Spoilers
I encountered two books this spring that built their plots on spoilers for other books.
The first one I started reading and realized that a bunch of Agatha Christies were going to be spoiled for me if I continued reading the book, so I needed to stop, check which ones they were, weigh out how I felt about having a bunch of mystery endings revealed, and then read on. The books “spoiled” were mostly books I already knew, so it was a low annoyance. But considering I only started reading Agatha about 18 months ago, if I had encountered this book at a different time, it would have sucked. Especially because it wasn’t clear that this was going to be part of the plot until I was several chapters into the book.
The other book is built on the premise that someone is using the murders in famous mystery novels to conduct murders around town. You’ll be able to figure out which book I’m talking about when you see my monthly book review post tomorrow. (Hint: if you don’t want to know which book, skip that post.) The book also ruins another famous mystery by revealing the twist ending during a conversation between two characters in the book. So… one book ruins almost ten books.
As in, literally ruins them because why else do people read mysteries except to try to figure out the mystery? If you know everything before you start reading, it’s not really an exciting read. It’s like setting up a game of Clue and having the person tell you, “By the way, Professor Plum is going to use the candlestick in the study. Let’s play!”
Anyway, I knew which books were being ruined in that book (with the exception of the one that popped up in the conversation, which I had luckily already read), and I had to stop reading it in order to rush through one of the books on the list so I could enjoy that mystery before returning to have the ending revealed in the spoiler-laden book.
Most of the books being spoiled were pretty old, and in a bunch of cases, the author was no longer alive. But in one case, the book being spoiled came out while I was in college. So it’s old, but it’s not that old. I kept poking around online to see if the author commented on how she felt about her book being ruined in order to have another author’s plot work, but I haven’t seen anything yet.
Which brings me to the thing that kept running through my head as I read the spoiler-laden book. The whole idea felt shitty. Clearly the author would not like the ending of his mystery revealed, so why would he ruin many other books? I mean, yes, on one hand, you can go with the thought that people don’t deserve to have things be spoiler-free after X amount of time. And it wasn’t like the book was required reading. But the whole thing left me shaking my head, even though I mostly enjoyed the spoiler-laden book once I had read the one mystery that I cared about. Still, it shat on the golden rule of doing unto others yadda yadda yadda.
So readers spoiling books—it accidentally happens. But writers spoiling other books in order to create their book… what do you think about that?
5 comments
Eh… not a problem for me. But I have trouble understanding the concept of “spoilers” anyway. It enhances a book for me to know the ending in advance because I can better appreciate how the author put the book together, the little clues and foreshadowings and ironies she puts in. If you don’t know how it ends, how can you enjoy the middle?
This would annoy me too. I don’t reread mysteries (and most of what I read is mysteries).
Eesh. In full disclosure, I love spoilers. I always read the ending of the book as quickly as possible, so that I don’t have the emotional load of worrying about characters and wondering what will happen. Knowing the ending allows me to enjoy myself more along the way. But that’s a choice I’m making for myself. Having Author B spoil the work of Authors A, C, D, etc. seems like a cheap trick. It’s a pity that Author B couldn’t come up with a more original way to create their own work.
I like spoilers – I don’t read mysteries to figure them out (although that’s sometimes fun). I read them because I enjoy the writing and the story.
I don’t think you can complain about spoiling a book that is…what, 20? years old, though. If someone was going to read it, they already have. If it’s a classic, it’s still worth reading (see: Shakespeare).
Using other books as a basis for your book seems a little gimmicky, but is it any worse than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which I did not read)? Or any fanfic creation? It’s not terribly original – books about serial killers copycatting other serial killers are pretty popular. But, I guess, if you feel a certain way about mysteries…
I hate spoilers. So you might be surprised by my opinion. I think it is okay and even quite interesting to write books that refer to other books that have been around for decades (eg Agatha), and give spoilers. If I hadn’t read them, I’d do what you did and go away and read them first. But I think the last one is a reasonably interesting premise. And I would actually see it as a tribute to the work of the earlier writers, rather than a copy or an insult.