Do Spoilers Improve Books?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That is, however, the whole point of a detective story, and the reason that most people read them.

This.

However, I don't think that the "we want spoilers" crowd is that surprising. I mean, we see the concept that people like tropes, and want to know what to expect, in serial TV and in serialized novels. That part isn't new at all. What's the explanation for the blockbuster success of the Marvel movies? A built-in fanbase that more-or-less knows what to expect. Why are some book series extraordinarily successful, whether it's the Dresden files or the dreaded Laurell K. Hamilton's porny former-action-adventure series or Janet Evanovich?

It's because people want the same thing over and over--because they want to know what to expect. While GOT may throw viewers for a loop (I suspect hardcore mystery lovers are more attracted to GOT than "classic" fantasy viewers, interestingly enough, but this is merely a theory of mine), there's still, more-or-less, a repeating cast of characters. Sometimes less than more, as we see. ;-) Sometimes fewer BITS of cast members, too....

Personally, I loathe spoilers. To me, that's reruns, without even having the pleasure of seeing the damn thing in the first place. Leftovers without having the bravo meal served the first time. I have been infuriated with the dolts who post spoilers on "reviews" of shows/series/movies on IMDB and ditto ditto Amazon. I go looking for a review of some "new to me" series that I've found on my Roku, and some idiot says "I was so upset about X dying in Season 2..." (in the damn HEADLINE for the IMDB review) and the entire "what's to come" experience is utterly ruined for me.

I mean, hell, it's bad enough that everything is regurgitated and recycled as it is. "Olympus Has Fallen?" People said it was Die Hard, but it wasn't; it was Under Siege (Segal). Almost verbatim. I saw something the other night with the ubiquitous, "fly the [insert flying machine type here] right up the [vaginal/anal] mother spaceship orifice-sacrifice by anti-hero" scene that is now almost mandatory in alien-invasion sci-fi. It's all done-to-death. Those who contribute to this, by using spoilers, to ruin the few fresh things, scenes, endings or books that are out there? URRGGHHH.

I can't tell if the idiots that do that, without at least having the decency to type "SPOILER ALERT" in their review, are deliberately and gleefully taking some smug know-it-all delight in ruining things for others ("I know more than you do, I know more than you do, nyah-nyah-nyah"), or if they're just too stupid to be considerate about it. To cut them a break, perhaps they are so blithely unaware that they believe that the entire world is watching (or reading) the show/book/series at the exact same time that they are.

(I admit I'm a bit boggled to read that some folks thought the Sixth Sense was "scary." Intriguing, yes, but scary? Really?)

Hitch

[twowheels]

I dislike spoilers so much that I get up and run out of the room, covering my ears, and humming to ensure I don't hear, when TV shows tell you what's going to happen next week.

For books... I don't read any reviews and don't read the blub, going in 100% blind. I choose based on author's reputation, frequency of hearing of the book, genre, how long it's been a best seller, and the weighting of the reviews. I have very good luck with this approach and have read some books years after buying them having NO IDEA what they were about, not even the genre, and found that I really enjoyed them. For example, I would have NEVER read Big Machine by Victor LaValle had I read the blurbs or reviews, but I found it to be a rather interesting trip through a genre I generally avoid. I bought it because it was an Amazon daily deal and had a good rating weighting and I'd been seeing it somewhat frequently. I then forgot completely about it for almost a year before starting to read it with no idea what it was about, which made it all the more interesting of a trip.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That is, however, the whole point of a detective story, and the reason that most people read them.

This made we wonder what percentage of detective stories have an inverted plot. But, reading between the lines of my last link, I'm thinking that the percentage of detective stories that are inverted (you find out who did it first) is almost as low as you imply.

As to why else someone would read a detective novel, I hope they expose difficult to summarize truths about humanity, like other good novels. Sometimes I pick up one, set in a country I don't know much about, to get a bit of the national flavor. Beyond that, everything else equal, I favor ones written by people with first hand experience in law enforcement, on grounds I'll learn something while being entertained.

My desire to have the author write about what he or she knows goes even more for spy novels. I like to think the retired spy author is trying to tell us truths about his (usually it is a man) former life that could not be legally presented in non-fiction.

I know I'm missing lots of good books due to my obsession with realism, but, well, if I read fantasy, I'd be missing lots of the other kind.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A spoiler for a whodunnit seems to me to completely ruin the book. I can't imagine why anyone would want such a thing. (I'm excluding the "Inverted Detective Story" - aka the "Columbo" story - where the reader knows whodunnit right from the outset.)

