Not directly the fiction but a periphery thing to it: Forewords on Classic Literature (TM) that spoil the entire story. Sure its something you learn in school if you're in the right country but even then let the reader have the experience of discovery the story for the first time as the author intended. Especially egregious in mystery novels.
I’ve seen something similar, albeit to a lesser degree, with some of the reviews on the back of books, where the reviewer will spoil some major plot point or another. I’ve seen that at least once, probably more, and it’s infuriating!
Reminds me of my desire to fistfight whoever wrote the footnotes on my copy of Frankenstein, which were full of hot takes like "the creation of the monster is a metaphor for pregnancy because it takes him nine months! :)" on the same page of the text where he says it took him nearly two years.
This is the first time I've seen someone accidentally make it seem like a ten-year-old character is an attempted murderer.
Also, the first section of the book is called "Mistress of Magic", and none of the characters actually do basically any magic.
Anyone else familiar with the Venom Cock? I think this book embodies a good example of why point of view choice matters; lurid descriptions of the sexual attributes of everyone in sight from the point of view of a nine-year-old main character is... uncomfortable.
Oh boy, do we have a "what the fuck humanity" thread anywhere? https://das-sporking2.dreamwidth.org/1503177.html?view=40732873&posted=1#cmt40732873
This is only tangentially related (I was skimming the linked thread) but am I the only person who somehow retained coherent memories of the Twilight series? Because a lot of criticism of the books is pretty valid, but sometimes people come out with hot takes like: And I get a moment of serious dissonance, because regardless of whether you think it was pulled off well, Twilight had a plot. It had a pretty big plot, actually, which was a problem, because Bella was a plot object rather than a character actually influencing it--that's a large part of where her issues with having her agency stripped away come in. Bella's an NPC that just Has Shit Happen To Her, and not in a very compelling way, and that's the issue. The plot's there. The problem is that our POV character isn't nearly as involved with it as she should be. Which is to say, if I were going to take a stab in the dark at why Twilight was simultaneously lauded as feminist and decried as antifeminist (rather than just making a jab at it for internet jokes because That's What We Do With Twilight), it has a lot more to do with its popularity recentering teen girls as a marketable literary demographic than anything to do with its actual content.
@KingStarscream I see your point, though it could be debated that a plot doesn't really count as a plot unless we can clearly see it happening. Like, take Monstrous Regiment; Polly comments about how the "real" story which will be remembered by outsiders in-universe is Wazzer's, but Polly is heavily involved in it and has her own story which we the readers can see. If the story was told entirely from the point of view of a random washerwoman in the castle, say, who's only present for the last few hours and doesn't do anything which really affects the course of what happens, the same story would be happening, but I wouldn't really count the book as having a focal "plot".
Right, but even then, it... has a plot. Discovering the terrible secret of your lover is a plot. That terrible secret ending up with you rushing to save your mom is a plot. Rushing to save your mom and ending up in the hospital because it turns out Moxie And Spunk is not enough to fight a vampire is a plot. Was it a very well implemented plot? No, it was pretty amateur, and the book absolutely drags in a lot of places. But I've got a pretty massive problem with the concept that it's plotless, because things absolutely happen in a rising, climax, falling order, and you might as well say that the Harry Potter books are all plotless because a solid 60% of the first few is spent in Harry Learning How To School And Also Wizards. edit: And more to the point, applying every criticism to Twilight unilaterally actually undermines legitimate criticisms of it and its impact on YA and perceptions of young female readers as a whole, because it means that someone who's read the book and can pretty firmly go 'yeah but stuff does happen' will disregard every other criticism of it coming out of that same poster. If you can't be bothered to actually factcheck a claim, it makes all other claims about the book suspect.
I don't think those listed events in themselves are "a plot". Those are "events that happen". For it to be a plot, those things have to be connected in a logical manner and lead to more events and consequences of those events. Though your point stands as Twilight, from what I've seen, does do that, albeit with incredibly bad pacing. (Doesn't the supposed major villain of the first book only show up like two chapters from the end?)
i always thought the “plot isn’t feminist” movement was about declaring that the only real Literature is about moving to a small southern town to be with your mother who’s dying of cancer. making an effort to change your circumstances is penis worship. feminism is crying and hugs.
This right here would be the reason I don't trust much of any criticism I see on das-sporking. Every time I've seen them tearing into something I'm familiar with, they poison the legit criticisms with mountains of extreme reaching to present the thing in the most negative possible light. I'd rather read criticism of what's actually there. (Well, that and my awareness of the historical fandom behavior of one of the people running it. I'm not really inclined to trust the judgement of what's Feminist(TM) of someone who as far as I know has still never apologized for some fairly virulent transphobia.)
Events that happen that are tied to the plot, which is the point I'm making. Despite the fact that SMeyer featured a big villain for the climax at the end, the actual antagonist of the first book was the existence of vampires at all (or, to think of it another way, The Cullens' Secret; in the initial perception, it's them being vampires, and then the twist on that is being vegetarian vampires is the real problem that causes the Seattle vamp to fixate on Bella as a way to get back at them.) The rising action is Bella's slow discovery of both them as vampires and what that means, the climax is the knowledge of that secret impacting her in a big way when she thinks the Seattle vamp is going to kill her mother, the falling action is the injuries she takes and Edward's fear of hurting her coalescing in a very real form. Which also leads into the plot of the second book. It wasn't well-written, no, but the structure is there. And regardless, it's still not the reason why Twilight was lauded as feminist--that was wholly, 100%, for a long time, because Twilight was seen as getting teen girls to read again, content notwithstanding. Given that Feminism Is Lifetime Movies is a position I've seen gaining traction in the "fanfiction is better than original fiction because it's character focused instead of plot focused (which is totally something I've never seen done in origfic because I don't watch Lifetime movies, I just steal the plots of them)" spheres......... It seems we've come full circle. :P
I'm not familiar with the people involved enough to know about that, what happened? Personally, I struggle to see how something can have strong characterisation if nothing happens for the characters to use as an opportunity to demonstrate said characterisation.
It's also possible that the critic is engaging in hyperbole, 'Twilight has no plot' meaning 'twilight's plot is weak and doesn't have much to do with what's actually written'. I.e., it might as well have no plot at all.
