The author-reader contract in suspense

The Cabin at the End of the World vs Knock at the Cabin

I’ve been thinking a lot about “contracts” between author and reader. Law school friends are shuddering because I was notoriously dense when it came to contract law, but luckily this isn’t a standard contract, so I think I can handle this. (Just kidding, I never know what I’m talking about on here.)

There are lots of articles online about the “author-reader contract” and similar terms. Cozy mystery writer V.M. Burns put it simply and well when she called the contract an author’s “commitment to meet readers’ expectations.” Her post discusses the genre conventions of the cozy mystery, a niche famous for being a safe haven for afficionados of murder and intrigue without explicit violence. But much of today’s suspense sits outside a niche genre with firm conventions that readers expect. And my question is, when it comes to suspense at large, do these contracts really exist, and if they do, is it really such a big deal when they’re broken?

We’re getting to you…

I’m asking for strictly selfish reasons.

Recently, I sent a novel draft to my agent, and the concept of the contract came up as we discussed the story, which is currently skewing towards supernatural-free horror. My agent said one of my plotting choices was breaking a contract with my readers, and doing that would lose me goodwill and, likely, some readers would hesitate to read my future books. This surprised me, because I wasn’t breaking any of the common “contracts” I hear people talk about. I hadn’t broken basic genre conventions–there was no surprise fantasy solution to my characters’ real-world conundrum. I didn’t hurt a kid or a pet. There was a pregnant woman in the book, but I kept her safe. And I hadn’t lied to the reader at any point.¹

But apparently, these are not the only contracts a reader might expect an author to honor (and an agent might worry about) when it comes to a novel, even a novel of crime and suspense and horror. (Am I going to tell you what, specifically, I had done wrong? No! Because I’m not done with this novel and I still might do it! Let’s just say, bad things might happen to good people.) 

Once I got over the feeling of being creatively restrained, I was able to recognize that my agent was just worrying about the business side of things (as agents do). My book sales. My future advances. My goodwill; my brand. Consequences.

What happens when you break a contract with the reader? Option one is you don’t get published. The publishing gatekeepers who lay eyes on your rule-breaking manuscript say “where do you think you’re going?” and bounce your book to the curb. Option two is the gatekeepers think it’s edgy and brilliant and you publish it and your readers think it’s edgy and brilliant, too! They can’t believe you did the thing they thought you’d never do. Cool! And option three is the one the gatekeepers are worried about: the gatekeepers release your monstrosity but early readers loathe you for breaking the contract, word spreads, your book doesn’t sell, and people even decline to read your next. You manage to tank your sales and your reputation all in one go.

Speaking of reputations, I’ve always made an effort not to “spoil” books or other stories without warning on this Substack, and I’m not going to wreck my brand today. So here’s my warning: I’m about to start talking about the book The Cabin at the End of the World and the movie Knock at the Cabin, up through a pretty significant surprise (though I’ll leave the very end of each unspoiled). If you decide to leave early, drop a comment with your raw thoughts on these contracts in suspense, because I genuinely want to hear what you think.

Image from Tenor

My brain really doubled down on the writer-reader contract topic after Ben and I watched Knock at the Cabin earlier this week. (Now streaming on Prime, baby!) Knock at the Cabin is M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie, which was based on Paul Tremblay’s 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World. I read Tremblay’s novel when it came out, and went in unaware that he was going to break one of the oldest contracts in the book world: don’t kill the kid. Did I enjoy the story? Yes. Would I have read it if I knew, going in, what I’d be reading? Honestly, maybe not. I’ve never read Pet Sematary for that very reason: I know too much about what happens, I don’t want to experience it.

And therein lies the rub: an author can break a contract, but there could be consequences.

Stephen King when he hears I’m probably never gonna buy Pet Sematary. (Image from Giffy.)

Now for today’s case study: book versus movie, starting with the book.

