“Why I Love” Wednesday is a regular, every-other-week feature focusing on things that I love and why I love them. It gives me a chance to celebrate some of my favorite things out there, and it covers a broad spectrum.
I have always loved spoilers. As a child, I used to sneak a peek at the end of my books, to see if the last line would reveal whether the characters’ stories ended happily. I didn’t want to know exactly what happened, I just wanted to brace myself in case things ended badly.
This tendency progressed until, as an adult, I regularly began reading spoilers online for movies and tv shows. Knowing the outcome ahead of time doesn’t diminish my enjoyment. Instead, it’s freeing. I can watch the movie and appreciate the nuances of the plot (like foreshadowing) without being overwhelmed by the show’s tension.
(I still try to avoid spoilers for things I’m really excited about, but hearing one won’t upset me. And, aside from a little peek at the end, I almost never spoil myself for a book.)
A few days ago, I came across an entry on Rabia Gale’s blog in which she talked about spoilers. She said the following,
“For some of us (the highstrung, anxious, emotionally over-involved types), it’s agony not knowing if X is going to happen or if Y is going to die or if A and B get together. This anxiety acts like a spreading stain, making the experience of reading that story a miserable experience. Since we read for pleasure … we’d rather give up on the book than continue in this wretched way.
“Or we could just peek ahead and find out what happens.
“If the outcome is satisfactory, then we can go on happily, secure in the knowledge Everything Works Out and eager to see how the author gets us to that ending. And if the resolution is not satisfactory… well, we can still abandon the book. Or we can begin to emotionally distance ourselves from the character who’s going to die and come to terms with the way the story ends before we get there and it slaps us in the face like a, um, big wet fish. It’s the difference between descending by going down the steps, or descending by jumping out of a window.”
I nodded along as I read this, thinking, “Yes! She gets it!” This is exactly why I read final sentences and look up movie summaries online. It was a relief to find a kindred spirit.
My family is not the same when it comes to spoilers. For them, knowing what will happen and ridding themselves of the anticipation of what comes next ruins the experience. They want to be swept away, to forget that the story is just a story, and not worry about things like what other roles have been portrayed by the actor who plays the hero until the whole thing is over. I get that. So I keep my spoilers to myself.
Even when I don’t read spoilers, or back in the days before they were readily available on the internet, I commonly guess plot points in movies. My family could do the same, if they wanted to, but they don’t, which is fine. I think the reason that I’ve trained myself to figure it out isn’t just because I’d rather know but also because I’m a writer.
I mentioned earlier that knowing what will happen in a movie gives me a chance to appreciate the methods the writers use to tell the story. It also gives me the chance to study them. If I’ve read spoilers and don’t have to work on figuring it out, I can analyze the clues that have been given, the type of story that’s being told, the methods that are used to lead the viewer astray. Even when I don’t mean to, I’m always subconsciously trying to figure out how the story is being woven together, the disparate strands being tucked one into the other to make the whole.
It strikes me that this could be a good exercise for any writer, using a movie or book that you’re familiar with. Next time I rematch a favorite movie or reread a favorite book, I’m going to consciously pick out the bits that establish characters, lay out relationships, ratchet up the conflict, or foreshadow the outcome. It’s a useful way to study what makes a a story work and what doesn’t.
And that’s why I love spoilers.
(image copyright BBC One, used without permission)
