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The other day I had about an hour to relieve stress. I checked one of my favorite author’s old stories and found one with eleven chapters that was written several years ago.
Seemed perfect.
I dug right in and was enthralled by her masterful characterization and artfully constructed plot.
While reading her final chapter things didn’t seem quite right. The pace hadn’t quicken. Things didn’t seem to be getting tied up in a neat bow.
Oh no! I just got caught again by the “UNFINISHED SERIAL”.
Look. I get it. People write for different reasons. I understand best intentions and all that, but DARN IT!
I had started to care about those people.
I wonder how many masterpieces never were published. Great writers start projects and lose steam. Supposedly Moby Dick was meant to be a completely different story until a minor character took over . . . and the rest is history. What if Melville had simply chucked it!
Could I please ask for your consideration?
1.) There is NOTHING amateurish about writing standalone stories. I’ve received comments from writers, who should know better, to “step up and write something of some length.” Some of my standalones have gone beyond 80,000 words, which is enough for anyone. Please consider writing a standalone every now and then. The current ratio of serials to standalones is the worst I’ve seen here.
2.) If you write serials, please consider pulling them after a year, or so, if you haven’t finished them, so that people like me don’t have to say DARN IT!
3.) If you write serials, please consider making an outline of the complete story before you start, so that you don’t paint yourself into an artistic corner and have to quit.
I would prefer you write unfinished serials rather than not write at all.
When what I want conflicts with what you want, feel free to ignore my desires.
Comments
Ah...
"Call me Ishmael."
"Sure."
Love, Andrea Lena
Then there's the Fictionmania version...
that starts: Call me Shemale.
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Grin
That's all
For Those Who Don't Want to Go to Fictionmania for Short Stories
"Mommy, I want to be a girl."
"Okay."
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
Alternative FM storyline
I don't want to be a Girl.
Stop your complaining, take thes pills and put that skirt on NOW!
That just about covers 90% of the posts on that site (IMHO)
I have to agree with you
I try to make sure that I have my stories completed before I post anything.
But what am I going to do with all of the other serials that I have started to read and have never been finished?
Maybe we could have a contest to see who can bring some of the orphaned stories to a satisfactory conclusion.
- Monica.
Couldn't agree more.
I edited what is possibly the longest (in words) completed serial here (The Sidereous Prophecy) It was posted in parts but it was complete before it was released into the wide world and my client had an outline before it was really started. It took us nearly a year but it was worth it.
However, as a keen follower of 'Bike', I exclude soaps because they aren't intended to come to a conclusion and are really a sequence of story-lines that have their own story arc which is complete.
Angela, a lot of your stories are quite substantial - Peaches for one - and all are worth reading, even if only to spot where the perfume reference comes in :) (joke!)
Robi
Soaps
I agree. The soaps are a horse of a different color and probably should be noted as such.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I hope that wasn't one of mine
I'm really bad about it. But writing for an audience is what I do – it's just that if I get interrupted, by life, by chance, even by another story – I may not finish what I start. It doesn't mean I never intend to do so, but circumstances and too many things to do may mean I never have the energy to dive back into a story that I may want very much to finish.
The number of stories I have left unfinished on this site is nothing to the number of unfinished stories I have on my disks. Some of the joeys in my pouch are nearly grown, thirty or forty thousand words worth, that don't feel ready for an audience.
Right now I am writing a Damselfly serial, one intended to be a serial. My intention is to do this story in arcs, finishing one arc before starting another, though each arc will be part of a longer planned story. That's why I labeled it a serial from the beginning.
I've also written a number of standalone stories, some short and some long. I like doing that but not every idea is amenable to being a short, short or done in one sitting. I don't work like that as frequently as I would like, apparently.
