Is knowing how long a story is a spoiler?

I think this question applies the greatest to movies, since their plot is more constricted due to runtime. But does it also applies to tv series and comics?
About an hour ago I was browsing the twitter of a webcomic author, and I accidentally found some old tweets where they mentioned how many chapters they planned for their webcomic to be and how many pages were in the script.

I'm not sure if I wished the story would be longer, or if I just didn't want to know the details of how long it would be. I'd say sometimes you wish you got to see more of characters as well.
Of course it could be that just knowing the chapters doesn't tell you how long a story will be and scripts aren't always final.

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Anyways, even if that isn't a spoiler, I am a moron who has a tendency to spoil things for himself. This isn't the first time it's happened and I'm kinda that I do it.
It doesn't help that this webcomic is one of my current autistic favorites.

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>Is knowing how long a story is a spoiler?
I imagine it would ruin a fakeout ending, if you know there's more content and ruin an abrupt ending if you know how little content is left. I always try to avert my eyes of the progress bar on smart TV's and on mpv, I typed the little code that disables showing a progress bar.

you're a fucking autistic retard

Continuing...
I feel like part of it is that I was afraid before hand that the story wouldn't be long enough. In fact, I actually kinda guessed the number of chapters a while earlier because I had worried that it was about halfway over.

Another thing is that I've had experiences where I wished I had more of something. There was a finished webcomic that I liked that had the same number of chapters.
But despite this older webcomic running for 5 years, I felt it was pretty short, and you could read it in an hour or so.
I might not be remembering the length of that finished comic correctly, and I have a habit of reading TOO fast and binging too much.
But, I do plan to reread that finished comic today or tomorrow.

In a basic sense, if it looks like a game changing event will happen, the run time might reveal how important it is

It hurts because its kinda true.

It's cool that you got a way to disable showing progress bar. It's always hard to avert your eyes if you have to get up and pause to piss or something.

I've heard that some TV shows wanted to hide the numbers of episodes left on publicity releases for streaming platforms. Think it was breaking bad or something (haven't watched it). It's annoying when publicity stuff gives spoilers, like when they put the best parts of a movie in the trailer. Sometimes you wanna go in blind.


Anyays runtime wise, I know that some comics and tv series have episodes or chapters/pages that are significantly longer than others. So knowing the number of pages isn't always that informative.

no

I suppose that is only really an issue if you are an overthinker or are already depressed or something. Both of which apply to me.

on second thought my question should really be more general than "Is it a spoiler to know how long a story will be"?
Perhaps it'd be better to ask, "would you prefer to not know how long a story will be?"

wanna elaborate?

With physical books, you can tell how many pages are left.
Most stuff on TV and most movies have a a rather standard episode length.
Even if you were in a (movie) theater you have some idea of the length, since they tell you the schedule of things.


Unless its some kind of word of mouth thing where its a oral and informal recounting of a story, youl'll usually have some idea of how long some story will be. A good writer may be able to work around any pacing issues caused by knowing that.


Its only with the advent of computers and the internet that hiding story length is really possible.
Technology gives us new ways to present events and tell stories.

I wonder if I feel stories are too short because I am a speed reeader and a binge reader.

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I think having end credits can mess with this a little bit, as long as you don't know how long they'll be.

I think the most common type of obvious fakeout ending is having the main villain seem like they are on the ropes.
But whatever the heroes are trying is obviously not gonna work since you are halfway throught the story.

Yes and no. Say you have a 120 minute run time. Up until around 100 minutes, you know nothing is really happening yet, there's still plenty of run time to fix it. It's those last ten or so that really matter. You also have a preannouced sequel. We knew Infinity War's ending wouldn't matter much, since we knew Endgame was coming, and Spiderman, Guardians, Dr. Strange, and Black Panther all had confirmed sequels, and all were dusted.

And pretty much any media has the problem now. We knew Laurie was getting through the last two Halloween movies, since she was cast for all 3. We know Rick isn't in trouble in Rick and Morty, since they have a multiseason order. Harley isn't in danger 5 minutes into episode 3 of her show. Goku isn't going to lose in a meaningful way a chapter into the new arc.

>Yes and no. Say you have a 120 minute run time. Up until around 100 minutes, you know nothing is really happening yet, there's still plenty of run time to fix it. It's those last ten or so that really matter. You also have a preannouced sequel. We knew Infinity War's ending wouldn't matter much, since we knew Endgame was coming, and Spiderman, Guardians, Dr. Strange, and Black Panther all had confirmed sequels, and all were dusted.
Not too familiar with rick, but Its a very soft scifi show and there's a multiverse.

Though with actor casting as long as you don't go looking up whose hired you'll be fine.


It's worth noting there are stories that are willing to kill off protagonists midway through (even outside the horror genre).
I suppose its that we are used to our heros making it through to the end that makes those stories surprising.

>Goku isn't going to lose in a meaningful way a chapter into the new arc.
Funnily enough this is the one that kinda subverts stuff, given all the ressurections using dragonballs they have.

But yeah, it's a good point that you know nothing serious will probably happen to protags till the last bit of runtime.

with comic book movies there is the added thing of them often adapting/referencing existing storylines with known endings.

>on second thought my question should really be more general than "Is it a spoiler to know how long a story will be"?
>Perhaps it'd be better to ask, "would you prefer to not know how long a story will be?"
Yeah on more selfreflection its less about spoilers, and I just didn't want to think about how every story must end.