|
I wonder if odd reactions to predictability can be partly due to established tropes. If you have three people in close proximity then of course you must have a love triangle, and if your story doesn't evolve that then some readers are going to be disappointed that their expectations weren't met. Build up lots of tension regarding an oncoming fight, and then find a way not to have that fight, and some people will be let down. Write a story with obvious political or social implications, but fail to made a big deal of the obvious, and some people will think you've misled them by not following the obvious/predictable themes.
I guess it could be that some readers pride themselves on being able to see where the story is going early on, and when you don't go where they expect they feel cheated. I've experienced something along these lines myself, a series that I thought was going to present Chinese mythology in the way I expected, but instead took it in quite another direction - treating it as almost matter of fact - and it took me a good few pages to turn my head around. Once I did settle in I quite enjoyed the book, but it had me quite disconcerted for a while.
|