fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2858 ]

[ SECRET POST #2858 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2858 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Orlando Jones]

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[Sleepy Hollow]

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[Mariana's Trench]

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[Game of Thrones]

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[Ace Attorney]

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[George, Prince of Wales/Beau Brummell]

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[Star Trek: The Next Generation]

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[Star Wars: The Old Republic]

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[Scorpion]

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[Harry Potter]

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[Sakana]

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Notes:

Late work day again, sorry.

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 016 secrets from Secret Submission Post #408.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 2 - personal attacks ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I should clarify. I mean when they still have unfinished fics I'm following in the fandom I like, but they're too busy writing for their new fandom. Yes, I'm petty.

OP again.
That's why I submitted it as a secret. Because I know it's petty.

It is indeed pretty petty, but your clarification makes it at least not sounds crazy.

I understand, OP. There's this one writer who ditched an unfinished, marvelous WIP in my fandom and went bounding off to a new fandom just as it reached a really critical point. I have no idea if she's popular in her new fandom. I have no doubt she is, though, because she is a terrific writer. All I can do is read her old stuff and sigh to myself. It's not her fault, really. You can't help whom you love. It's my fault for reading a WIP. I hardly ever do.

da

What's aggravating is when someone is posting a really fabulous fic, in chapters, and they get to Chapter 8 and say, "I've finished the last 2 chapters and they'll be up shortly," and you're all "Yay!", and ... the bloody chapters never appear.

Instead, off goes the author to frolic another fandom, leaving me and - well, mostly me plus 2 or 3 other folks, it was a pretty niche fic - wondering what happened to the characters in this fic we'd come to adore.

What really sucks was that it wasn't even supposed to be a WIP. If I'd known it wouldn't have been finished, I wouldn't have started reading to begin with, y'know?

Yes, I'm bitter. And also possibly petty. *joins OP in the petty zoo*

I know. It sucks. I think the only safe thing is to wait until the fic is totally in hand. Which is supremely difficult because in small fandoms there's JUST SO LITTLE GOOD STUFF. It's hard! It's like dangling meat before a starving meerkat.

As a writer, I have done this several times. I have the fic finished, but I never post the end. In some cases I have even have had it betaed, edited, everything.

The first time this happened, it was because the ending of my fic was going to be in a direction opposite to what all the comments wanted. It was straight guy/bi guy with a crush on him, and it had been made clear all through the fic that that they were not going to get together. Surprise, surprise: they never were.

I just couldn't bring myself to spoil the ending most of my readers already had imagined, even though I had dozens of requests to post it.

Eventually, I lost the whole ending when my hard drive died so that's that.

The next time I didn't post an ending was when I literally had one reader commenting on the fic (a crossover) and then they went. I finished the fic for my own amusement, and never posted the last two chapters, since what was the point. I even marked the fic "this is not a WIP, it's finished" because to me, it was.

So there are many reasons why a fic may be finished, not a WIP, but the writer still doesn't post the ending.

Then it's more the unfinished fics that annoy you than the fandom jumping. You'd be just as annoyed if they jumped pairings within the fandom, leaving their old pairing fics half written.

ah, in that case it makes perfect sense. though if someone has multiple unfinished fics you probably could have checked one fandom back and saved yourself the trouble.

I have multiple unfinished fics and I warn my readers about this at the top of my WIPs. It's cut down the number of "plz update" comments so everyone's happy.

Don't like unfinished fics, please don't read my stuff. There are lots of other writers who finish their fics who can be read instead and they're probably better than me anyway.

ayrt

I totally get that. I'd rather people post however they're inspired than not post at all. But it's often a pattern, so if you're OP and it really bothers you it's not exactly hard to avoid.

ayrt

I've learned to be really upfront about the fact that some of my fics will always remain unfinished (about 1 in 8, I think?) and that seems to have reduced the problems all round, both from frustrated readers and stress on me. Ironically, removing some of the stress means that I now finish more fics than I used to.

For those readers who are driven mad by old unfinished fics unlikely to be updated now: have you tried privately contacting the writer and offering to beta the rest? A lot of unfinished fics are actually mostly finished, just sitting on the writer's hard drive. I've gotten to read several unposted ends of fics like this. As long as you don't mind a few rough edges, it's great.

The writer never, ever ends up posting the end of the fic, even after my beta, though. That's just the way it seems to be.

DA

I'd actually caution against contacting writers unless they specifically mention this is the case. It's already very depressing and discouraging to receive requests (at best, or demands at worst) for fics they've either moved on from or feel guilty for not finishing.

I'm not saying never do it, just tread carefully. It has all the potential to backfire.

ayrt

That's why I suggested an offer to beta. It's pretty easy to reject an offer to beta, especially if that writer has a history of not using them anyway.

It's a very different request than a random stranger asking "please let me read your unfinished fic privately even though no one else gets to" which most writers would rightly say no to, and then feel annoyed for being hassled.

There's still somewhat of an assumption that the author still considers that works ongoing, or that they still plan on working on it in some way. If, as in the case OP's objecting to, an author has clearly moved onto something else I still find it a little presumptuous to bring up an old fic in ANY capacity if the author hasn't mentioned that it's still something they consider a WIP.

Ok.

I've done this, and been accused of doing it. So I'm going to let you into a little secret, OP.

There might be a million reasons why a writer wants to shift fandom. A dying fandom. Crappy people in the old fandom. Lost the passion for it and don't want to write substandard things just for the sake of slapping 'the end' on it. They've found something in the new fandom that distracts them from the shitty RL things they're writing to try and escape from. That they just *gasp!* want to.

You and your entitled demands are NONE of those reasons. Writers owe you nothing.

OP
Um, I know this. That's why I submitted it as a secret, because it's a totally dick thing to think.

To be fair, OP didn't make any demands.

No, but taking pleasure from watching them fail/be less successful elsewhere is pretty fucking horrible.

This. It's basically "I like them as long as they're catering to my specific needs, otherwise I enjoy watching them fail" is pretty damn demanding and entitled in my book, whether you say it out loud or not.

That seems a little strong. I know I've been guilty of schadenfreude a time or two in my life. Just the other day I was gleeing that a certain producer hasn't gotten any work since he cancelled my favorite show for his failed vanity project. :D

Damn, go drink some tea and calm down.

Well, I can say one thing to that statement. It would be nice if people would finish one fic before moving on to the next. That's not always how ideas flow and some people have lots of things they want to write down, but from your perspective yes, I can see why you feel that way. You're secret was strangely worded though, hence the confusion.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2858 ]

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