read it.
Take the major twist in A Game of Thrones. Would *you* have liked to know about that ahead of time?
I contend that foreknowledge would have ruined the moment. Despite plenty of foreshadowing, anybody with a sense of genre conventions was expecting something to happen with the sword about to fall, and dreading that it wouldn’t. Would you like to have that taken from you? Or would you like to take that from another?
This. Exactly this. Yes, I enjoy rereading books but it is a different experience than reading a book for the first time. Everyone deserves the chance to experience a book without knowing how the story resolves.
I’ve been known to include spoilers in my reviews, but I always label them at both the beginning and end so those who don’t want the story spoiled can skip over them. Nothing irritates me more than a reviewer who has unlabeled spoilers in the review. Unless that’s people who just HAVE to tell you all about the latest book they read or movie they saw, even in the face of your absolute insistence that you don’t want to hear until after you’ve had a chance to read the book or see the movie.
I’m a little torn about this; because I found out about The Dresden Files through TVTropes. I was enjoying reading TVTropes itself and finally went and asked friends ‘What’s this Dresden Files series I keep reading about on TVTropes? Is it a webcomic?’
After the o_o expressions and “OMG HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW OF THIS?!” (coz… no real bookstores?? Ordering from the net not feasible at the time?) I got told and encouraged and…
Lucky for me, fiction and actual REAL BOOKSTORES were just starting a revival in the Philippines, and Fully Booked had the books. Starting an addiction. Those first copies I bought will need replacing, they’re so dog eared and the spines worn.
Knowing what would happen in The Game of Thrones TV series didn’t spoil it because how they were presented.
Just my $0.02.
That plot twist on Game of Thrones didn’t spoil anything for anybody who’d already read Katherine Kurtz. Heh.
If someone had told me who the murderer was in Kate Paulk’s ConVent, It would have totally ruined the story for me. Oh, I still might have enjoyed the in-jokes – those that I got anyway – but all the wrong trails, I wouldn’t have had the same up and down impact knowing in advance they were going the wrong way.
My attitude to spoilers changed dramatically when I first stuck my nose into classical Greek literature. I forget who it was that pointed out to me that all the great Greek epics and tragedies are retellings of stories that the entire audience already knew. The artistry was in the telling. Half of the emotional impact of those plays and poems came from dramatic irony: that is, from knowing in advance what was going to happen to the characters, and seeing them betrayed by their own ignorance of the future.
For me, a good book has always meant a book that was worth rereading. If I already know how the story turns out – whether from a folktale or some such traditional source, or from spoilers in a review – then the first reading is also a reread. If the book can’t survive that treatment, I don’t want it as part of my mental furniture and will just get by without it.
C. S. Lewis, by the way, said something rather similar in An Experiment in Criticism. For him, the crucial difference was between people who read (and reread) books, and those who merely use them. Book users are reading either for information or for novelty, and don’t read the same book twice. (Of course, the same person may be a reader and rereader of one book and a user of another.) He comes to the same conclusion I did, though by a different road: a good book is one that can be reread, a mediocre book is one that can only be used. (A bad book is one not fit to be read or used.)
If course, the Greek plays were at the beginning of an era when New stories were frowned upon. When we were learning about The Decameron, one thing we learned that that this one was significant because it used the old formula as a way of sneaking new stories in front of the critics. How would you like to be an author whose original works were met with derision for not hewing closely enough to the established plotlines?
I line new and surprising experiences. One of the reasons I’m glad I’ve got NetFlix is I had the habit of buying DVD’s of movies I liked, because I knew they were good. But then I wouldn’t watch them because I already knew how they went. (Anyone in the market for some VHS copies of Disney animation still in the plastic?)
I put that out there as a way that saying re-readability is not a universal marker of quality, and calling me a mere “User” of books rather than a Reader is a little insulting. Besides, there are more books out there than one can read in a lifetime. Time spent re-reading a familiar book is time spent not discovering more of what’s out there. (An extreme form might be becoming the community of “books” at the end of Fahrenheit 451).