Wanting more

[jack]

After I've read a book, I'm often left with the feeling of wanting more.

Sometimes I think that represents a book which didn't have much happen. Lots of filler which was ok, but ultimately didn't leave an impression on me. Not enough interesting ideas, or significant plot, or interesting characters.

But often, I think it represents a REALLY GOOD book that raised lots of interesting ideas in addition to what it explored in detail. Eg. I always come out of Shakespeare saying "that was awesome, but what about..."

Comments

[simont]

Mmmm. I think it's often tempting to say that if a book/film/whatever makes you feel a certain way then that's a good thing, or a bad thing, but actually I think a lot of such things you might be made to feel aren't as clear-cut as that.

For instance, plot twists. A fair amount of vitriol gets directed at fiction that has an unexpected plot twist, if someone managed to see the twist coming. But on the other hand, any muppet can invent a completely unpredictable plot twist, simply by making no reference whatever in advance to anything on which the twist depends. "Aha, actually it was all beamed into your mind by a telepath in orbit, in spite of the fact that we have not mentioned until now that telepathy is even a thing in this universe!" The real test is not "did you see the twist coming?" but "did you think the twist was clever and well done?". If it's a good twist, then the effect of seeing it coming in advance is that you get to feel a bit smug, and that's far preferable to having you come out of the cinema ranting "Oh, well, I didn't see that twist coming because it was total nonsense and any of my own predictions would have been an improvement".

Another similar thing is the idea I've occasionally heard that "great art is characterised by its ability to sustain more than one interpretation". That may well be so, but it's not at all unheard of for bad writing to leave you without much of a clear idea of what the hell just happened, and it's not clear to me that there's any particularly well specified way to distinguish those two forms of multivaluedness.

So I'm left with the idea that it's good to have plot twists be hard to predict if they do it in a good way, and that great art is distinguished from mere unclear writing by its ability to sustain more than one interpretation in a good way. And on that basis, I think, your example of a book leaving you wanting more fits right into my thesis – sometimes you can be left wanting more in a good way, and sometimes in a bad way :-)

[jack]

Good point. I acknowledge in the post that it can come from a good cause or a bad one. I'm trying to more closely characterise what causes the good version.

And I agree about plot twists. The classic version would be "and it was all a dream", although I give Inception credit for doing this significantly better than average :)

I think people have often identified what's annoying to them, eg. a badly done plot twist. But don't use sufficient description to distinguish to other people how that differs from good examples.

I think with plot twists, what's annoying isn't just if you see it coming, but if it's supposed to be clever. Done well, you can have a tiny clue, and a minor clue, and a major clue, and a conclusive clue, and people will get the "aha, of course" realisation at different stages of the process. But if the book stops at one particular point to spell it out, it seems to be simultaneously patronising people who already got it and insulting people who haven't got it yet, which I think may be what pisses people off.

[hairyears]

Want more from a book? This can progress to cravings and, eventually, to writing fanfic. Or slash.