[ SECRET POST #2364 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2364 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 098 secrets from Secret Submission Post #337.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Slightly OT but I HATE it when fic writers say they have the whole story finished and will post like one chapter a week, but then just quit halfway through. If it's already written than why don't you just post it!?

It drives me crazy.

Anyway, you're pretty lucky OP. I just wouldn't lord it over everyone else.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't get that either. Just go ahead and post what you have and don't hang things over people like someone dangling a piece of meat over a dog's head. It's kind of a douche thing to do.

[(Anonymous)]

If it's already written than why don't you just post it!?

Because they're comment/kudos whores.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know why people do that either. I can understand having a buffer, and to a lesser extent not posting the story all at once if maybe they're doing something like editing/polishing bit by bit, and maybe re-writing a bit as they go.

But the whole bait-and-abandon thing is just straight up weird and kind of dickish when people intentionally draw it out, or just plain lie about it to draw people in or some weird thing like that.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly, like if it's a particularly long story and posting it all at once might be overwhelming or they're editing as they post, that's totally cool. But there's this one story in particular where the author has said multiple times that it's all done, but they haven't finished posting it and they've mentioned that they might take it down but it's still there and it's been YEARS.

I don't know if I've ever been this frustrated over a fic.

/End rant

[othellia]

Guilty of doing this for a three-part fic... although it was already hosted on LJ so if they just googled the fic title they could've found the whole thing.

But yeah. Posted the first two parts with some minor edits over two consecutive days, looked at the last part again, realized I hated a certain section and really wanted to massively edit this one key conversation, and promptly procrastinated on doing that/uploading it for over a year.

So I kind of understand.

[(Anonymous)]

I hate when they say they have it finished and will post a chapter a week or every other day, even if they end up posting it all. Jesus fucking christ, just post the whole damn fic all at once and stop being a whore with comments. That's the only reason they're even doing it in the first place, to get everyone to kiss their ass to tell them how good it is. And maybe it's dickish of me, but if an author does that, no matter how much I love the story, I refuse to comment if it's posted one chapter a day.

[(Anonymous)]

That kind of setup bugs me, but if the fic is posted in a tumblr queue or something, where it's all uploaded automatically once a day or week, that doesn't bother me, especially if they write more fics while the first is auto-updating. It's only when authors explicitly hold chapters hostage for reviews, or claim to have a whole story finished and upload all but the last few chapters, or whatever, that I throw up my hands and find something else to read.

from an author...

[(Anonymous)]

I rarely write whole stories/multiple chapters in advance so I haven't ever been in a situation where I would even have the option to do this, but I don't blame writers for posting over time instead of all at once. Yes, you write for you, and not for an audience; but you POST for an audience, and posting it all at once (on, say, AO3) means you get that one little blip of exposure. Posting chapters over a period of time means that your story will be relevant for longer.

I feel the same way about tv shows that are released in giant chunks like Netflix's original series tbh... there one minute, forgotten the next. Spread it out, give people a chance to get into it!

Re: from an author...

[(Anonymous)]

Besides, if it doesn't work for you as a reader (and it's not the best for me, I like to binge-read rather than have to re-acclimate myself to the story's universe with every installment), but you think it sounds like a cool story, bookmark it and come back when it's done.

[(Anonymous)]

What's so wrong with wanting to get some positive feedback on your work? You act as though liking comments and kudos is a crime.

In my fandom, people just don't read long fics that are posted all at once. I think they're put off by the length. They seem much happier to read them in instalments.

[asecretchord]

Guilty as charged. I posted a 240,000 word fic a chapter a week for 20 weeks. I was afraid people would balk at the length of it and was hoping the work was solid enough to draw in readers a 10,000 words at a time.

I just posted the last chapter tonight, as it turns out. Live and learn, I suppose.

[(Anonymous)]

Well the point is that you finished posting it, and didn't just abandon it after making a promise of completion. I'll gladly wait a week for a new chapter if I like the fic, but quitting halfway through is just ridiculous and drives me insane.

[(Anonymous)]

I think that's more understandable. Novel length fics do tend to scare a lot of people off, and I think it's fine to maximize potential exposure to an audience. That's a lot of work, and it would be a shame if it warded off potential audience with the word count.

Though it doesn't sound like you threw the fact around and then left your hangers-on clinging to the knowledge that it's out there where they can't see it.

Did posting it like that draw in more of a readership?

[(Anonymous)]

1) Kudos for finishing it and posting your WIP! If I was in HP fandom, I would drop everything to go and read this!

2) It's up to you, but as a reader, I should point out that you can actually turn off some readers that way: personally I love long stories, the longer the better and would rush over a really, really long story.

WIPs on the other hand I usually filter out and when a very long WIP is complete, I still skip over them or if for some reason I do read them, I am often much more critical of it than if I had read it in one big gulp.

The very few times I read a WIP story progressively, one chapter at a time, I ended up being disappointed in the story because it gave me time to see all the inconsistencies and the repeated suspense simply killed my emotional involvement.

But as the author, I think it's your decision alone: on the other hand, not posting the end of a WIP? That strikes me as immoral, because it betrays the trust readers placed in the author.

3) Mind you, what I find funny are WIP authors who beg for comments and threaten not to post the rest of the story if they don't receive enough comments, without the common sense to understand that most people do not read incomplete stories because they have been burned too often by abandoned WIPs... talk about hypocrisy!

Note that this last most definitely does not apply to you since it's clear that you finish your WIPs (and very possibly had the whole story completed already when you started posting).

[asecretchord]

...but as a reader, I should point out that you can actually turn off some readers that way...

The funny thing is that I'm the same way. What I usually do with novel-length WIPs is read the first couple of chapters, flag it to follow and keep an eye on it so I can read the entire thing when it's finished. I love long-fic like burning, but some folks are just turned off by it unless they don't feel like they have to read it all at once.

I might post my other enormous fic all in one fell swoop (when it's finished) and see how that turns out.

I can't imagine holding a story hostage for comments, but I've seen it done over and over again. Boggles the mind.