Is a Spoiler a Wonderful Thing?

Here, on the eve of Labor Day, I am going to let someone else do the writing for me. From The Week, September 2, 2011:

Mysteries without Mystery

Have you ever been tempted to flip to the end of a mystery novel? Go ahead: Suspense, a new study has found, is irrelevant to our enjoyment of a story. In fact, say researchers at the University of California at San Diego, most people like stories more if they know in advance how the story will end--even with plots than hinge on a mystery or a twist. The researchers set up different versions of 12 short stories written by authors such as Agatha Christie, Raymond Carver, and Anton Chekhov. One came with an introduction that spoiled the ending; one had a spoiler embedded in the middle of the text; and a third appeared just as its author had written it. Suprisingly, readers who learned the endings of their stories up front reported liking them much more on a scale of one to 10 than did readers of the other two versions. Why? The pleasure readers get from a good story, Jonathan Leavitt tells BBCNews.com, has far more to do with the quality of the writing and the character development than with a nail-biting plot. Once a reader knows how a story will turn out, he or she "can focus on a deeper understanding of the story."

Anyone care to weigh in on this? I think we've all seen books where the author tells us up front what happened, and then lets the story unfold - and these can be effective. But a steady diet of revealing the truth upfront so that we can "enjoy" the book more? I have my doubts. 

 

 

Comments

[Lexi Revellian]

I reread my favourite books, and enjoy them as much or more as I did at first. Nick Hornby's 'About A Boy' made me so anxious all would end badly that the second reading, knowing things worked out okay, was much more of a pleasure.

What about thrillers like Jo Nesbo's, where the writing is poor and the characters unbelievable; I suppose it must be the shocks and twists that garner an enthusiastic readership?

[Maxine]

No, I hate spoilers. For this reason I don't read the blurb of a novel until after I've finished it because all too often these brief summaries give away something that happens on p 200 - what's the point of reading the book (if it is a crime novel) if you know what's going to happen or some crucial twist?

I have to say that I do know people who turn to the back before they have read a book. to me this is like fingernails scratching down a blackboard, I can't bear to watch it!

Disagree with your commenter above about Jo Nesbo by the way. I am not 100 per cent keen on him but I am 80 per cent. Harry Hole is a pretty interesting character, I think, and the writing is fine for a crime novel (ie it is not intended to be a work of literature).

[Pepper Smith]

If I want a spoiler, I'll look at the back of the book--this however, is usually not a good thing, because it means the author hasn't managed to draw me in. I look in the back because I'm about to abandon the book and was just enough invested to want to know how it ended.

Otherwise, I'll read the blurb when deciding if I'll spend money on a book, but I don't want to know what's coming until I get there, and have been known to abandon books where the author gave away too much too soon.

And since mysteries are a game between the author and the reader, why would I a) want everything handed to me (which implies I'm too stupid to figure it out on my own), or b) want to treat readers of my novels as if I thought they were too stupid to pick up the clues and figure it out on their own?

[Austin Carr]

Just to cut some of the hostility, did anyone else see this on Facebook: "If my wife were a mystery writer, she'd be called Nag-a-tha Christie?"

[Pepper Smith]

Erm...you thought posting this where two female mystery authors had already posted replies was a good way of easing the hostility because....?

[Pepper Smith]

Oh, it's just Jack. Never mind.

[DanaKuznar]

No, no, no! I like to enter a story completely open to anything that might happen. (As a child, I wouldn't even read first-person stories, because it guaranteed the main character survived - no suspense.) I don't even particularly like prologues, if they're flash-forward scenes that give a peek ahead. For me, surprise is half the fun.