Leaving Stories

[Johnathan Colourfield]

I have a question.

 

I have a story sitting in GA Stories called 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'. It is something I started a long time ago and i got to the half way point and i just lost motivation with it, as it started to dislike the story as i was writing it and i thought it wouldnt do the story any good if i continued writing it.

 

I kind of feel i have left it to die.

 

As writers, do you have any stories you have posted then almost abandoned?

 

Or as readers, do you have an issue with a writer if they stop writing a story you liked?

 

I just worry because it's just been sat there for so long

[Tiger]

That happened with one of my stories. I don't know if I'll ever get back to it. Of course, part of that is that my beta reader at the time was pretty mean in basically telling me that a chapter I'd written was horrible. I just basically let the story die at that point.

Edited September 8, 2011 by Tiger

[Mark Arbour]

I've been struggling with this on one of my stories: Poor Man's Son. There are multiple issues with it, but the primary problem is that I finally worked my way to the big culmination of events and discovered that I had the wrong narrator. So much for planning. My personal solution is to finish the damn thing as quidkly as I can and start the next one as a sequel.

 

In your situation, though, I don't know that that's an option. I do know that if I'm not feeling the story, and I'm not into it, it's damn tough to write. This is supposed to be fun. It's OK to leave it dormant, in my opinion, as long as you let your readers know what you're doing.

[Renee Stevens]

I have many stories started that I have yet to get back to, and some of them, I doubt I ever will, however, unless I am 90% sure that I will finish a story, I don't even start to post it. Sometimes, it helps me to basically go back and revise completely using what is already there as more of an outline. I don't know as this would work for yours, but it's the only suggestion I have.

[NightOwl88]

I can understand where you are coming from. I've never abandoned, nor plan on doing so, to any of my posted work but I do have stuff sitting on my laptop that I started and then lost the will to continue working on. I'm a bit like Renee in that respect, unless it is something I know I'll finish I don't post it for the simple fact I do get upset when i get into a story and find out that it hasn't been updated in a year or that the author hasn't been seen in that long.

 

I think though that if you aren't feeling the story then maybe it would be a good idea to go back through the story, read it and try and figure out why you lost the passion for it and if you can recover it. If not than it might be kinder to remove it, or at least make it known that it is on hold.

[Nephylim]

As NightOwl says I have lots and lots of unfinished stories languishing on my laptop.

 

There is also one story I have posted that is unfinished and likely to remain so... Hubble Bubble. Fortunately it died as a place that is almost an ending and no one, so far, has complained that it isn't completed but, by my plan, it isn't.

 

This is precisely why I don't ever start to post a story until it is completely written. I find that I go through phases with my stories. I write intensively on one, then run out of steam and read through my others until i find one that piques my interest again and run with that. If I had a half posted story I would feel considerable pressure to work on it and that would make it more difficult to write and, more importantly more difficult to write well.

 

I see on the forum many peole who say that they will only read a story that shows as complete because they are fed up of following a story that is then abandoned. I don't think that people like it very much if they are following a story or are reading a story and there is a big gap in posting. My suggestion would be that if there is a story you really don't think you are going to be working on in the near future it would be better to pull it.

[comicfan]

I'll add to that list of problems. The first piece that I really put here was Accidents Happen. It began and I had no problems in the beginning writing it. However shortly after the midpoint I began to feel like main character was driving me nuts. I was more than willing to ;et an "accident" happen to get me out of writing it. I found that putting it to the side a bit and working on another story or prompt helped me by taking me out of my distractions dealing with AH. Then I could come back to it fresh. I've learned an important thing in writing AH. I now write at least more than half of any story before I begin to post it. It gives me lead space if I run into a problem and allows me time to fix it. However, I did feel I owed it to my readers and Charlie to complete it. Already I've had people ask if there will be a sequel, the answer is "NOT IN THIS LIFETIME!" lol

Edited January 24, 2012 by comicfan