I Am Afraid Of... The In Process

[Drew Espinosa]

I love to read. I can go above and beyond expressing the extent of that love... but that would take volumes to do. But I face a problem: I seek completion (think Sheldon but a whole lot less... dramatic).

 

Now with novels, I usually don't face "the lack of completion" often, especially when they are stand-alone books. Series on the other hand... I tend to be "okay" if they are yet to be done (if it is within two years between books). It is when it is more then that that I get fidgety, but even then know feel eventually the author will finish the series.

 

That is my general reaction to unfinished series of physical novels, my real issue is with online stories. Now, when I see a story is in progress and the last update was fairly recent, I am perfectly fine. However, when the last update was near, or more, than a year ago and it is "In Process", "Work In Progress", or "On Hold"; that is when I avoid those stories.

 

I know why I have different standards on progress for physical novels ( 2 years or less) and online novels (a year or less). It comes down to that the former will add a complete book to the series, while the latter (in most cases) will add chapter by chapter. On the one hand, the author gave a complete story (within an unfinished series) and on the other the author gave me a complete chapter (within an unfinished story). It comes down to a "complete" story vs. an "incomplete" story

 

I just realized, this looks like a rant, but it is not. It's just one LONG setup for the reason behind this post: I want to change that habit. Browsing through GA, I come across stories with synopses that kindle my desire to read them but when I see "In Process" and "Last Update: >year" I shy away from them.

 

Well no more! I want to read them... I just do not know where to start. Any suggestions or recommendations on good stories yet to be finished?

 

 

 

*One very long post, I need to work on being concise

Edited May 18, 2015 by Drew Espinosa

[Drew Espinosa]

Addendum:

 

This is a huge thank you to all authors. You devote a large part of your life creating masterpieces, yet you still have a life outside your work and that life is FAR MORE important as a priority. So whether your work is finished or not, I nevertheless thank you for taking some time in adding more beauty to our world.

 

Thank You authors everwhere,

Drew

[Carlos Hazday]

There are stories by some authors I avoid, until they've been posted in their entirety. Many often have a great idea, start writing, rush to post chapters within hours, if not minutes of completing them, and then lose steam. They stop that one, and start another one, repeating the process. Anyone who has more than a couple in process I tend to steer away from.

 

But that is the nature of the beast with deal with, when we get involved in serial posting. Since I hate those unfinished stories so much, I promised myself I'd never do that to anyone who took the time to read my stuff. I may not be finished writing when I start posting, but I have an idea of where I'm going and how I'm getting there.

[Cia]

The benefit of our system is that stories are clearly  marked as to when they were first posted and when they were last updated in the meta data--which is far beyond just checking the status, because face it, authors leave the site and don't change their unfinished stories to 'On Hold' all the time. Additionally, if you want to check not only the first and last date the story was updated, but how often it's been updated, you can look at the Actions: View History link which will give you all that information on new chapters being posted and edits made. That lets you know if the author tends to update randomly or on a set schedule, which can be a good indicator if the author is dedicated to posting/the story is finished.

[Krista]

Or the author can be like me and complete a story, but still have the story listed as in-process for well over a year. I kept getting asked when the next chapter would be coming and I kept telling people that it was complete.... then one day as I was looking over reviews for it, I saw that I had left the poor thing's status as, "in process," so no wonder people kept asking. Poor dears.

[Graeme]

I feel similar to Drew. I'm not finding as much time to read as I used to, which means that following serialised stories can be a challenge. What I'm currently doing is to read the first few chapters and then stop, with the good intention of returning to the story once it's complete.

 

I have also learnt my lesson as an author. I don't start posting a story unless I'm sure I can complete it. I've got one novel that petered out after several chapters, but luckily I never started posting it. I now only start posting once I've written enough that I'm confident that I can follow it through to completion. The side effect of that is that it means I have a buffer of pre-written chapters before I start posting, so I can post on a schedule without feeling any pressure. That's really useful when a story gets away from me (like my current novel, which I originally thought would be in the order of 30-40 chapters, but I posted chapter 41 last weekend and there's still a lot of the story to go...)