Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

[For those who are not familiar with the Book Metadata Project, please check out this thread. WARNING! THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THE THREAD. Thanks very much to everyone who offered their opinions in that thread.]

After a few weeks of thought, I think we're getting close to moving forward with Book Metadata Project (or whatever we're calling it now). What I'd like to try here is listing what we think are the final attributes we'd be looking for on each book, and then try a test case. The test case I want to try is Twilight.

Before we go any further, let me say that all of the info collected in the metadata project would be behind a link, meaning that nothing would be spoiled by going to the book page itself. Furthermore, we are going to attempt to enforce a "no spoilers" policy on the whole thing. I realize the definition of a spoiler is somewhat in dispute, but we will do our best. The approach we want to take is have everyone able to add to the metadata on every book. If the attribute is a yes/no or has a set list of answers, we will show the percent who chose the top answer. For the open fields, we will show all responses, weighted such that the first field is the one the most people chose, etc.

With that in mind, can we try building out the metadata for Twilight in this thread?

BEFORE YOU READ FURTHER: IF YOU HAVEN'T READ TWILIGHT AND DON'T WANT IT SPOILED, PLEASE DON'T READ ANY MORE OF THIS THREAD. Thanks.

Here is the list of attributes we are looking for. For some of them, we have a set list of answers, which are listed after the question. For the rest, it's free-form. And I have left out the metadata we are already collecting elsewhere (author, cover, ISBN, etc., as well as the characters list. I left in settings, but you could easily grab that from book/show at the moment, too.).

Is this book fiction or non-fiction? fiction or non-fiction
What is the genre or genres of this book?
What are the subjects of this book?
Where and when is this book set?
What is the pace of this book? fast-paced or relaxed-paced
What is the tone of this book (bleak, romantic, upbeat, violent, etc)?
What is the writing style of this book(such as journalistic, descriptive, scholarly, accessible, etc)?
What is the perspective of the narration? 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person omniscient, 3rd person close, shifting
Is this book told in the past, present or future tense? past, present, future, or shifting
Is there a strong female character in this book? yes or no
Is there a strong male character in this book? yes or no
Does this book follow a few characters or many? few or many
What literary devices are used in this book(flashback, footnotes, logical fallacy, epistolary)?

Let's try it and see what we get. Thanks!

Is this book fiction or non-fiction? fiction
What is the genre or genres of this book? paranormal romance, young adult
What are the subjects of this book? vampires, werewolves, paranormal
Where and when is this book set? small town America, present day
What is the pace of this book?
What is the tone of this book (bleak, romantic, upbeat, violent, etc)? cheesy?
What is the writing style of this book(such as journalistic, descriptive, scholarly, accessible, etc)? aimed for teenagers
What is the perspective of the narration?
Is this book told in the past, present or future tense?
Is there a strong female character in this book? no
Is there a strong male character in this book? no
Does this book follow a few characters or many? few, 3 major characters
What literary devices are used in this book(flashback, footnotes, logical fallacy, epistolary)?


I'd probably separate the "where" and "when" of the setting into separate categories.

Your question about few or many characters, is that just major characters? Like one of my favorite series has a huge cast of secondary characters, but the books are in first person, so they essentially follow one character. But I'd say there is a cast of 5-10 main characters who show up in most of the books. Is that few or many?

mlady_rebecca wrote: "Like one of my favorite series has a huge cast of secondary characters, but the books are in first person, so they essentially follow one character. But I'd say there is a cast of 5-10 main characters who show up in most of the books. Is that few or many? "

This is where I think the voting will win out. You might think that's few characters, but if 80% say it is many, that's probably more useful info. I would say that we are talking about main characters here, not the overall cast.

BunWat wrote: "Is there a strong female character in this book? debated
Is there a strong male character in this book? debated"

Judging from this answer, I wonder if we need to phrase the either/or questions as "Do you think there are strong female characters in this book?" Since that's what we are really asking (and then aggregating the total responses). That way, it's subjective and it admits that, rather than asking the user to make a broad statement about how all readers might feel. Thoughts?

OT, but just had to mention - a spoiler warning that doesn't say what will be spoiled is not really that useful.

willaful wrote: "OT, but just had to mention - a spoiler warning that doesn't say what will be spoiled is not really that useful."

I'm curious if you think anything in the metadata sample for Twilight would even qualify as a spoiler? Thoughts?

I was talking about the comment at the beginning, about there being spoilers in the other thread.

Patrick wrote: "Judging from this answer, I wonder if we need to phrase the either/or questions as "Do you think there are strong female characters in this book?" Since that's what we are really asking "

Yes, that would clarify things, I believe.

Patrick wrote: "I'm curious if you think anything in the metadata sample for Twilight would even qualify as a spoiler? Thoughts? "

Personally, I'd say no. But "Twilight" is also a series of movies and a pop-cultural phenomena. It's hard to avoid knowing at least the basic story.

Adding to my previous response:

What are the subjects of this book? vampires, werewolves, paranormal, love triangle

mlady_rebecca wrote: "Patrick wrote: "I'm curious if you think anything in the metadata sample for Twilight would even qualify as a spoiler? Thoughts? "

Personally, I'd say no. But "Twilight" is also a series of movies..."

I guess that's the thing. The subjects of the book, in my opinion, are not sufficient to be considered spoilers. For some books, yes, you could definitely have a subject that ruins the ending or the last part of the book, and for those, we have to make them editable so people can remove the spoilers. But if you don't want to know *anything* about the book, I think you will just need to stay out of the metadata for that title. There's no way to do this without revealings something about the book.

Patrick wrote: "I guess that's the thing. The subjects of the book, in my opinion, are not sufficient to be considered spoilers."

I agree, but then I generally like spoilers. You'd have to ruin the mystery or spoil an unexpected character death to really bother me.

I'd like to try one more of these. How about Emma.

I will take a crack at it first:

Is this book fiction or non-fiction? fiction
What is the genre or genres of this book? parlor comedy, classics, romance,
What are the subjects of this book? courtship, marriage, interpersonal relationships, social mores, 19th Century English culture
Where and when is this book set? 19th Century England, countryside
What is the pace of this book? Relaxed-pace
What is the tone of this book (bleak, romantic, upbeat, violent, etc)? comedic, romantic
What is the writing style of this book(such as journalistic, descriptive, scholarly, accessible, etc)? witty, scathing, descriptive
What is the perspective of the narration? 3rd person limited omniscient or close
Is this book told in the past, present or future tense? past
Do you think there is a strong female character in this book? yes
Do you think there is a strong male character in this book? yes
Does this book follow a few characters or many? few
What literary devices are used in this book(flashback, footnotes, logical fallacy, epistolary)? satire, irony (?)

Very interesting questions regarding books. But not likely to answer them myself; if I wanted to write a detailed analysis, I'd go back to college. :)

Seriously, it'll be interesting to see what others answer, but for myself, I'd rather be reading than writing....

Cheers.

Good point. Who's going to be filling in all these fields? I might sometimes, but generally yes I'd rather move on to my next read.

Love to play, but I never read "Emma".