I agree about the "Inverted Detective Story." With Columbo, the fun of the story is seeing how he figures out who did it and how. Especially when the guilty party is so confident that he/she will get away with it, while making so many tiny errors that reveal the truth.

I also enjoy the standard detective mysteries, such as the manga series "Case Closed." With many of the stories, a spoiler would have ruined the story especially since the solution to the mystery is often unexpected. As an example, in one story a murder is committed and the murderer clearly seen and recognized by witnesses (and the readers). The problem: The murderer is a triplet and all three were in the area.

When it comes to spoilers, I dislike them before my first read/view. A spoiler would ruin my enjoyment of finding out for myself.

An example of this is in an issue of the 1980s comic book series "New Teen Titans." Without revealing it, there was a moment in the story that was so shocking, so unexpected, that I didn't see it coming and I had to re-read the page a few times to make sure of what I saw. It completely changed the story, the series, and The Teen Titans (the group and its members) were never the same again. I would not have had the same enjoyment of the story had it been spoiled for me.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

I agree about the "Inverted Detective Story." With Columbo, the fun of the story is seeing how he figures out who did it and how. Especially when the guilty party is so confident that he/she will get away with it, while making so many tiny errors that reveal the truth.

The genre was invented by R. Austin Freeman, whose books are in our ebook library here at MR.

[Gazella]

I can't imagine/understand how spoilers improve books. If someone spoilt a book for me, I wouldn't read it.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by meeera

I can find zero information on who these "subjects" were. I'm guessing, on the odds, that they were Psych 101 students. All we know otherwise is that people who had read the classic stories before were excluded. We also know that these were all short stories, not novels or movies or TV series.

Is that really going to be a representative sample? Can we happily apply it to other readers and to other situations? Across the board?

As far as anyone else wanting to decide for me whether spoilers are or aren't good for me: that is incredibly annoying . How about just respecting whether or not other people want spoilers?

I'm with Meeera on this. Not impressed with the study (I hope y'all didn't get paid a lot of money to run that thing). If I read certain spoilers, I won't even read the book. And short stories are completely different than novels in shape, style, plot, time committed and so on.

I like to know enough to know what kind of story I'm getting. For example, if I pick up a romance, I do expect a happily ever after. I don't regard that as a spoiler; I regard that much the same as if I order a pizza, I expect to get a flat bread with tomato sauce, toppings and cheese. If I read a mystery, I expect some element of clever sleuthing (and yes, I mean clever. Not just serendipitous) some type of crime and A RESOLUTION. The main mystery must be solved even if subplots aren't resolved.

But all readers are different. And it's also quite possible than a segment of non-readers (people who read one or two books a year--or none) have different criteria for reading.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Not impressed with the study (I hope y'all didn't get paid a lot of money to run that thing).

The UC San Diego Department of Psychology is too highly ranked for their faculty not to be getting salaries in the upper level for their profession. I'm, of course, not saying this makes it a good study, and only mention it because you brought up the money angle

The sample size of 819 seems to me impressively high.

If you think about what kind of undergraduates attend UC San Diego (well above average, but not the absolute top), and the fact that they preferred genre over literary works, it seems to me a reasonable middle of the road sample for the purpose.

What would it take to impress you?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I'm with Meeera on this. Not impressed with the study (I hope y'all didn't get paid a lot of money to run that thing). If I read certain spoilers, I won't even read the book. And short stories are completely different than novels in shape, style, plot, time committed and so on.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm not shocked at the results, given where the study was conducted. If I assume it's all students, we know that the attention-span of people, particularly younger, seems to be getting shorter daily, with a real inability to focus for longer periods of time. My laments here on MR about my (endless) frustrations with our clients' unwillingness to read even a few paragraphs of instructions or "READ ME FIRST" material--not even 500 words--boggles my mind. Isn't this much of a muchness? People just want the result, not the enjoyment or effort of getting there? Are uninterested, if not downright disinterested, in the process, edification or power of the journey?

I like to know enough to know what kind of story I'm getting. For example, if I pick up a romance, I do expect a happily ever after. I don't regard that as a spoiler; I regard that much the same as if I order a pizza, I expect to get a flat bread with tomato sauce, toppings and cheese. If I read a mystery, I expect some element of clever sleuthing (and yes, I mean clever. Not just serendipitous) some type of crime and A RESOLUTION. The main mystery must be solved even if subplots aren't resolved.

