How Do You Guys Feel About a Story Where You Already Know the Ending To?

[AwesomeSoFar]

I don't really have the time to read all of those, but I've heard that knowing the ending can work for tragedies. apparently with greek tragedies, they'd tell you about how fucked the main character is so throughout the entire story you'd feel suspense for the moment it's going to happen, all the while making you like the character so you won't want it to happen to them. so yeah, I think spoiling the ending not only can work, but can serve as a literary tool if you know what you're doing.

[Lirina]

I have this in one of my subplots. Even before it starts the readers already know that the character (Eric) ended up dead (or at least allegedly dead) after he betrayed the rest of the characters involved. However, in his subplot, we find out that Eric is actually a good guy and is in love with the character he betrays.

In my head, the readers will be curious and want to find out what made him act the way he did

[Random_Guy]

I think it’s all about how it’s written. There’s so much emphasis on not spoiling anything in today’s society that some people think stories live and die by their first viewing twists, but I believe a good story is good on a second reading, not because of the twists, but because of the suspense.

Alfred Hitchcock stated that (paraphrased) “If I show you a room and blow it up, you have fifteen seconds of shock. If I show you a room and tell you there’s a bomb that will go off in fifteen minutes, you have fifteen minutes of suspense.”

I imagine this is much the same situation.

[rmdooley]

I'm fine with it. I hold no reverence for spoilers and sometimes knowing the ending will incentivize me to read it to see how it got there

[UrMom]

I don't see how that can be an issue, it's what leads up to the ending, and the quality of the work that matters. Some stories it would be weird to not know, like if the author is playing on historical events like James Cameron's Titanic, or Grave of Fireflies and Barefoot Gen. You know how they're going to end, but the things that matter is the journey to get there, and the anticipation of when it's going to happen.

[DiegoPalacios]

Sometimes a predictable story can be good as long as it's well executed.

The hook will not be on the outcome, but in the path to it.

[HGohwell]

I don't think it's a bad thing. Think about time loop stories. Specifically time loops where you're fighting fate and but always end up in the same position somehow. It's the struggle to beat the situation that's important in those.

And on the there really isn't anything you can do side of things, the biggest example I can think of is Madoka Magica. Yes the anime ending soooort of saves her, or at least breaks the loop, but a lot of the side story mangas are just different version of the loop where you know at least Madoka and often basically everyone but Homura is going to die and the loop reset and they were still massively popular

[samvv000]

I mean I guess the thread of the title is a bit misleading. If you say: "how do you feel about reading a work where, for one reason or another, you've been spoiled on the ending", then yeah, I'd say I might have some reservations depending on the type of story.

But a story deliberately structured to show you an ending early on, or flat-out tell you "this is how things end", doesn't really affect much in my view of it -- it is a deliberate structural choice where the ending itself is a plot point usually used to build up to something bigger; either thematically or to simply use it as a backdrop or to have the mystery of how things end up that way be the point or something like that. And that's just that; another type of story. This promised "ending" isn't really THE ending of the work as a whole, so.

[mrtoontastic]

Hey if the journey to the end is the best, I'm totally down for it!

[Kina]

I'm the person who doesn't mind spoilers so for me is not an issue if I know how it ends as sometimes I will check the ending out of curiosity. The two main points for me to continue reading are plot if it's interesting and well balanced, writing if it's good.

[ZatchZ]

It is totally worth it. Have some samples.

Sample 1

Sample 2

Sample 3

[ZatchZ]

The word you're looking for catharsis.
The thing about greek tragedies is that they're just merely torture porn to emit a catharsis that there is a some what sort of order to the world.

For those who have sinned will be punished regardless of their intentions.
Oedipus is a tragedy because he killed a king. And the king died because he feared his son would kill him so he casted off his own son and thus died by his hands. Granted, Oedipus foreshadowed the ending. In my story I'm outright saying line for line how all of the stories will end.

[ZatchZ]

Yeah, but then you get a lot of people who get really irked that, "HEY! THEY SPOILED THE ENDING! THIS STORY IS BAD!!!"

I know people like this.

They're not really well learned people.

[ZatchZ]

Stories with time loops are mirroring Samsara.
The endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth.

However, this isn't a loop story. This is a story of convergence. An event that focuses on so many people's lives and how they deal in a certain situation and how they spend their last moments knowing that it's hopeless.

[HGohwell]

Stories with time loops are mirroring Samsara.The endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth.

Sounds more like stories about reincarnation to me but whatever. It doesn't seem all that important to the issue.

However, this isn't a loop story. This is a story of convergence. An event that focuses on so many people's lives and how they deal in a certain situation and how they spend their last moments knowing that it's hopeless.

Doesn't matter. You asked how people felt about stories they already know the ending to. I gave you an example of a genre and a specific wildly popular franchise that involves everyone knowing how it'll ends for 99% of the franchise by it's very nature. If you want to go even more specific Oriko Magica was one of the more popular ones in that franchise that specifically revolved around a character who knew the outcome of the story as well and how she dealt with it. Twice.

So the answer is still people are fine with stories they know the ending of already and time loop stories are still a perfectly good example of that.

[ZatchZ]

None of those were complaints (from what I'm assuming what you're assuming) It was an observation of how those stories are in a meta contextual sense.

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

Knowing how all of these stories end, would you be inclined to read them?

Depends on how well the stories are crafted & told. The fact that each story is an end-of-days story doesn't necessarily make the stories predictable at all. Though I guess if the reader insists on happy endings, they won't read it, but for readers who like slice of life stuff, you could have a gold mine.

[ZatchZ]

They're either funny, sad, or anger inducing.

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

I should think there's room for some romances in there, too.

[ZatchZ]

That's in there too.

It's bittersweet