Rant 1.0 Finish What You Start...At Least If It Involves MY Time.
I have a lot of unfinished stories. 99.9 percent of them reside in old notebooks that are currently stuffed in boxes in storage. The .1 percent consists of fragments I've posted to WASIF for work shopping. I understand that sometimes a great hook doesn't pan out. That inspiration is a fickle thing. And I understand that sometimes life happens and something comes up that keeps you from working on a story long enough that it goes cold on you.
So, my current immense frustration with certain fanfic authors has nothing to do with my inability to empathize with their not being able to finish a story. It's with them posting the thing online unfinished and then 20 or 30 or so chapters later abandoning it. Especially since most of the time the reason given is that they are tired of dealing with flames over the story.
Hello! Ask any professional writer and they will have innumerable horror stories of out right hostile comments from people who have read their book and feel the need to lash out at the author. And they don't all stop at comments. Some engage in scary stalker behavior that require the services of law enforcement. If you are not prepared to deal with negative comments, even (or maybe especially) insanely off the wall comments, then you really should close down that Word document, put away that legal pad, and go take up another avocation. Counted cross stitch is a good way to eat hours of time. Or if you want something borderline useful macrame is relaxing.
When you post the first chapter of a multi-part story to anything other than a workshop like WASIF you are making a promise to your readers. They do not have the right to impose their expectations of how often you should update on you but they do have the right to expect that the story will be finished in it's own time. It takes a lot more work to write 20 chapters than it does to read them but it does take a commitment of time from the reader. If I've spent two or three hours reading your magnum opus and I then find a notice that your ego has been bruised too badly to continue, despite the glowing reviews that are still up in the comments section, I'm going to feel cheated and tricked and it's going to make it much less likely that I will take a chance on reading an unfinished story again.
The most recent notice like this even acknowledged that 90% of her reviews and email received about the story were positive and it was only the nasty 10% that had driven her to stop writing her story half way through. At chapter 25. Sturgeon's Law apparently applies to reviews as well as fiction. I would be VERY happy if I had a couple of hundred posted reviews and 180 of them were good.
But then it is all about the ego boost for these people isn't it? And how many people today are taught to deal with negativity of any kind. This is a culture where you get a ribbon just for showing up.
I say it's about the ego boost because if it were about the art/craft of writing then they would finish their stories and polish them before posting. Posting each chapter as you finish it, sometimes in a form that is obviously the first draft, allows you to get reviews from people saying how much they like you and how they want you to write more. I've seen writers actually end a chapter on a cliffhanger and then state that they won't continue the story until they get at least 10 more reviews. Of course when those same people who were stroking your ego by asking for more demand that you post something after a month of no chapters and get ugly about it then it's their fault.
And of course most of the time the writers do not take down the chapters that they had already posted so that future readers don't get sucked in, they leave them up so that people can keep posting comments asking for more.
I'm sure that some writers who do care about the craft do post first drafts and then revise them based on feedback but they also finish the story even if it takes a major effort.
I've got to say that the girl mentioned above did pull her 25 chapters and leave a note saying why they had been pulled. I wish she had done it before I started reading her story. It had some weaknesses but it was a really nice alternate universe twist on the characters and now I'll never know how they survive the big bad and save the world.
Thanks loads. I didn't need that time. I probably would have just did the laundry or something anyway.
So, my current immense frustration with certain fanfic authors has nothing to do with my inability to empathize with their not being able to finish a story. It's with them posting the thing online unfinished and then 20 or 30 or so chapters later abandoning it. Especially since most of the time the reason given is that they are tired of dealing with flames over the story.
Hello! Ask any professional writer and they will have innumerable horror stories of out right hostile comments from people who have read their book and feel the need to lash out at the author. And they don't all stop at comments. Some engage in scary stalker behavior that require the services of law enforcement. If you are not prepared to deal with negative comments, even (or maybe especially) insanely off the wall comments, then you really should close down that Word document, put away that legal pad, and go take up another avocation. Counted cross stitch is a good way to eat hours of time. Or if you want something borderline useful macrame is relaxing.
When you post the first chapter of a multi-part story to anything other than a workshop like WASIF you are making a promise to your readers. They do not have the right to impose their expectations of how often you should update on you but they do have the right to expect that the story will be finished in it's own time. It takes a lot more work to write 20 chapters than it does to read them but it does take a commitment of time from the reader. If I've spent two or three hours reading your magnum opus and I then find a notice that your ego has been bruised too badly to continue, despite the glowing reviews that are still up in the comments section, I'm going to feel cheated and tricked and it's going to make it much less likely that I will take a chance on reading an unfinished story again.
The most recent notice like this even acknowledged that 90% of her reviews and email received about the story were positive and it was only the nasty 10% that had driven her to stop writing her story half way through. At chapter 25. Sturgeon's Law apparently applies to reviews as well as fiction. I would be VERY happy if I had a couple of hundred posted reviews and 180 of them were good.
But then it is all about the ego boost for these people isn't it? And how many people today are taught to deal with negativity of any kind. This is a culture where you get a ribbon just for showing up.
I say it's about the ego boost because if it were about the art/craft of writing then they would finish their stories and polish them before posting. Posting each chapter as you finish it, sometimes in a form that is obviously the first draft, allows you to get reviews from people saying how much they like you and how they want you to write more. I've seen writers actually end a chapter on a cliffhanger and then state that they won't continue the story until they get at least 10 more reviews. Of course when those same people who were stroking your ego by asking for more demand that you post something after a month of no chapters and get ugly about it then it's their fault.
And of course most of the time the writers do not take down the chapters that they had already posted so that future readers don't get sucked in, they leave them up so that people can keep posting comments asking for more.
I'm sure that some writers who do care about the craft do post first drafts and then revise them based on feedback but they also finish the story even if it takes a major effort.
I've got to say that the girl mentioned above did pull her 25 chapters and leave a note saying why they had been pulled. I wish she had done it before I started reading her story. It had some weaknesses but it was a really nice alternate universe twist on the characters and now I'll never know how they survive the big bad and save the world.
Thanks loads. I didn't need that time. I probably would have just did the laundry or something anyway.
posted by Ranuel | 8:33 PM
1 Comments:
Hello thanks for commenting.
There is a difference between the writing of story and the publishing of it. Unless you are contracted to deliver 10,000 words on topic X by a publisher it is always best to write for yourself. If you write something that you personally enjoy then you have a better chance of writing something that others will love as well. You can write all day long and fill your hard drive with stories and as long as you are happy that is all that matters.
However, once you actually publish then it can no longer be solely about you. It doesn't matter if it's a professional sale for a hard cover novel or a quick post to Fanfiction.net of a 100 word drabble the very act of publication implies both the potential existence of a reader and a desire on the author's part to connect with that reader. There is an implied social contract between the two with obligations on both sides. The details of that social contract differ with each genre and form of publication but for all forms I believe that there is a reasonable expectation on the part of the reader that a story once began in a public arena will be finished.
Let's use theatre as an analogy. If you stand in front of your bedroom mirror do the first few lines of Hamlet's soliloquy and stop without finishing then you had fun and nobody cares. If you stage a production of Hamlet at the local theatre and the curtain closes at intermission and after a long wait a man comes out to announce that the cast has changed their mind and decided not to finish out the play so everyone can just go home now then that's not going over very well.
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