Oh, yeah. I'm not a romance reader (surprise!), so I don't care about the HEAs as do those readers, but I get extremely annoyed when a book is termed a "mystery" and turns out to be a puerile action-adventurer, with no mystery to solve, just a "bad guy" to get. That doesn't mean that I won't read action-adventure, far from it; but I don't like anything called a mystery that doesn't require some level of puzzle-solving, whether it's traditional clues-herrings-whodunits or the creative hunting skills of the Inverted. MUST have a puzzle or problem to solve.

After all: who would have been talking about Presumed Innocent, five minutes after finishing it, had the Big Reveal been told upfront, or a third-of-the-way through? Then the book would have been a big nothing, really, because the reader wouldn't have been led astray in soooooooo many ways. ;-0 Clever bit, that one.

But all readers are different. And it's also quite possible than a segment of non-readers (people who read one or two books a year--or none) have different criteria for reading.

I think that's a given, as demonstrated by this thread.

I have what I call the 'Hitch Marital Compatibility" test: take the proposed couple, and give them both cafeteria-style meals, replete with all courses. If they both eat the courses in more or less the same way/order, they're reasonably compatible. If she (or he) eats dessert first, and leaves the veggies (or what he likes least) for last, they're not that compatible. If s/he eats her veggies first, because they're "good for you," and leaves dessert for last, while he's eaten the cake first, it's going to be a rocky road. (This isn't metaphor, particularly, but the food groups ARE metaphors. And, trust me: the test is a pretty good damn indicator.)

Perhaps a similar test can be derived from this thread? Spoilers first, or spoilers be damned? ;-) Hmmmm.......

Hitch

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I think that's a given, as demonstrated by this thread.

The study, as I read it (see link in #15) takes as it starting point that, based on past research, the great majority of readers think they dislike most spoilers. Then it shows that a bit more than half the half the readers actually do like most spoilers. This thread confirms the starting point, but can tell us nothing about the actuality.

I just found a more recent study by the same authors, with more evidence plus an attempt to explain why most readers like the spoiled stories. Also, they discovered one type of story UC San Diego students do not like to be spoiled. See:

http://pages.ucsd.edu/~nchristenfeld...20Spoilers.pdf

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

The UC San Diego Department of Psychology is too highly ranked for their faculty not to be getting salaries in the upper level for their profession. I'm, of course, not saying this makes it a good study, and only mention it because you brought up the money angle

The sample size of 819 seems to me impressively high.

If you think about what kind of undergraduates attend UC San Diego (well above average, but not the absolute top), and the fact that they preferred genre over literary works, it seems to me a reasonable middle of the road sample for the purpose.

What would it take to impress you?

I took a "study" class at University of Washington and it's quite interesting when you sample students in particular. Students are a rather isolated bunch (meaning they are at a point in life where they are all experiencing largely the same environment or at least a large number of similarities. They are often close in age and often have similar discretionary incomes when compared to the population at large.) In other words, a sample of students, (if it was students and in the class I took it was ALWAYS students--free, readily accessible, etc) you actually do not get a good cross section of anything OTHER than students. Students interacting with other students can often mean they begin to share even more similarities (hobbies, study times, food choices, movie choices, etc). Their circle of influence is more confined than that of an overall population.

So this class I took made mention of how doing a study in any confined environment actually results in almost a herd mentality. I don't know that the study was done using only students, but a more interesting (and impressive) study would be to use avid readers as the subjects. So you would "cull the herd" by only using responses from those who read 1 book per month or more (or whatever criteria you decide defines a reader). This would gather from a larger cross-section of people who may only share reading as a primary hobby.

But really to me...I don't see a lot of purpose to the study as far as enriching anyone's life. I suppose that as an author, I could glean some valuable information: If I write stories with few surprises and I rinse and repeat just changing characters, I will be madly successful...

Hmm. Well, it is food for thought. But I STILL hope they didn't get paid a lot...

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

If I write stories with few surprises and I rinse and repeat just changing characters, I will be madly successful...

The spoiled works were only slightly better liked.

The studies, as I read them, are about the gap between what people think they like and what they do like. They say nothing about what people buy.

Your points about student culture are good ones. It may be that restricting to people who read lots of books would give a different result.

I have another hypothesis about which people would, and would not, actually like spoiled stories and books. People with a stronger motive to achievement would tend to like spoilers, except in the case of relatively easy to solve mysteries. That's because we achievement types (I am one) dislike playing games unless we probably will lose. But readers with a greater need for power would be glad to get into a battle for wits with a brilliant mystery writer for the same unfathomable (to me) reason many, not all, of those folks buy lottery tickets. For some, a near-hopeless challenge is apparently great fun.

