Sequels and Prequels

[rowyn]

When I think about "seeing more" of my favorite characters or settings, I always want to know: What happens next?

Although I've read, and watched, plenty of prequels, part of me is always a little disappointed by them. I don't want to know what's gone before. I don't want to see the edges of the story filled in, to see what was happening to those characters when the camera was following this character. I want to move forward, to get the answer to And then?

In a similar vein, I dislike it when authors give spoilers for their own works. Diana Wynne Jones, dearly though I love her work, does that way too often. She'll have a first-person narrator who's supposedly writing this book after the fact, and keeps sprinkling in tidbits about how things turn out. Stop that! I don't want to know how it ends until it ends! Oddly, though, flashbacks within a text don't bother me, as long as it's not "three-fourths of the book is one long flashback".

Anyway, I'm curious now: how many other people feel the same way? When you've got a character you like, are you as happy to see a prequel as a sequel? Or do you prefer one over the other? What about the foreshadowing-by-sledgehammer that some authors like? How much do spoilers spoil it for you?

Comments

[palfrey.livejournal.com]

I've always quite liked prequels - at least we know where the character is going, so there's less chances of a major league alteration in how the character will behave. You have a reasonable guess as to their future path already, but you get to know more about the little stories that have been told about the dodgy leg or whatever.

In at least one case (the character "Jordan Brown" in Ken McLeod's otherwise wonderful sequence of books starting with "The Star Fraction") I've seen a character that I somewhat identified with decide to make a radical change in their life, and it's annoyed me that they didn't go the way I'd hoped. However, in general I like sequels. Getting to see more is generally a good thing.

On foreshadowing: only really allowed for things like Babylon 5 (they did what could be considered major league obvious foreshadowing, and yet they get away with it because it's in plain sight, and you don't believe the things that are said) or for things where its obvious anyways what's going to happen (e.g. foreshadowing that the fairy princess will get to marry the prince, etc), because then the author can have fun with it.

[rowyn]

Regarding characters not going the way you'd like -- I've never thought of that before, but I admit there've been books where I hated the later decisions the characters made.

Babylon 5's foreshadowing often annoyed me; probably the most egregious example was the 4th season episode where the story jumped forward various increments in time, ending with the heat-death of the universe or some such silliness. But the spoilers about what would happen to various characters were ANNOYING.

I like just enough foreshadowing that the reader can look back and think "oh, THAT'S what that was about", but not so much that I think "Well, gee, I know how this ends, guess I can stop reading now."