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With a detective story, you can safely assume the detective will eventually solve the case. No one watches a romantic comedy truly wondering if the couple will be happy in the end. So there isn't any thought that with these great works of fiction, knowing the ending is going to ruin them.”
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“’All's Well That Ends Well’? That one ends well. “When people go to see ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ they don't think ‘Don't tell me how it ends!’” said Christenfeld. In retrospect, Christenfeld thinks he should have seen it coming all along.
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Ironically, a study about spoiling surprise endings had a surprise ending. Leavitt found that across all three genres, spoilers enhanced the enjoyment of the stories. “The term is wrong.” Christenfeld and Jonathan D. “Across all three genres spoilers actually were enhancers,” said Christenfeld. “What we found, remarkably, was if you spoil stories they actually enjoy them more.”Ĭhristenfeld repeated the experiment with three different genres: mystery stories containing a “whodunit” moment ironic twist stories, where a surprise ending crystallizes the whole story and literary fiction with a neat resolution. “’In this, the classic story in which the woman murders her husband with a frozen leg of lamb…,’” said Christenfeld nonchalantly as an example. The other group did the same, but the researchers spoiled the narrative, as if by accident, by giving them a short introduction. One group simply read a story and rated how much they liked it at the end. In the initial experiment, his team had subjects read short stories from various genres. So Christenfeld decided to put spoilers to the test in the most straightforward way possible: by spoiling stories for people. Yet research has found that having extra information about artworks can make them more satisfying, as can the predictability of an experience. Intuitively, killing the surprise seems like it should make a narrative less enjoyable. If you’ve ever gone to considerable lengths to avoid hearing who won the big game, who became the latest dragon snack on “Game of Thrones,” or who Keyser Söze really is (it’s Kevin Spacey), you’re in good company. “We asked lots of people, ‘Do spoilers ruin experiences for you?’” said Christenfeld. Or at least that’s how they’re portrayed. If suspense, surprise and satisfying resolutions are the heroes that save a story, spoilers are the villains that try to, well, spoil everything. I became curious about what it is about fictional narratives that attracts people.” Enjoying the spoils “People spend enormous amounts of time devoting themselves to completely made-up stories. “Fiction is a peculiar thing when you stop and think about it,” said Christenfeld. Does fiction really have to work that way? What makes people enjoy or not enjoy a story?
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There needs to be a challenge, and the person overcomes the challenge or succumbs to it, and then has learned something at the end.”īut as he was explaining it, he paused to think. “I tried to explain to her, no, no – stories need arcs. “She wrote a story where someone wakes up in the morning and does one thing, and does another thing, and does another thing…and then goes to sleep,” said Christenfeld. 1 by the University of California on YouTubeĬhristenfeld’s interest in storytelling was sparked by his daughter’s elementary school homework assignment.