wips: eh; utterly miniscule chapters: NO.

[cimorene]

I'm a little baffled by serial posting of works in progress. I mean, I think I know the main reasons people post that way, and I can think of some others; I just can't relate personally to them, because my inner drive to finish things (definitely before exposing them to other people) is so strong, and I don't really like reading unfinished things either unless I'm either desperate, or completely without emotional investment in the outcome. Even in the world of wips, though, I find myself confused by the ones with really short installments. I can sort of see why someone who doesn't write longer things naturally would think that between every scene was a natural place to break the story (I think they're wrong), but if that scene's barely a few hundred words? It doesn't duplicate the feel of a chapter that they must be used to from novels. I've been reading wips lately (mainly through boredom) where the length of the chapters, on film, would be roughly equivalent to the length of the teaser scene at the beginning of a tv show, before the opening credits roll. Which is just silly, and exasperating even with no emotional investment, because you're left thinking, "And...?"

Comments

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

Perhaps these people went to the same school of writing that the writer of Eragon did; most of his chapters are about three pages, one scene, and terrible.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH. If they didn't maybe they're just SOULMATES, or else they're all secretly him. Or the same age

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

they have a DEEP BOND, okay. maybe even properly described as a SOUL BOND.

[eleveninches.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way. I'd much rather wait for a whole fic to be posted than a WIP.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I usually do that, but I've been slightly short on reading material lately, in between big batches of unread stuff to read, and I tend to get desperate and read the wips when I'm out of other fic links for the day. :( Luckily, I can only be said to have any emotional investment in one of them, but oh-so-typically it's been frozen for what seems like weeks now...

[eleveninches.livejournal.com]

Arg, that sucks. I remember that from my HP days. People almost always posted fics a chapter at a time, and sometimes it took years for them to finish. And most of them never did.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh yeah I remember those wips too... I tried so hard to avoid them, and EVERY TIME I gave in I regretted it!

[stele3.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

Well, speaking as someone who has had some pretty epic-length WIPs in the past... sometimes I can't post my stories all at once due to technological issues. There's a limit on how much LJ (or IJ or any other journal) will allow you to post at once; that's why I got a Googlepage finally, but even that's got a limit (albeit, much higher than the journaling services). Going over or even right to the posting limit causes the site to freeze up and/or crash, and there goes your entire formatting, header, etc. that you've spent two hours trying to set up. No, seriously, I can't tell you the number of times that I have screamed myself hoarse at the computer because it wouldn't post my too-long chapter. I don't have, nor can I afford, a website domain of my own with unlimited posting capacities; so I've got the break the story up into bite-sized portions.

Additionally, however, I like serial stories. I suspect that you prefer movies to television? I'm the opposite, in that I like how TV can develop arcs and characters in regular installments over an entire season. It prolongs the enjoyment, and allows for a buildup of anticipation/tension, followed by relief and release once the next installment gets there, followed by another buildup for the next episode/chapter. *shrugs* Perhaps that doesn't do it for you, but I certainly enjoy it. Different strokes for different folks?

I do think there are people that exploit this setup and create teensy tiny little chapters.... that does get annoying, in that there's not enough to wait for. There's not enough release for the buildup. I'm not exactly sure why those people do it, though if pressed I would hazard a guess that they're looking for some instant gratification in the way of encouraging comments, and they don't want to wait for a longer chapter to develop, or to have the story be done.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

As I said, I can understand why some people choose to post that way. There are a lot of obvious practical reasons besides livejournal, although speaking personally I wish livejournal weren't replacing archives as a standard hosting place - it allows for incredibly annoying formatting and is frequently unsearchable and inherently disorganised, aside from the length issue (which is awfully annoying too, but more easily ignored than the other problems).

As for me, I don't really prefer movies to tv. Though in general I have a low tolerance for things that have to be watched instead of read, there's not a problem with the television format for me when I generally know in advance when the next part is coming and exactly how long it will be. This may be the case with a tiny minority of serialised fanfiction, but it's far more likely to never be finished at all in my experience.

Still, though, as I said, those issues are understandable. They're mostly a matter of what aspect of the reading experience is important to you. The real subject of the post was the bafflingly tiny installments which, as you say, could simply be feedback-bait.

[wax-jism.livejournal.com]

If you wish to have your fic archived on something that doesn't crash, I'd be happy to share some space on my domain. If you're not down with the html yourself I can make you a page, otherwise I can just hand you the keys and let you do your own thing.

[stele3.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

I would definitely want to have control of something myself - no offense intended, but I think that's always best in Internetland. People drift apart, people lose contact, and then you can't do anything about your story being up on this certain site, etc etc.

