Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Beginning or end?

Lol, since it was my post that seems to have started this poll, I suppose I'm obligated to explain my position.

It's odd, but I have very little tolerance for suspense -- especially when I write suspense all the time. It's a little different when I'm writing it, because I know what's going to happen.

I used to have more tolerance for suspense, but not much. What killed what little I had were a few books where I had really gotten to like the characters and then they ended badly. That did it.

At 57, I feel like I've done enough of the tragedy thing. I've had plenty of bad things happen in real life, and I read, watch television, or go to movies for escape. If it's going to end badly, I want to know so I can avoid that particular story/production/whatever. If I want to feel bad all I have to do is talk to my sis about my mother's Alzheimers or watch the news, or something. I don't need to go looking for it.

I don't read the details of the stories, because I want to see how everything evolves. That's part of enjoying the story, but at the same time I know I'll enjoy all the problems the characters endure much more if I know it's going to turn out all right in the end.

And that's the whole explanation.

Nan

I'm an it depends kind of person.

I hate myself when I do peek to see what happens at the end of a book, but I still do it from time to time. Oddly, this seems to have something to do with how *un*suspenseful I'm finding a story. I'm more likely to peek if my attention is wandering.

If I do peek, it is usually only at the last paragraph or, at the most, page. Enough to get a glimpse of what might happen. Not usually enough to completely ruin the ending.

With a fantastic, wonderful, everything that is brilliant kind of a story, I won't look. The more engaging and the more suspenseful I find a book, the less likely I am to peek.

Does that make sense?

Chris

I'm just like Nan, and for pretty much the same reasons, too. Monday, I read a story on the archive (I won't say whose story for fear of spoiling people who don't want to be), and partway into it, I had to jump to the end, just to make sure one of the characters survived to the end of the story.

See, it surprises me that you'd feel the need to check for that reason in this fandom, Sheila. After all, it's not as if deathfics are common here. I think I could probably count on the fingers of two hands the number of deathfics on the Archive. Maybe three.

One reason is probably that, like you, we authors are all pretty attached to the characters and like to see them get together/end up together/be happy together.

A few of the deathfics I've read have been obviously written by teenagers - cloyingly sentimental stories in which Lois is killed in a traffic accident/in childbirth/of a mysterious illness and Clark mourns her bitterly, cradling their child to his bosom/vowing never to love another/dying/killing himself from grief. Some of those smack suspiciously of Mary Sue-ism. A couple are poignantly sad, and one is even almost WAFFy, in a way: Jennifer Eagan-Dixon's When Magnolias Bloom.

Actually, as long as I've been a GE it's been Archive policy that deathfics should be marked as such, so that readers don't stumble on a principal-character death unexpectedly. So you shouldn't have to worry about encountering that accidentally anyway, Sheila.

And now all this has put me in mind of another poll...


Wendy

Ad Astra Per Aspera is one of my all-time favorite fics. But it's clear that I'm in the minority there . . . and that authors are discouraged, FDK-wise, from posting that sort of story these days. *sigh*

Ditto Rivka

AnnaBtG.

Well, then I'm right in there with you! I loved that story. It broke my heart, but I thought it was wonderfully written, and I really enjoyed it.

Jen

Exactly! I'm fine with stories that break my heart -- as long as they do it properly!