{"id":1027,"date":"2012-03-17T19:01:03","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T19:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/?p=1027"},"modified":"2012-05-09T16:22:49","modified_gmt":"2012-05-09T16:22:49","slug":"why-finish-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/?p=1027","title":{"rendered":"Why Finish Books?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/blogs\/nyrblog\/2012\/mar\/13\/why-finish-books\/?printpage=true\">Why Finish Books?<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>by <a href=\"http:\/\/tim-parks.com\/\">Tim Parks<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/blogs\/nyrblog\/\">NYRblog<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/\">The New York Review of Books<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This got me thinking about narrative engagement by the reader in fiction. Two things come immediately to mind: One is those old <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cyoa.com\/\">Choose Your Own Adventure<\/a> books I used to love as a kid. The other is Suzanne Collins\u2019s Hunger Games trilogy.<\/p>\n<p>I mention The Hunger Games because I loved books one and (especially) two. But Mockingjay just didn\u2019t work for me. I kind of hated how the series ended. Someone I found on Goodreads went ahead and <a href=\"http:\/\/mockingjayrethink.wordpress.com\/\">rewrote the ending<\/a>\u00a0(WARNING: Hunger Games spoilers abound!) and I found it to be <em>much<\/em> improved (though still not exactly how I would have like it to end).<\/p>\n<p>But I was thinking, what if Collins had allowed the readers to select how Katniss acted at the end? Choose Your Own Adventure, as far as I recall, was always written in the second person, but I think an interesting idea would be to simply engage the reader in a normal first- or third-person narrative.<\/p>\n<p>It wouldn\u2019t even have to be as pervasive as CYOA: Maybe at a couple of key moments the narrative could say, \u201cIf you\u2019d like this character to do A, continue to the next page; if you\u2019d prefer to read about them doing B, skip over to page N.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Obviously this is something that would be handled better by ebook than a print novel, but the idea that readers, who are being asked to engage with the writer\u2019s stories, should have a voice in how that story unfolds, is one that I think warrants some additional attention.<\/p>\n<p>#<\/p>\n<p>from <a href=\"http:\/\/ironsoap.tumblr.com\/\">Like a Detuned Radio<\/a> \u2014 <a href=\"http:\/\/ironsoap.tumblr.com\/post\/19463563240\">March 17, 2012 at 11:35AM<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why Finish Books?: by Tim Parks | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books This got me thinking about narrative engagement by the reader in fiction. Two things come immediately to mind: One is those old Choose Your Own Adventure books I used to love as a kid. The other is Suzanne Collins\u2019s Hunger [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tumblr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1421,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions\/1421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}