Hi
Is there any way where all the stories on this site can be added with a completed or not completed tags. I was reading few of the stories which after reaching 20th chapter got to know that they are incomplete and left hanging by authors for more than 1 year.
Can the admins ask the authors to add this tag to their stories so that it is easy for us readers to select the old or new stories which we want to read based on this tag as well.
Thanks & Regards
nb4u
It may not be appropriate
anymore because we did have such a tag in the past and more than few arguments erupted over it too. Then when people see it still incomplete they then pester the authors which, in some cases, gets them upset and they decide to not post here for a long long while. Want to know how I know this for a fact? I did this very thing for a few years. In some cases it worked out good, in others, no it did not. And thats a heck of a lot of work for the moderators and admins to do. Too much.
I believe it is best not to do it.
If you wish to site mail the author, feel free to ask them if they will continue said story.
Sephrena
maybe a better idea
give kudos and make comments on every chapter of a serial story, last chapter asking when the story will be continued.
that is feedback to the author and an incentive for them to continue, without them feeling harassed about it.
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.
Please, keep in mind.
Please keep in mind that writers sometimes get writers block, or something else comes up in their life, and they cannot complete a story. Or, maybe they just don't know how to continue a story.
I know of posted stories, that were incomplete, where the writer came back years later and finished them.
In all honesty, I feel one year is a little short on the time limit for this matter.
Paul
Concern noted, but not always easy to fill request...
I have some stories that I intended to go back to, but went dry with the story. I intended to go back but time has lapsed and I'm not sure if it would be good to go back to it. A few die on the vine, seemingly they didn't click with most readers. I do and will try harder to indicate I've completed the story. I have one now that I am ready to end.
Please remember most of us are not professional writers.
Jessie C
Jessica E. Connors
Jessica Connors
StoriesOnline has two tags.
StoriesOnline has two tags. 'incomplete' - the story's not done yet. 'and inactive' meaning that it's been more than some period of time since it was worked on.
(Personally, I think they need to double check some of the smallest, longest 'inactive' stories - and delete them. It seems like a few were simply put in there to spam the most categories possible, rather than be serious stories. They're drabble size)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Also proving my point
that it is simply too much work for the BCTS crew to maintain the tagging when it's possible for the author to either delete the works posted here because of publishing or rage. And the sheer number of stories both serialized and stand alone is overwhelming now.
Sephrena
Not arguing that. Drupal just
Not arguing that. Drupal just isn't set up for the automated tracking that would be required to do it cleanly.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
not even a wiki script
Wikis have activity per page and you can track that, but it wouldn't handle the serial story tracking either.
None of the CMS scripts are meant for this type of use specifically, so they lack functionality that would make it much easier for site admins.
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.
Personally .
I encourage writers voluntarily add "Final" or "Conclusion" to the title of a final chapter. And to add "-complete" to the title or teaser when they feel a story is done.
The Lack of a "Complete" Tag (of some sort not necessarily a built in function), may be keeping some stories from being read.
I know that I lately hesitate to start following a new multi part story unless I know the author is a persistent frequent poster who tends to stick with a current story line. Or I wait until I see a chapter show up with "-Final" appended to the title, and then read it all at once. It is just that there are too many inactive stories I am waiting for more on from authors who still are active.
And yes I am aware that the stories are mostly an amateur and hobby type offering, and of course free. And also that the authors have real lives and other priorities, etc. etc. etc. I would never hold it against any of them or think bad of them for not completing a story. Yet it has still become too much for me to add to my "waiting for more" list, unless I know they are coming regularly.
I think part of the problem with the old "complete" & "ongoing" tags was anyone could toggle them. I wonder how many people clicked on "complete" thinking it was a tag linking to complete stories. Also that a post need to be one or the other and just randomly(unintentionally) ended up as either sometimes, when authors were not paying attention to the function..
Another part of the problem is multi books series add a bit of confusion the concept of complete. And then there are short stand alone stories that do stand alone, yet became the intro for something larger.
*sends a burst of pixie dust to encourage the muses of those with stalled stories*
~Hypatia ..:::
It's A Miracle!!!
I totally understand the suggestion.
Yet, can you imagine the angst involved in declaring a loved project deceased?
Readers need to understand that they're reading serials at their own risk. The customary implied contract with the author to tell a complete tale simply does NOT exist in this setting. The authors on this site are agreeing that they will finish the story "IF". That "IF" is all encompassing.
If they don't have something more important to do.
If they don't find some project that is more interesting.
If the story doesn't become too entangled to sort.
If, if, if, if . . ..
My ego tells me I'm an above average writer. I don't write serials because I don't have the talent to do it. When I start a story I have a fairly good outline of where it will go. Most often that outline becomes laughable while I learn about characters or a story arc exposes a new conflict. I'm constantly going back to the beginning and making huge edits in earlier chapters to allow for changes. My guess is I would almost always give up in frustration when I realize I've painted myself into a corner. I would want to quit every time I decided my story could have been soooooo much better if I could just change come things in the previous chapters that are already posted. I read once that Melville changed the entire focus of Moby Dick after he'd written the first chapter.
I've never not finished a story I've started, and I've posted dozens of stories on this site. I could fill encyclopedias with the chapters I've deleted and characters I've consolidated. I couldn't have done that with a serial.
It's not so much that a lot of writers on this site never finish their serials. Rather -- it's a testament to the incredible talent and persistence of the BC authors that ANY serials are finished.
I agree with the management that such tags should NOT be used.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I totally understand the request.
I too feel frustrated when I encounter a story that's unfinished and it becomes apparent that it's become abandoned by the author. I'm most encouraged by authors that declare Chapter X of Y chapters.
I've decided that I'll never leave a posted story unfinished. That's why my hard drive contains a couple of dozen unfinished stories. The reasons they're unfinished varies. Anything from implausible setup to writing myself into a corner with no idea of how to extricate myself.
Therefore the only stories I post are the ones that flow from my fingers with little effort. My hat is off to those authors who can crank out a story that requires real work!
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Sometimes the author does not know.
Kudos and comments would provide encouragement and incentive to work on and even finish stories. Just look at the reader counts, the Kudo counts, and the Comments.
If 800 people opened your story, and you got 20 Kudos and no Comments, what would you think?
Fuck it.
Gwen
But looked at the other way
If I read a story that seems to be interesting, but has few kudos and/or comments, it doesn't matter to me.
What matters is if I find the story entertaining enough to want to read more and find out what happens. If I do, that story gets a kudos.
I generally don't have time to write comments, unless there's something that strongly moves me, or when a previous commenter says something I disagree with or requires clarification. (There are certain authors that criteria doesn't apply to.)
~ Blog entries are a different matter, of course.
Penny
not for the readers so much
the kudos and comments may influence some readers, but really they are for the author. The more of both the more incentive for the author to continue the story until complete.
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.