I draw energy for writing by having an audience for what I'm doing. I've always worked this way. The earliest story writing I can remember doing was back in the fifth grade when I brought a few hundred words in every day to read to my friends at lunch. It was a serial adventure called "The Caves of Time" featuring me and my friends wandering through history and literature, meeting people like Ponce de Leon and The Count of Monte Cristo. It ended when we all went on Christmas vacation. I think poor Elmer Schoonover is still trapped in a 13th century dungeon while Robin Hood, the Merry Men along with I and my other classmates plot to get him out.
Except... Elmer was killled in a car accident in real life, ten years after I left him stranded, the prisoner of King John. We had a real cute plan to get him out, too. We were going to go back to Ponce de Leon for another dose of the Fountain of Youth that turned people into babies for a few hours....
Some stories never end and some are never finished. I prefer to think of Elmer in his jail cell still waiting patiently for my next chapter to be read on the picnic bench outside the cafeteria....
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
It very well may have been something of mine too.
Call it presumptuous to assume I'm one of Jill's favorites, but we have talked about a lot of my stories quite a few times, and I do have one that is sitting, unfinished, at 11 parts....
I have so many incomplete stories going on, and like you most of mine have never made it onto the screen at all. Earlier this week I was going through old things of mine in storage, and I have a box that is filled with notebooks overflowing with half-baked ideas, or several chapters of a concept, or just pre-planning for epic fantasy and sci fi adventures I've just never gotten back to. Even here on BC I've got, let's see... four stories sitting, incomplete, and one CYOA-type thing I'm still waiting on a tenth vote to decide the direction of the last chapter (not that I'm even sure I could continue it at this point if I got that vote.)
Sorry, Jill. I'm sure none of us ever intend to leave anything incomplete: I guess it's just hard to finish things when you feel incomplete yourself? Maybe.
Melanie E.
Yes, and you promised me you would work on them....l
I know my issues came into play sis, and I'm not complaining here - just reminding you.
Hopefully you will find time to write over the long Canadian winter in Toronto........
Yes, it looks like my visa will come through next week, and so far everything points to the medical staff signing off on me working with a therapist on an outpatient basis - and they even have one in Toronto that the US Navy is OK with. Keep your fingers and toes crossed!
Love ya' sis!
Dallas
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
That's great news sis!
But how did you know I can cross my toes?! :P
It will undoubtedly be easier for me to get back to writing once I'm back north, though. It won't be as hot, I'll have more privacy, plus access to my nice 28 inch monitor and a regular keyboard....
Having a laptop is nice, but I vastly prefer the desktop experience for writing.
Melanie E.
Nor mine....
I understand the frustrations of those who come up against incomplete stories, as I've encountered numerous promising stories here and elsewhere that are unfinished, and likely to remain so. I myself have an incomplete story here on BC that I'm considering taking down for retooling, but would that mean I would lose any kudos I earned for it?
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
I once intended to finish every one of my stories
Then something inside me died and I lost all faith that I have anything worthwhile to say. And I don't think it's coming back. Transgender fiction? Not only do I feel like I no longer have a gender (if I ever did) for these past couple of years I don't even feel like a human being. So now I have more unfinished serials here than anything else. Sucky as they are they'll just have to suffice as my "legacy" (Or maybe I'll hit the lottery and I can PAY someone to finish them...)
~~~Nanoo nanoo, have a nice day.
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Unfinished works
Apart from Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien never finished his books. Being a perfectionist, he often throw out things that he considered a failure halfway and restarting. Maybe he failed to get a good flow except for LotR. His other books were finished by his son after his passing. In my opinion, Silmarilion is awful.
As for me, sometimes I forgot what I wanted to write. Sometimes I can't find good words and put it on hold, up to a few years. Sometimes I'm too busy to write. Sometimes I suffer from acute depression. Sometimes, I'm just plain lazy. :P
I just wanna say
AMEN!!
behind you 100%
I find this to be very troublesome as well you get hook on the story and boom there is no punch line or can't find out if the heroine is saved . So I get that real life happens but would be nice to finish a story . sigh :-(