I can do some html, enough that I've figured out how to edit layouts on IJ. I'm not proficient at it by any stretch, but I can usually figure things out if properly motivated and given enough time. A bit like that adage about the monkeys and the works of William Shakespeare. *g*

[wax-jism.livejournal.com]

Well, what I've done for people in the past is I've built the basic page and handed them a template and then let them do the updating themselves. Many of these peeps have wandered off into the dark spaces of the internet and I've had little to no direct contact with them since, like, 2002 or whatever, but their pages are still active. I can assure longevity under the waxjism.org umbrella!

[almostnever.livejournal.com]

I have tons of unfinished WIPs hanging around. I posted them in unfinished form because, for each WIP, I had enough material that I felt like it made for a fun reading experience even if it wasn't done. I can't seem to write fanfic in a vacuum for long, so it's either post as I go or leave them on my hard drive forever.

My philosophy is that something is better than nothing. If I can't finish a story, I'll post a few thousand words of it and hope it's enjoyable for what it is, and that the feedback will be enough to keep me working on it. If I can't write a few thousand words of a story, I'll just post the bunny and share the idea with other fans that way.

I'd rather read other peoples' notions and snippets and orphaned chapters than not get a chance to read those things, so I post my WIPs and bunnies for other people who feel the same way as me.

Very short chapters are usually just feedback-bait, though, and are pretty lame IMO.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Like I said, I understand why people post and read that way in general even though I don't like to. But it seems to me that the logical motivations for splitting the story up like you mention don't really explain the behaviour of people who post really, really short chapters. Either it's feedback bait or perhaps a completely lacking sense of proportion and length... (although evidently many of them don't know if they'll ever write another five hundred words in advance, "feedback bait" still pretty much describes it).

[someblazingstar.livejournal.com]

I'm the same way, too; unless it's a fandom or pairing that is so small that there ARE no other options than to grit my teeth and read WIPs, I refuse. My theories are usually

a) The writers are very young and mostly post at ff.net, where >500-word chapters are shockingly common, likely because they have not developed attention spans yet.
b) The writers write mostly for the attention and comments and figure they will be more successful in hooking in more readers by posting a 10,000 word story in 20 500-word installments than in just posting the whole thing in one go.
c) The writer is squeamish about writing smut, and the story they want to write needs to have smut in it, so they draw things out as long as humanly possible by posting every scene as they write it in a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable. I REALLY hate these, since they are the most likely to have big "NC-17!!! {eventually)" warnings, even though the chapters almost never have anything even remotely dirty in them, and the most likely to never actually be completed. I WANT MY PORNS, DAMNIT!

I dunno, I'm an impatient person in general, and while I like stele3's idea about long-running stories developing arcs in theory, in practice, most WIPs I've tried to read don't so much develop as meander aimlessly and frequently run on way, way longer than is really justifiable. Plus, as a writer I would really hate to realise that the idea I have now doesn't work with what I wrote back in chapter Blah and be limited by the fact that I can't change it because people have read it, or have to go back and edit and then tell everyone they have to go read chapter Blah all over again for things to make sense, so I don't get why people show unfinished work for that reason alone.

(Of course, I can't really talk because almost everything I've ever managed to actually finish has been a vignette...but still.)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I have to say that c) never occurred to me, although a) frequently has. It's painfully clear that many of them don't realise that their 500-word half-a-scene is even unusually short for a chapter, which is understandable when you think about the average young teenager's attention span/work ethic/observational skills. Novice writers of any age tend to have a hard time putting the length of their writing in perspective, I think, because having had to work hard to produce it in the first place, they can't help seeing it as really BIG.

[someblazingstar.livejournal.com]

c) probably occurs to me because it's a problem I frequently run into in my own writing, though of course I don't post the unfinished bits for other people to read. I love reading smut, but God, writing it...ugh. It's derailed so many attempted fics of mine that it's embarrassing, so I probably notice it more when it seems like someone else's story is running in that direction, too. But re a), I can see why chopping up what looks like the huge, daunting task of a full-length fic into small, bite-sized pieces may make things seem easier for young/newbie writers - I just wish they wouldn't then POST those small pieces (especially with "please R&R! I'll post the next part when I get X number of comments!!"), as I'm sure you agree. *grumble*

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, yeah. Sometimes it's hard for me to get motivated to write in what feels like a vacuum, and I generally write fairly fast. As for being afraid of writing smut, I frequently have a certain aversion to it because, as with any action scene, it's a lot of work and easy to get wrong! Besides which, while a story frequently might feel odd without it, even in those cases you can usually skim past it without undue damage. It's a lot of work to put in. But you should probably force yourself to write it, as an exercise, like, if you want to be able to and you feel awkward with it. I've done so, before! I think practise is the only way.