Then there are the people who need no spoilers because they always can figure out who did it. I don't even want to think about those people

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

The study, as I read it (see link in #15) takes as it starting point that, based on past research, the great majority of readers think they dislike most spoilers. Then it shows that a bit more than half the half the readers actually do like most spoilers. This thread confirms the starting point, but can tell us nothing about the actuality.

I just found a more recent study by the same authors, with more evidence plus an attempt to explain why most readers like the spoiled stories. Also, they discovered one type of story UC San Diego students do not like to be spoiled. See:

http://pages.ucsd.edu/~nchristenfeld...20Spoilers.pdf

I think one flaw with the study is that it doesn't take into account the interest in the story or the expected surprise of a reveal.

If I were a participant, and reading short stories I care nothing about, I might say that I liked the "spoiled" stories better as well. However, that doesn't really correlate into real world situations with entertainment we specifically choose to consume and care more about. I think that all the study really shows is that many people don't mind, and maybe even enjoy, spoilers on things they don't care very much about.

When it comes to what we're actually really interested in reading (or watching), I would think that many less people would "enjoy" spoilers. For instance, as a study, let's find the next "The Sixth Sense" or "The Usual Suspects" type film, a really popular one that many people want to see, weed out any study participants not interested in seeing it, then spoil the film beforehand for a third of the audience, and reveal the ending in a flashback early on for a third of the audience, and let the last third watch it as normal. Then let us measure responses on spoilers and we may find very different results compared to the study referenced in this thread.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

The UC San Diego Department of Psychology is too highly ranked for their faculty not to be getting salaries in the upper level for their profession. I'm, of course, not saying this makes it a good study, and only mention it because you brought up the money angle

The sample size of 819 seems to me impressively high.

If you think about what kind of undergraduates attend UC San Diego (well above average, but not the absolute top), and the fact that they preferred genre over literary works, it seems to me a reasonable middle of the road sample for the purpose.

A middle of the road sample... of reasonably privileged Americans aged 18-22, all students at the same 4-year college, who are reading short stories they were told to read for study-participation class credit. I just don't think that sample or that methodology can be generalised to "most people everywhere of all ages and backgrounds actually enjoy spoiled novels/TV shows/movies/short stories even though they say they don't".

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

The spoiled works were only slightly better liked.

The studies, as I read them, are about the gap between what people think they like and what they do like. They say nothing about what people buy.

Your points about student culture are good ones. It may be that restricting to people who read lots of books would give a different result.

I have another hypothesis about which people would, and would not, actually like spoiled stories and books. People with a stronger motive to achievement would tend to like spoilers, except in the case of relatively easy to solve mysteries. That's because we achievement types (I am one) dislike playing games unless we probably will lose. But readers with a greater need for power would be glad to get into a battle for wits with a brilliant mystery writer for the same unfathomable (to me) reason many, not all, of those folks buy lottery tickets. For some, a near-hopeless challenge is apparently great fun.

Given that, per Henry Murray's definition, people with a Need for Achievement exert "intense, prolonged and repeated efforts to accomplish something difficult. To work with singleness of purpose towards a high and distant goal. To have the determination to win," (italic emphasis added) I am pretty sure that I don't understand how you can correlate the utter lack of effort involved in using spoilers to this personality type. ??? How does using spoilers, to avoid having to figure out the plotline/mystery/storyline along the way, or wait for the reveal, ending, whatever, correspond to working with "singleness of purpose...to a goal?" The goal, then, if I understand you, is simply finishing the book, or knowing the storyline/content without reading it? I'm not being argumentative here; I'm genuinely trying to understand it. If the "goal" is simply knowing the content, why bother to read it in the first place? Why not just use Cliff's Notes? Where's the accomplishment that seems to be the core of this so-called "need?"

Insofar as the theory that about PowN's (need for power), mmmm...don't see that at all. Seems utterly contraindicated, if you think it through.

Then there are the people who need no spoilers because they always can figure out who did it. I don't even want to think about those people

Most of the more-avid readers of mysteries I know can nearly always figure out "whodunit" far in advance of the big reveal. With most writers today, it's just not that hard. Certainly in TV and Movies, a "whodunit" that is genuinely baffling is of unicorn-like rarity; the same is true of most books published today, which are aimed at the reading comprehension levels of 11 year-olds. It should not be considered "eek-worthy."

Just my $.02.

Hitch