How *not* to ask for an update.

[icarus]

Asking for updates is fine. Even when I don't have time, it will often jog my mind about a story, and I'm flattered people want to hear more.

I finished Primer To The Dark Arts, the Beg Me For It series, The Walls of Jericho is complete and in beta review as we speak. My track record of finishing WIPs is solid. I have one WIP that I'm not going to finish, and that's A Deserving Man. It was written for someone who's just not interested in more.

But this, as requests go...

hey...

the first chapters were quite interesting but i lost it when i realized
that the story is not yet done...sorry...

can u like finish it coz it really frustrates me to read a well-written
fic without an ending...

so pls finish it already...

My first response is: No.

Comments

[ifyouweremine.livejournal.com]

o.O
Somebody actually wrote that to you?
That's awfully presumptuous of them. O_O

-Miranda

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It's not the first, but it is a fair example of some of the worst. This isn't even my first post about this strange phenomenon.

Icarus

[electricandroid.livejournal.com]

asshole, much?

*hugs you* am reading your posts (though obviously not able to comment). You're in my thought...

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

The funny thing about these reviews is that most writers think "oh, reviews!" when they see one incoming. When it contains, oh, a death threat, it brings you up short.

Thank you. Mom's having a rough time, which is sort of to be expected in her situation.

Icarus

[kuteki.livejournal.com]

Oh! Walls of Jericho is completed?! I didn't know that. Yay! I've been away and have exams right now, so I must have missed it. This makes me so very happy. All I need now is to find it. :D

Also people are stupid, really, really stupid. Apart from the rudeness I can't believe anyone could think that an email like that will get a positive response. *shakes head*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. I should be posting it complete here shortly. I'm just waiting for the edits from go_seaward, which should be done sometime this week.

Icarus

[sarka.livejournal.com]

People like that should be punished by being forbidden to read anything but drabbles for a whole year.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

LOLOLOLOL! Oh, that's good. But I have another one:

People like that will be required to finish one novel-length fic. Yes, with edits.

Icarus

[cordelia_v]

I started to process a comment on that, but the spelling and syntax on that one brought me to a dead halt. Is this a new dialect, that I'm unfamiliar with?

At any rate, I'm hoping that the person wasn't asking for completion of either "Reunion" or "Snape Manor," since that might have put you off finishing either one. And I'm still clinging to hope on both (especially the latter), because I think that perhaps HBP might inspire you to revisit either or both WiPs.

But I'm bemused (to put it politely) to think that there are people who believe you can place an author under Imperius to write on command, and think that such a request gets anyone's creative juices flowing.

*back to work. I'm drowing in work, the next 6 weeks. I should place a charm on the PC so that I get an electric shock if I even log on to LJ*

ZZZZOTZZ!!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

That was your electric shock. Like the amps? *Icarus cracks the whip* Now back to work.

It was Reunion, and I've received threats to finish WIPs in the past (Snape Manor), so this is nothing new. Just... this was an unusually rude example.

I agree with you that HBP will likely spark more HP writing. Snape Manor is haunting me still.

Icarus

Re: ZZZZOTZZ!!

[cordelia_v]

Oh, I hope it haunts you mercilessly, appearing to you in the dead of night, bloody and dripping with plot bunnies.

*zzzzzt* shocked again! Only two more essays to go, and then I can fill out my grade rosters.

[cheshyre]

I have several longer fics which I've abandoned for various reasons. But as WIPs I showed them to a few people (and there are some gems I'm rather proud of in the finished portions)

What I'm *planning* on doing is posting them as-is to my fanfic page with a "overview of the rest of the story" so interested readers aren't left hanging. Pull together my outline and some later scenes I'd worked up, and that way people can at least know where I intended to go with it, even if I don't have it written out in fully polished prose.
I liked your brief description of the post "Beg Me For It" scene you never wrote, and would consider that as worth of a link on your fiction page as DVD commentary posts or essays about the writing of the fic.

[Then again, I also paid for a video of the unfinished Dr. Who episode "Shada" with silent-movie cards describing missing scenes or effects and the latter half of the episode merely a narration.]

[teaphile.livejournal.com]

What I'm *planning* on doing is posting them as-is to my fanfic page with a "overview of the rest of the story" so interested readers aren't left hanging. Pull together my outline and some later scenes I'd worked up, and that way people can at least know where I intended to go with it, even if I don't have it written out in fully polished prose.

I've done that, for wip_amnesty. If nothing else, it assuages any remaining guilt you have about not finishing.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I did that with "An Elegant Man" and then actually ended up finishing it.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'd only do that with stories that I don't intend to finish. Say, A Deserving Man. Or the little bit of story I cut from Beg Me For It (for good reason). But I'd never do that with a story I plan to write. I mean, that'd completely spoil it.

Icarus

[teaphile.livejournal.com]

*snort* Anyone who "lost it" over an unfinished story doesn't deserve to read the good stuff.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to tell her that Reunion is a story that was started in spring 2003 and gets updated, oh, about once a year. I've never promised speed on that story.

Icarus

[amethyst-lupin.livejournal.com]

You're the second person on my friend list that has posted something to this affect today... stupid people, whatever happened to manners?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Could it be the reviewer? Heck, I've no problem with reviews, my attitude is "More, please?" But, you know, a "please and thank you" or some indication why she liked the fic instead of how much she hated seeing it end.

I wonder if she doesn't know about WIPs and how prevalent they are in HP fanfic? 'Cause she's in for a shocker: guess what? Draco Veritas isn't finished either. So... nah, nah.

(I'm sick. I'm allowed an immature response.)

Icarus