[sarren.livejournal.com]

My obsession with Jim Gordon hit so hard and fast that I overcame my intense dislike of reading WIPs, because there was hardly anything else out there, and the ones on nowweretwo were getting updated regularly... but I found that the more I read the more confused I got, I couldn't remember which story was which as a new part got posted I'd have to go back and look at the last one to remind me and that's pretty much killed my enthusiasm. So now I'm just going to wait for fics to be complete. (An exception to that is noelia_g because her writing is awesome and (so far) she's updated fast and completed the fic.)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Ahahahhaa, that's exactly what happened to me, although reading wips - although I sort of hate them - is not actually that uncommon for me (I have a big appetite for reading, and tend to be willing to read wips whenever I've run out of anything else on my short To Read list, so it generally happens every few months or so that some wips will make it on there). I was in the habit of glancing over the last three chapters of each of those each time I read a new chapter! The other day I made a plot... analysis thingy¹, though, so at least I can more or less (sometimes less) remember the plot of noelia_g's and can keep it separate from the other one which was recently finished. The other two or three contenders seem to have been abandoned, which at least cuts down on the confusion! My greatest enthusiasm is still for solaras's The Clues in front of us, in spite of extended breaks and what seems like the increasing danger that it will not be finished. I love to see strong talent in a still-developing writer beginning to blossom, and can excuse weakness on her beta's part for that.


1. Standard Batman/Gordon Story Elements

1. H/C from Batman to Jim:
1a. Batman rescues Jim daringly
1b. Batman takes Jim to the Batcave
1c. Batman bandages Jim's wounds
2. H/C from Jim to Batman:
2a. Jim rescues Batman daringly
2b. Jim takes Batman to his house
2c. Jim bandages Batman's wounds
3. Bruce Wayne and Jim
3a. Bruce Wayne flirts with Jim
3b. Bruce Wayne takes Jim out on a date
3c. Bruce Wayne invites Jim to a fundraiser/gala/party
4. Jim discovering Batman's identity
4a. Jim notices something familiar about either Bruce's or Batman's mouth
4b. Jim doesn't buy Bruce's playboy act
4c. Jim discovers Bruce/Batman's identity during sex

Using these elements, most Batman/Gordon stories can be mapped out.

[sarren.livejournal.com]

The other two or three contenders seem to have been abandoned, which at least cuts down on the confusion!

Yes but more have sprung up!

My greatest enthusiasm is still for solaras's The Clues in front of us, in spite of extended breaks and what seems like the increasing danger that it will not be finished.

Oh, I loved that! I even psyched myself up and emailed her privately to ask for links to be added at the end of each chapter for ease of reading because I wanted to rec it.

And then I recced it and she stopped posting and I got in trouble from RL friends for reccing a WIP. She has updated once since then with a note about updating weekly now that school has started. I don’t know if that was more than week ago or not, it all blurs together.

I love to see strong talent in a still-developing writer beginning to blossom, and can excuse weakness on her beta's part for that.

I assumed she didn’t have a beta (I didn’t check) and was so impressed with her talent I was tempted to offer beta services, except for I already have a million things on my plate right now, plus I’d already opportuned her about the linking thing.


The other issue I had with coming into the fandom when there were already WIPs in progress was I found it a real hassle trying to find other parts of the story because of lack of any kind of systematic linking and I’d end up back at the author’s lj in order to track back. (then I figured out as long as it was on nowweretwo I could use the tags).


1. Standard Batman/Gordon Story Elements

1. H/C from Batman to Jim:
1a. Batman rescues Jim daringly
1b. Batman takes Jim to the Batcave
1c. Batman bandages Jim's wounds
2. H/C from Jim to Batman:
2a. Jim rescues Batman daringly
2b. Jim takes Batman to his house
2c. Jim bandages Batman's wounds
3. Bruce Wayne and Jim
3a. Bruce Wayne flirts with Jim
3b. Bruce Wayne takes Jim out on a date
3c. Bruce Wayne invites Jim to a fundraiser/gala/party
4. Jim discovering Batman's identity
4a. Jim notices something familiar about either Bruce's or Batman's mouth
4b. Jim doesn't buy Bruce's playboy act
4c. Jim discovers Bruce/Batman's identity during sex

Using these elements, most Batman/Gordon stories can be mapped out.

*stares at list*

*surreptitiously pushes own WIP under other stuff on the table*


But all that stuff is so much fun!!! What’s a Batman/Gordon fic without the Big Reveal?

Actually, that could be a fic challenge – writing something that doesn’t contain any of those things!

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know, my story is following these elements too, more or less (although I'm trying to make the external plot tie in and I hope my Jim rescuing Batman element will be a little unusual)! I think it's possible for a story to NOT have the big reveal, though, and that could be quite an interesting challenge.