Sequels and Prequels
Dec. 14th, 2004 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynWhen 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?
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?
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But Back to Mariel....
Date: 2004-12-14 06:18 pm (UTC)I certainly don't mind that you sent me a bit of "background" into Mariel's past (from Prophecy). I already know the ending of the story, yes, but that's partly by the misfortune of reading the story in several pieces, as it was being written. It's not like the beginning of the story consists of telling the ending and then just teasing us into wanting to see how we get to there.
It's a piece of the story not told, and in and of itself, it serves as a little bit of story on its own. It's nice to have that piece filled in ... but I have already accepted the whole story on its own merits, with or without that missing piece. A story where the author deliberately spoils the ending, well, that's another matter entirely.