In a home invasion horror with two parents and one kid, if someone’s going to die, it’s not going to be the kid, right? Wrong! Here, Andrew, Eric, and their 7-year-old daughter Wen are vacationing at a remote cabin. Four strangers arrive, claiming that the family must choose a member to die in order to prevent the apocalypse. In the later stages of the book, Andrew manages to escape to the car where he retrieves his handgun. Andrew and one of the intruders struggle over the gun and Wen is shot and killed.

I literally made this because I have a sickness. Now available on Giffy thanks to me. Not kidding, goodbye.

Tremblay definitely broke one of the few content-related contracts that seems to exist even in horror. And I know it pissed some people off (my husband included). But I’m just gonna say it: I thought it worked. To me, her death was not there for pointless shock value, but very pointed commentary about sacrifice, religion, children paying the price for the state of the world, and even gun violence.

So he broke the rules. What were the consequences?

We know he made it past the gatekeepers–The Cabin at the End of the World was published by William Morrow. Tremblay’s critical reviews were overwhelmingly positive.² Reader reviews skew positive on Amazon (3.7 average) and Goodreads (3.3 average). With over 70-thousand reviews on Goodreads, I skimmed a good chunk of the negative reviews, and a few of them were displeased with Wen’s death but most were unhappy with pacing. 

I would say Tremblay appears to have skated through largely unscathed in this regard; his rewards were worth the risk he took. That said, the reviews don’t capture who heard about the book, heard about the broken contract, and didn’t buy it. So maybe it cost him something I can’t see. But going by numbers of reviews on Goodreads, it’s his second-most popular book, beating out other titles by many tens of thousands. (And the flipside is the edginess of the book may have sold copies.)

So when M. Night Shyamalan adapted the book for the screen in Knock at the Cabin, did he take the same risk? Nope! The last third of the story diverges from the source material, and I suspect it’s because of the don’t-kill-kids contract. Maybe that isn’t why. Maybe Shyamalan simply liked his ending better. Or maybe he was so destroyed from reading Tremblay’s book that he bought the rights just so he could heal himself by filming a whole movie where Wen lived. (I really hope this is the explanation.) But I suspect Shyamalan had to change the story, for the sake of movie sales and his brand. He couldn’t risk people leaving the theater and tweeting that the little girl died–so many people would pass on paying to watch that happen. Not to mention that people might stick him in the mental “nope” box in their heads and write off his future movies. 

And this is just what my agent was warning me about. I’m a really new author. I barely have a brand to worry about–bad reception on a second book probably would be my brand.

But still, I’m not convinced that an author needs to scrap ideas that might break one of these unwritten contracts, especially when we’re playing in the suspense sandbox. Certain niches like cozy mysteries, yes, absolutely a good idea to adhere to the reader’s expectation that they can pick up a cozy without getting something horrific. But horrors? Even thrillers? I was just reading a Substack piece about Karin Slaughter and it sounds like she goes to places I would have considered off-limits for broad commercial thrillers. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for every reader to come to any given book with their own set of expectations of what might happen inside. But I also think it’s reasonable for authors to defy those expectations, even on purpose. Isn’t writing an art, and isn’t art, at its very core, supposed to be lawless?

Even this lawless. (Image from Universal Pictures.)

Personally, as a reader, I don’t want my exact expectations to be met when I come to a book like the ones we focus on here at Present Tense. I want to be entertained, expanded, or educated, and none of those happen when my exact expectations are met when it comes to content or structure.

And as a writer, I crave breaking the rules. I think most suspense writers do–because suspense tends to draw inspiration from real-life situations where people have broken social contracts. And suspense writers aim to surprise–what’s more surprising than holding up the contract then ripping it down the middle?

Seriously, please share your thoughts on this issue as I navigate another unexpected hurdle in the sophomore novel slog.

1. I want to do a whole other piece on this contract: thou shalt not lie to the reader!

2. Researching this piece, I discovered Literary Hub’s critical review aggregate/roundup website, Book Marks. See here Tremblay’s compilation of reviews, with an official diagnosis of “rave” on a scale of rave, positive, mixed, and pan.