Spoilers... What are they to you?
So I've been thinking about spoilers lately. And really just trying to decide what a spoiler actually is. I mean I KNOW what it is, but I also feel like it's different for everybody and different for every book. The problem is that I DON'T want to spoil a book for anyone. I really don't. But at the same time, when I blog about a book, I WANT to talk about all the things!! I want to tell you about that crazy ending and why I loved or hated it. I want to tell you all about why certain characters pissed me off, or why that one big twist didn't work for me. And most of the time I can't!! And Twitter is even going #spoilerfree now, so I can't talk about stuff on there either! It gets sort of frustrating because I started blogging because I really want to talk to other people about books.
Some people think if you say anything about the plot that is not written in the synopsis, you are spoiling. Is that true?? Sometimes I feel yes, and sometimes no. Depends on the book. Take We Were Liars for example. I found it really hard to review that book. It's like you can't say anything about what the book is about, so how do you review it?? All I could say was it was about a girl in a rich family summering on her family's private island w/ her cousins... and then something happens. And the ending f-ed with my head. But see.... KNOWING that there's a twist ending, doesn't that spoil the book?? When other people read the book now are they going to be looking for that twist and hence less surprised when it happens?? (Like my use of hence there, don't ya????).
So back to my question. What is a spoiler? And how can we book talk without them?? I know part of my solution has been to keep a plot journal where I write down the plots for books I read. I do this because my memory sucks sometimes and I read so many books they blur around in my head. I also do this so I can write notes to myself like: WHY did so-and-so have to DIE!!!!!!! But it's still just me talking to myself. Bookclub has been another good outlet because we all read the same book and then we can vent about them or fangirl.
One thing I've thought about doing is regular spoiler-free reviews- and then if there's something I'm dying to talk about I could do a separate CLEARLY labeled SPOILER discussion type post about why I'm heartbroken about a character's death... or why that crazy-ass ending messed with my head. Is this okay?? Or is this like a blogger-etiquette no-no?
So you tell me... what is a spoiler to you? Do you like knowing as little as possible? Or do you mostly read reviews of books you've already read so you can talk about the things? And how can we book talk without spoiling books? And is my idea for a clearly labeled spoiler post a bad idea?
I'm not usually one for spoilers. I don't tend to read blurbs and go into books sort of blind. It means that there is maximum impact when big things happen. But that said - I still don't hate spoilers. Most books the excitement and the feels are in the journey and what characters have been through to get to the things people would consider to be spoilers rather than the big thing itself.
ReplyDeleteI try not to share anything major which either doesn't appear in the blurb or anything which is past 20% into the book. Some books have everything right up to the final page in the blurb (and those books really annoy me). Whichever comes second. I want people to know what they are getting into but at the same time have the chance to find out for themselves.
Kate @ Fictional Thoughts
I love going into books blind and wish I would do it more often! I don't share major things that happen in my reviews and sometimes it just bums me out that I can't talk about those things.
DeleteI try to avoid spoilers where I can in writing reviews. I think it would be impossible to write a decent review without referring to things that happen - so I do that but don't go into any detail or specifics about it. Yes, it does ruin the surprise. I now know We Were Liars has a pretty awesome ending from all the reviews I've read but kindly no one has spilled the beans yet. I try to think of it like this - if a review says something about a book like - Gone Girl has such a twist and I loved it, everyone hates the ending of Allegiant but I thought it was quite fitting once I got over the shock - it intrigues me to find out what they're talking about, it does remove an element of surprise, but if you don't want to know anything at all, don't read reviews. A spoiler to me is when someone says something character or plot specific that makes you think - aw, great, well there's no point in me reading it now. Thanks. THANK YOU very much!
ReplyDeleteThat's just what I think... :)
R
Yeah I've never had a book spoiled for me by a blogger. And I would never intentionally spoil a book for anyone. I'm also really bad at keeping secrets sometimes and it's probably a good thing I don't know a bunch of YA readers IRL!!
Delete+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteThere are times when I don't want to know ANYTHING about a book or movie before starting. In those cases, absolutely everything is a spoiler. ;-P But since I've already decided to read or to watch it, those are also cases when I don't really need to consult reviews. In general, I prefer reading reviews after I know all the details of the story they're about. During the handful of times that I need them to help me make my decision, I do appreciate a discreet reviewer.
What I think you touch on here is the conflict between reviews and real discussions of books. You can only have the latter with people who have already read the books. This is probably the worst limitation of the book blogosphere: it's so reviews-oriented that it's hard to have in-depth discussions. And people who read the reviews when the books are new releases won't necessarily come back later.
Yes that is EXACTLY what I'm talking about thank you! Book reviewing feels very limiting sometimes and I want to TALK about the crazy endings and hear what other people think about it. Also there are times when I think the ending means something and I want to know if other people thought that too. It would be really cool to be able to have a place for spoilery stuff as well as reviews.
DeleteSpoilers, to me, are things that reveal a plot twist or something that took me by surprise in the book. Sometimes when I'm writing reviews, I feel very strongly about the twist or conclusion of the book and I want to discuss that, so i always give a fair warning!
ReplyDeleteI typically go by the rule, anything not mentioned in the blurb is a spoiler. It can be tough to talk about a book without getting into specifics, but the real questions is, who are you writing for? Are you writing to tell people about a book they may not have heard of, or are you writing so you can discuss details with those who've also read the book?
ReplyDeleteEither is fine, but I think it's important to be honest with ourselves... and, of course, our readers. Discussing spoilers is fine if they're clearly marked and give people a chance to look away. (I hate when people just say - SPOILER ALERT - in the middle of a sentence and expect that to be enough... give me a heading and a paragraph break! And while I'm being ranty, tell me where the spoilers END too! Don't just leave me hanging in the middle of a blog post, wondering if I can skip to the end or not.)
I really think the best solution is to have two completely different kinds of posts. I've seen bloggers who have "Reviews" but then also have "Discussions" (or a more creative label) to distinguish which posts are for fangirling and ranting and getting into the details, and which are just an overview so we can decide if it's a book we might want to read.
Some books are really hard to review without talking about certain aspects. So I've just started saying "possible spoiler ahead" if I'm gonna dish about the book in any kind of detail, and reader beware. LOL.
ReplyDeleteUGH I haaaaate spoilers. But I agree that sometimes it's REALLY hard to talk about a book without spoiling at least a little bit...or there are times when you really want to talk about a certain aspect of the book, but can't without giving stuff away.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I like to go into a book completely blind, knowing the least amount of information about it as possible (besides having obviously decided that it's a book I want to read). But I don't yell SPOILER! when somebody mentions little details about it...I consider spoilers to be plot twists, the protagonists's ultimate choice of love interest in a triangle situation, and anything after the 50% mark, really. I think that you can mention small details that aren't in the synopsis, or even bigger ones as long as it's something mentioned within the first few chapters. But anything other than that, and you should probably include spoiler tags.
What I would do in your situation is write a regular non-spoiler-y review, and then if there's something specific you want to discuss, just write it at the end of your review and put SPOILER DISCUSSION AHEAD or something (I don't think a whole separate post is necessary). But you'd definitely want to make sure that people kept spoilers out of their comments, too, in that case.