I knew Dumbledore was going to die weeks before I got the book. And I still bawled like a child when it happened. I'm pretty much immune to spoilers.
Fair enough. You can download the article if you happen to have a subscription to the journal, either personally or through an academic institution. I'll do my best to give a description, but I only bothered to get the short-report myself. Methods: 12 stories were selected from anthologies and placed into one of three experimental groups based on genre, for a total of 4 stories per genre: "Ironic-twist" stories, mysteries and literary stories. For each story, the experimenters wrote two spoiler paragraphs, one which was meant to look like it was a part of the author's work, and one paragraph that clearly did not. Subjects read 3 stories from each genre. One was unaltered, one had the spoiler paragraph as a part of the story, and one had the spoiler apart from the story. The frequency of each story's presentation was counterbalanced so they all showed up in every possible condition (2 altered versions and one unaltered) for at least 30 subjects. Every story was read and rated for enjoyment on a scale of 1 (least enjoyment) to 10 (most enjoyment) and subjects could respond freely after each rating. So, while the ratings are subjective, each story was rated about 200 times per condition. Results: ANOVA shows a significant effect of condition for all genres: Ironic-twist: (6.20 vs 5.79), p = .013, d = 0.18 Mystery: (7.29 vs 6.60), p = .001, d = .034 Literary: (5.50 vs 5.03), p = .019, d = .022 I will copy the last paragraph of the study as per fair use: "Erroneous intuitions about the nature of spoilers may persist because individual readers are unable to compare spoiled and unspoiled experiences of a novel story. Other intuitions about suspense may be similarly wrong: Perhaps birthday presents are better when wrapped in cellophane, and engagement rings when not concealed in chocolate mousse."
Spoilers only affect me if I am told something about one of the TV Series that I am currently watching. If someone accidentally spoils a movie for me, I will make a point to not watch that particular movie for a month or two and by that time I will have forgotten what I had been told. But in the instance of Dumbledore dieing, I probably would have the same response as you. If someone were to tell me that were to happen later in the book then I would be considerably annoyed at the time, however nonetheless I would move on with my life.
Perhaps most people *think* they dislike spoilers, but as long as the spoiler isn't annoying, it actually makes them enjoy the story more.
I don't particularly think that if a story was spoiled that it would lead one to enjoy it more. Personally, I much prefer a surprise in this sense.
Isn't the whole point of the study that people aren't able to rationally predict how much they will enjoy something spoiled vs unspoiled (and that, in fact, contrary to their own predictions, they enjoy spoiled texts more)? So doesn't this whole thread kinda prove their point? People think one way, but when you actually test them on it, they really respond a different way... I mean, I guess more studies will need to be done to test these results, but the methodology seems pretty sound and it had a decent sample size, so I wouldn't be quick to write it off. And it certainly isn't the first or last study to show that what we think we think and what we really think are often different things...
How many people do you know who read the last page of a book before they start reading the story, so that they know how it all ends up? Amazingly, I know several. I'm completley the opposite, I can't stand spoilers, but there are many of my friends who actually actively seek them out. So I can understand why this study produced those results.
Successful writers for years have been saying that if a story is good, it doesn't matter whether the reader knows what's going to happen, as what's important isn't what happens, but how it happens, why, to whom, etc. Even in plot based stories, a spoiler doesn't spoil much if it's a half-way decent story. Being informed the good guys win, as someone mentioned, still doesn't spoil a story. But imagine most movies (easier to conceptualize for many examples) that are action based, even if you told the viewer exactly how the good guys win, how Bond gets out of the trap, how Ahnold survives the Predator, most viewers are still going to want to see how. A movie like Sixth Sense becomes a slightly different story if the 'trick' is spoiled, but it's still a good, effective story. Same with There Will Be Blood. It's good watching it blind and not realizing the 'truth' (don't want to spoil it! lol), but watching it a second time knowing that truth from the very beginning almost makes it more compelling. The anti-spoiler sentiments are especially curious to me. From a writers perspective, I care about narrative design and want to see how stories are built. It surprises me how/why so many people are so against spoilers in this thread, as it makes me think people aren't reading or watching anything a second time for study. I know I do, and still find immense amounts of pure enjoyment with the best stories, as they hold up on subsequent readings/viewings, as good stories should. And many non-writers (or related) people I know who are just readers/viewers do the same, enjoying stories multiple times, even after knowing what's going to happen as they can then spend even more attention on how and why it happens, which again, is where good stories shine. I think there's also probably an interesting correlation to the amount of [self-reported] writers who will state any and all spoilers ruin a story, and the frequency of trick or twist endings that can be seen in amateur writing. Many amateur writers think a good story is one that surprises a reader in the 'I never saw that coming' sort of way, when in reality, over time, one learns a good story is one that manages to surprise a reader when they know exactly what was going to happen, and understand the purpose of foreshadowing is really to hint at (and sometimes outright spoil) the 'what' that is going to happen, so the reader isn't confused or surprised by that, and instead is surprised and enthralled by the how and why behind that what.
I love your posts, you should post more. But I especially agree with your last sentiments writers that think that a good story is only achieved with the readers don't see something coming. That it should be unpredictable with twists and turns and mysteries. The only real mystery in writing is the feelings a piece evokes. Why someone can read of one persons despair and have their hearts truly cry out for them versus reading about another person's despair and instead find themselves gloating at that person's misfortunes.
