5 ms·
I would say exactly the opposite : cliffhangers and cheap thrills are the stuff the Da Vinci Code, Tom Clancy novels and all your best selling page turners are
by pattusk 6y ago
I would say exactly the opposite : cliffhangers and cheap thrills are the stuff the Da Vinci Code, Tom Clancy novels and all your best selling page turners are made of.
Literary prize winning fiction has been what you could call post narrative since (at least) the Nouveau Roman.
- fouc 6y agoIt appears you're actually both on the same page, you didn't say the opposite. He's saying the common fiction including best sellers are generally predictable. And literary novels being less so.
- pattusk 6y agoNot really, there is a difference of scale to consider. Best sellers are unpredictable from one page to the next, unexpected surprises abound but the general plot is highly predictable. Literary novels typically have very mundane, thoroughly predictable narratives, what is unexpected is the way in which it is delivered or the comments the narrator may make along the way. The original author refers to fiction [which] entertains readers by baffling and eluding their expectations about what, specifically, will happen next. Which I believe is closer to the way popular fiction operates than to literary fiction.
- ianhorn 6y agoI think there are two different questions: Will our protagonist achieve their goal? How will our protagonist achieve their goal? You can be unpredictable by not knowing where the story is going, or unpredictable by not knowing how the story will go where it must go. I'm a fan of the latter (lots of genre fiction) because it's like a puzzle. I know Harry's going to thwart Voldemort again this book, but it really looks like there's no way he will, so how the hell is he going to do it?