I opened my Valentine's Day chocolates yesterday, and there were all those delectable-looking chocolates . . . with no helpful sheet of paper explaining what kind of filling I might find inside each one. Not right! Right? I mean, I love almost any filling, but what if I bite into one with coconut filling? Yuck.
And it occurred to me:
Books are like chocolates.
The description of the book is like the sheet of paper that tells you what's inside the chocolates. Helpful, yes?
But what if the description of a book is misleading? This is the case with short stories far too often. You go to, say, Amazon and find a short story that looks interesting, and you buy it. Then you read it, and it's not a story at all.
Because a story has a resolution.
Some of the short "stories" found on, say, Amazon read like the first chapter of a novel, leaving you hanging with no resolution to the plot. Argh.
A short "story" with a description that doesn't acknowledge it has no resolution is like a box of chocolates with no sheet of paper that describes the filling. In fact, without a resolution it's like a box of chocolates that have no filling at all.
Hey, publishers? If you're going to put a story up on, say, Amazon and leave off the resolution, do your readers a favor and let us know that in the product description.
6 comments:
Now that's a great parallel. I HATE IT when there's no description telling me what kind of chocolate it is. My favorite is the carmel filling and no one else likes it, so there's no point in accidentally giving it to someone else, right? :)
I'd be even more mad if the description was misleading, like "milk and butter filled" and it is, but without the brown sugar to make it actual caramel.
I knew it would happen, and it did . . . I found a coconut one this afternoon. :-(
The non-resolving short story thing might work in one instance I can think of: when it's included at the end of a book as a teaser for the next book (and is actually the first chapter of said next book).
I'm going to cut open the rest of the chocolates and sniff them to see what's inside. If I find a caramel one, I'll save it for you, Kat.
I am sitting next to my box of Valentine's Chocolate, thanking God that it came with a map. Also there are no coconut ones in my box. I have friends who hold the box above they heads, you have to choose and eat what ever you pick. They call it Russell Roulette. I personally think that is a cruel game to play with chocolate.
I was picking out some books and I got one that was described as "fantasy short stories. I added it to my cart. Then I got a recommendation for a sci-fi book, in its description it stated that it was excerpts from various sci-fi authors. A little digging revealed that the fantasy book was also excerpts. Out of the cart it went.
Kat, you can't have my caramels (umm, my fav), but I do have 4 almond cremes and a couple of hazelnut truffles that I'm not going to eat.
LOL, Lia. New thing to be thankful for: my friends don't make me play Russell Roulette.
Were the excerpts offered as free downloads or would you have had to pay for them? I can't imagine paying for an excerpt, or even a collection of them. Good for the author/publisher who labeled excerpts honestly, though.
Oh, no, there's something so wrong about a friend who'd make you play Russell Roulette. Lia, have you considered tackling this so called friend and taking ALL of her chocolates.
Susan, you can send the coconut to me, along with raspberry and orange creams. Which reminds me, have you ever eaten raspberry or orange sherbet with hot fudge on it? (A Stover Sundae)
Great post, Susan. :-)
Absolutely, Lynne. *cyber coconut* But I'm keeping the fruity ones. :)
Post a Comment