“…. A story, Forster says, is based on the progression of time. This happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. … ‘The king died and then the queen died’ is Forster’s famous example of a story. A plot, though, is a more sophisticated form of narrative and is based on causality. ‘The king died, and then the queen died of grief.’ ”

And then Morrell quotes Forster:

“ ‘The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king.’ This is a plot with a mystery in it, a form capable of high development . . . Consider the death of the queen. If it is in a story we say ‘and then?’ If it is in a plot we ask ‘why?’ That is the fundamental difference between these
two aspects of the novel. A plot cannot be told to a gaping audience of cave-men or to a tyrannical sultan or to their modern descendant the movie public. They can only be kept awake by ‘and then–and then–’ They can only supply curiosity. But a plot demands intelligence and memory also.”

Yup — that’s it, Cynthia.

(And I’ll join you in checking out the last page. At least with authors I don’t trust.)

Even if I know the ending…I am also an inveterate re-reader…it is the characters that pull me into the book and through the book. If the creator doesn’t take time to give them some kind of story, as they all too often don’t in blow-’em-up or gross-’em-out movies and books, then you don’t want to spend any more time with them.

‘Action-porn’ can be fun, but it is the emotional core of the hero that brings us back for the sequel…John McClane’s love for his family, Neo’s struggle to accept his role, etc. When the film-maker loses that — as in the succeeding Matrix films — even the faithful won’t stick around.

Absolutely, Nancy, judging by my experience.

Is that because you and I guessers? Do other readers not get caught up in I-think-I-know-and-want-to-see-if-I’m-right? I don’t know. I know there are lots of guessers (g).

“I can’t decide whether: a) the writing just wasn’t compelling enough to keep me from speeding through it to get to the answer”

What fascinates me about this, Nancy, is that it sounds as if the book otherwise did have your attention. In effect, the author handicapped herself.

“Action porn” is a fabulous phrase for this. It’s particularly interesting that it comes from a director.

I’ve suspected that some of this publishing industry view stems from movies/TV. In fact, just saw advise saying one of the things novelists can learn from TV is to jump into the middle of the action. (That sound you heard was my wail of protest.)

What it fails to recognize is that those visual media give us the who by the very fact of having an actor on screen. As viewers, we connect faster with the characters as people because the actor IS a person. And good actors can add nuance and engage empathy while doing the action sequences.

And yet, here’s a movie director saying too much action without a strong sense of who is acting is “action porn.” (I do love that!)

The written word IMO requires more of a run-up to give the reader connected to the who.

Visual can get us faster into a story, while written can draw us deeper into a story — and that deeper is WHO.

The truth is stories almost certainly need both. With no action, no what next and all who, the story becomes an exercise in navel-gazing and that is no treat, either.

It was well-written, with interesting, flawed characters. However, the author felt the need to tease the reader by withholding the formative events of the woman’s teenaged years until the very end.

I was pretty sure I had guessed what had happened in her past (and I was right), but I found myself skimming when I shouldn’t have been because I wanted to confirm my guess. That meant that I missed some of the emotinal arc of the story.

I can’t decide whether: a) the writing just wasn’t compelling enough to keep me from speeding through it to get to the answer, or b) it was a bad choice on the author’s part because this book wasn’t meant to be a mystery. Either way, I didn’t put this author on my “buy her next book” list.

So I wonder if the keep ‘em guessing mindset is starting to infect even books where it becomes counter-productive. I hope this was just a bad choice on one author’s part and not indicative of a trend.

OTOH, I do enjoy a really good thriller, but, as you both said, it’s ALWAYS the characters that make it worth watching again.

Pornography is, of course, a bunch of random sex scenes loosely strung together, and the whole POINT of the movie is the sex scenes. So there’s little (if any) plot, character development, theme, etc.

Meyers describes “action porn” as the a movie featuring a bunch of action scenes loosely strung together, with very little plot, character development, or theme.

Like Meyers, I am usually disengaged and bored in such films; and even if the film is so slick that I am NOT bored, but instead enjoy myself… I still never watch it twice. Because, as he notes (and similar to your reaction to book B), careening madly from action scene to action scene to action scene means… He never gets invested in the characters, doesn’t invested in their goals, doesn’t feel absorbed by their story, doesn’t get invested in the theme (if there is one), etc.

Whereas a good film is one, of course, where you get so invested in the characters and their goals that, while watching it, you lose track of your own life, and you think and talk about the =characters= after seeing it–sometimes for YEARS after seeing it.

Whereas, if you enjoyed an action porn film, you instead talk about (for example) how great it was when such-and-such blew up, or when the car chase hurdled straight through a jazz funeral, or whatever. You talk about the WHAT, not the WHO… And with films like that, you usually don’t even remember the WHO. They’re not characters–they’re “the guy in the ice cream truck that blew up,” or “the girl,” or “the Bruce Willis character.”