In Agyar, the word "vampire" is never used. The reader is assumed to have the knowledge needed to figure it out.
I can think of stories in which the title gave away what was going to happen -- and it worked. Of course, not all readers of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin were trad-folk buffs. And there just might have been a few readers of Lord Dunsany's "The Castle Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth" who didn't anticipate that someone would show up at the Castle with Sacnoth.
Note: There are mysteries in which no character ever tells the detective or the reader who dunnit. For example, in about half of Joyce Porter's Inspector Dover novels, the culprit is never caught. But the reader knows, even though Dover never figures it out.
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2006-05-08 10:14 pm (UTC)I can think of stories in which the title gave away what was going to happen -- and it worked. Of course, not all readers of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin were trad-folk buffs. And there just might have been a few readers of Lord Dunsany's "The Castle Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth" who didn't anticipate that someone would show up at the Castle with Sacnoth.
Note: There are mysteries in which no character ever tells the detective or the reader who dunnit. For example, in about half of Joyce Porter's Inspector Dover novels, the culprit is never caught. But the reader knows, even though Dover never figures it out.