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

[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