Apple-Obsessed Author Fella

On The Spoilering Of A Certain Star Wars Movie

I said some stuff on Twitter today about spoilers, and I thought I’d bleat them out here, too. Because there’s a certain movie coming out next week and it lands in some international territories earlier than others and I feel like there’s been a very effective curtain pulled across the story so far, and it’d be awesome to help keep that curtain pulled tight for those folks who cannot immediately jump out and see the movie the moment it exists in the world. Like, I know most of the movie, but I’m not gonna tell you about it because I want you to experience it yourself!

Engage Storify:

I’ll add, too, to this discussion that as a storyteller I very clearly try to orchestrate big, jaw-dropping moments in the work — yes, the small moments and emotional beats are important, too, but I love to have those dramatic plot events where SHIT GOES BUCK WILD. Like, my greatest pleasure is sitting over someone’s shoulder as they read new pages of my work and they get to one of those moments. I can barely contain my excitement. I engineer those moments precisely because I want them to be read organically as part of the piece — I don’t want it told to you as some kind of narrative data point. I want you to experience it inside the work. Those moments are part of the fabric of the narrative — and tearing them out of the fabric and plopping them on the ground is rude and destructive to the thing I just endeavored to create.

I mean, sure, I can’t control how you consume it or what you do with it.

But I can, just the same, hope you don’t barf up spoilers of my work into other people’s mouths — they’re not baby birds, they don’t need you feeding them that way. I want you to talk about the work! But talking about the work isn’t the same as yelling it into the ear of some guy sitting down at a Starbucks. He hasn’t read it. Go find people who have read it explicitly, then talk to them. That’s how conversation works. Discussion is meaningful when it’s with people who have the context needed. Otherwise, you’re just on FULL BLAST BROADCAST, which I guess is arguably one of the negative sides of social media. Noise overwhelming signal and all that.

ANYWAY.

Them’s my thoughts.

Do with them as you will.

*jetpacks away*

*hits a tree*

*dies*