Writers: Your opinion on intentionally spoiling the ending of a story?

In general, I think it's a bad idea. You knew this of course; everyone in western culture knows that it's considered a bad idea to "spoil" the end. For my part, I hate a book or movie that's too obvious or one that tells me way too much, and I think that you can't get any more frustrating than literally telling me what the ending is going to be. To a limited degree, however, it would work, but you have to divulge the ending in such a way that it's still mysterious and we still have reason to read it. For instance, the beginning of the book Invisible Man by Ellison starts in the same place it ends and only after you read the book do you really comprehend the beginning. Likewise, the novel Water for Elephants begins with the climax but gives no context so that you have to read the whole book to understand it.

Now: looking at this specific example, I'd say there's not enough information to answer the question because:

1) This is actually the paragraph AFTER the spoiler, meaning I have no idea to what extent this jolly old narrator has told us the ending. Thus, it's impossible for me to judge whether this is limited enough so that I still would be interested in reading or if it really has spoiled the entire story.

2) This is only one paragraph; I don't know where in the story this is coming from, what leads up to it, or what happens afterwards. Put simply, I have no context for this paragraph, so it's fairly impossible to know if it works.

Would I change any of it? Well, writing a peripheral narrator with a lot of personality is really not my thing. But just objectively, there's nothing I'd change except I'd remove the sentence "It chores me" on the grounds that it's singsong and take out "I know what happens and so do you" because it seems to be overkill. The prose itself is tight and it develops the narrator's character; I just don't know if it will have a place in your finished work.

EDIT:

I stand by what I said. I haven't read the book and still don't know the context. If this was my own work, I'd still get rid of the sentences I say to get rid of. Obviously, the prose is tight. Zusak thought this had a place in his finished work and so did a publisher. Nonetheless, most authors wouldn't do this, and neither would I. This particular paragraph makes me rather reluctant to read the book, however. I don't always mind breaking the fourth wall, but I hate spoilers.

It depends solely on the situation.

If the character revealing the death(chosen climax) is a fortune teller or traveler from the future who happens to know the outcome of the story, I would find it "fitting". As you said, it can sometimes make the death or climax more emotional because, along the way, you're praying something will change the oncoming event entirely. When that fails to happen, you can share the other characters' emotional distress, that helplessness and knowledge that nothing could be done on your part.

Now, if the death or climax is given away by the author in a narration or through a talkative character that couldn't have possibly known what was to occur, I would be a bit unnerved. It dismantles the story's excitement and tension because you'll find yourself critiquing everything that follows. "Why is this happening if the character is supposed to die?" and "That's pointless if he/she will end up dead anyway."

Me personally... I like walking through a room full of twists and turns with a blindfold on(not literally as that would be very uncomfortable). Where is the excitement in knowing the outcome of something if it doesn't fit in the context? Authors of these particular novels want tension to build and yet they get so absorbed in their own work that they feel the audience should know everything all at once. I think it's a form of information dumping.

However, as I mentioned before, if the way of informing an audience of the story's outcome fits, than it can make the book very enjoyable.

:)

~~ ††MeryKheper††

Doesn't work for me, but in under some circumstances it can work, because then it creates a new mystery of whether or not the character can change his/her fate. Or how sometimes you'll see a character who's about to be killed or is dying and it skips to months/weeks/days earlier to see how it ended up like that. That's all fine.

I'm not a fan of characters breaking the "fourth wall" and talking to the audience/readers. I also hate this excerpt.

If done well, then it definitely can be satisfying.

Whether or not I'd take this approach with any of my novels would depend on the novel. With the novels I have planned and plotted, I can't see this approach working with any of them.

ADDING: I think this excerpt would work better if the narrator didn't explicitly say he was spoiling the ending because that alone will make you lose some readers who hate the ending being spoiled and won't read on for that reason alone. I think silently weaving it in the narration is better. I think foreshadowing it is better than this excerpt.

Good, it makes me not want to read The Book Thief. Though it's a popular book, this just doesn't work for me.

Honestly, I think it would be very hard to do effectively. The Book Thief is the only novel that I have read that used the story in such a way, and Markus Zusak did it brilliantly. I think it takes a lot of thought and talent to make a move like that without losing the reader at that point. But I think it helped in writing from the perspective of death, because of course Death knows what will happen.

Well, call me stupid, but when I read a book and it's got me semi-hooked, I just go read the ending to make sure it is a good book. I know I'm a weirdo for reading it like that but yeah, I do that occasionally, I don't really care if I spoil the ending. However, I'm just odd, everyone else would probably wouldn't want the book to be spoiled for them. Because the whole point of a story is to keep the ending a mystery and the excerpt is a big give away. But I might actually read it, because it makes no difference to me if it's a spoiler lol.

I personally have no interest in spoiling a story's ending, but as a reader, I think it really does depend on how it's done. If the ending justifies having spoiled it earlier... if the ending is more than what the reader would expect it to be after it's spoiled.

In To Kill a Mockingbird [~SPOILER~], I'm pretty sure Jem or Scout asked Atticus if they were going to win the case and he said no. All the foreshadowing backing that up was there too. They didn't end up winning, but that wasn't really the end. There was more to it. Lee incorporated the theme of growing up, extending the climax to the incident with Ewell, Jem's broken arm, and Atticus sitting with him all night. The whole picture is tied together at the end.

Maybe not all stories would be executed well with spoiled parts, but I think it can be done, for sure.

Well, i have to say that i don't like it and it would indeed spoil the ending, maybe even the entire book for me.

I would just start to think to myself "well this is sort of a waste of time: i know what's going to happen and i shouldn't get emotionally attached to this character." thus ruining the impact of the story. If the story is filled with a lot of twist in turns that drag me in there could be a slight chance that i forget being told what's going to happen and it does, in fact, surprise me, but i highly doubt it.

I also don't like when the character in the book or the narrator starts to speak to me. I find it weird and awkward. (My opinion)

- Israel Bane

The answer below.. i think she/he did?

Anyway, I think, in this instance, it is bad thing. I don't particularly like reading books written in this style (although I did try to write one like that once upon a time) and the writer (you?) makes me dislike ti even more by telling me that a character will die. However, if that character was someone I really hated, and the author said that she was going to die to comfort me that happy days were coming, it would be a 'good' way to reveal someones death.

I think I know what book you are talking about. Does it have a rather long title that doesn't make a lot of sense and looks like a lot of words glued together? I can't remember the name, though...

I'd have to say, I can't stand books which break the fourth wall. At the point that the character in your book knows it's a book, I don't care whether they spoil the ending or not, because you've destroyed the illusion that they are a person who I might care about. No, your writing isn't so amazing that it's still fun to read even when you kick my suspension of disbelief into touch every two minutes.

(This is any fourth-wall-breaking writer "you", not you in particular).

Edit: In TKAM, Atticus knows he doesn't have a hope of winning the case. It's not a reference from the future because the author's telling us what will happen based on knowledge. It's an inevitability because of the society he lives in.

Edit 2: Like Joss, this puts me off reading the book. I'm not going to change my reaction to that writing style just because it's a bestseller.

I was actually thinking about this because I'm reading Under the Dome and Stephen King does this throoughout the book. I really don't like it. I get it makes it eery but I'd rather it be a surprise.