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To post WIPs or not?
Aug. 24th, 2020 10:00 pmMy policy has always been (well, other than the first handful of fics I posted back when I was like a teenager on ff.n, lol) not to post WIPs, for a couple reasons:
- I might have to make edits to early parts of the fic later per recommendations from a beta, or because the plot didn't work or something like that. If it's not posted before I finish it, no one will know how it was, only the finished product.
- I don't want to get anyone's hopes up for completed fic when chances are very good that if I quit writing a fic, I will never pick it back up again. (The only thing I've found that can change that is a good alpha reader willing to live chat with me about it.)
- For any longer fic, I wouldn't necessarily know where to put the chapter breaks until I saw the whole fic as a whole.
However, I've wondered whether I should rethink that policy, with the following supporting posting my WIPs (even if just to a collection that I create, like "Doranwen's WIPs" or something like that):
- People will at least be able to read what I have; as long as they know not to expect more, that's better than nothing for some. I read WIPs all the time, for instance. Some of my favorite fics are permanent WIPs. I wish they were finished but am infinitely glad I got to at least read what there was.
- I would get comments/kudos on them, when otherwise no one might ever read them. And most of us fanfic writers live for comments. :D
- I might be able to find alpha readers for some fandoms where I don't have them currently, by posting and making it clear that the fic is on hiatus unless/until I find one, because I don't know where to go with it beyond that. People would see the fic and be aware that I'm looking for an alpha reader, whereas right now most people who might be able to help don't have a clue.
What are your thoughts on posting WIPs? Would you suggest I do so or not, and why?
EDIT: I ultimately decided to post the ones I was not actively working on and had no plans to do so anytime because of a lack of an alpha reader. Those are unlikely to ever be continued at this rate, and several are over 10k, so I'd hate all the writing I did so far to never be seen by anyone. To make sure I didn't disappoint anyone expecting completion, I added them all to a series I called Doranwen's Semi-Abandoned WIPs and added sufficient tags to each one to make it very clear that they were likely perma-WIPs and were posted just so that those who didn't mind reading perma-WIPs could read them. They've had a couple hits and that's it so far, but it feels better getting all of those words uploaded. There's still at least 12k words I couldn't post, either because I'm about to pick the fic back up with an alpha reader, or because what I have of the fic is the *middle*, not the beginning, etc., but the majority of the words are up there now. (And they're more than 1/5 of everything I've ever written!)
- I might have to make edits to early parts of the fic later per recommendations from a beta, or because the plot didn't work or something like that. If it's not posted before I finish it, no one will know how it was, only the finished product.
- I don't want to get anyone's hopes up for completed fic when chances are very good that if I quit writing a fic, I will never pick it back up again. (The only thing I've found that can change that is a good alpha reader willing to live chat with me about it.)
- For any longer fic, I wouldn't necessarily know where to put the chapter breaks until I saw the whole fic as a whole.
However, I've wondered whether I should rethink that policy, with the following supporting posting my WIPs (even if just to a collection that I create, like "Doranwen's WIPs" or something like that):
- People will at least be able to read what I have; as long as they know not to expect more, that's better than nothing for some. I read WIPs all the time, for instance. Some of my favorite fics are permanent WIPs. I wish they were finished but am infinitely glad I got to at least read what there was.
- I would get comments/kudos on them, when otherwise no one might ever read them. And most of us fanfic writers live for comments. :D
- I might be able to find alpha readers for some fandoms where I don't have them currently, by posting and making it clear that the fic is on hiatus unless/until I find one, because I don't know where to go with it beyond that. People would see the fic and be aware that I'm looking for an alpha reader, whereas right now most people who might be able to help don't have a clue.
What are your thoughts on posting WIPs? Would you suggest I do so or not, and why?
EDIT: I ultimately decided to post the ones I was not actively working on and had no plans to do so anytime because of a lack of an alpha reader. Those are unlikely to ever be continued at this rate, and several are over 10k, so I'd hate all the writing I did so far to never be seen by anyone. To make sure I didn't disappoint anyone expecting completion, I added them all to a series I called Doranwen's Semi-Abandoned WIPs and added sufficient tags to each one to make it very clear that they were likely perma-WIPs and were posted just so that those who didn't mind reading perma-WIPs could read them. They've had a couple hits and that's it so far, but it feels better getting all of those words uploaded. There's still at least 12k words I couldn't post, either because I'm about to pick the fic back up with an alpha reader, or because what I have of the fic is the *middle*, not the beginning, etc., but the majority of the words are up there now. (And they're more than 1/5 of everything I've ever written!)
