Why your story isn't recced...

[amalthia]

Okay so your story is beta read, you're getting a ton of feedback, chances are I may have left feedback but I'm not reccing it, so what's going on?

There is a good chance you're hitting one of my biggest pet peeves. Posting a completed story over a period of days instead of all at once. If I find the story after it's all parts are posted there is a good chance I'll rec and feedback the fic...but lately because I am actively reading and looking for fics I'm running into this more often.

I rarely leave feedback for these stories and I'll probably never recommend the story unless enough years go by and I completely forget the author did that to the story. (but honestly, I'm not likely to forget because it gets to me on so many levels anytime I see the story I get upset all over again)

Now some people may be wondering..."but you recommend WIP..." yeah well I never said I was rational. For some reason WIP don't make me upset the same way. I wrote about this once trying to figure out why WIP work better than completed stories that are chopped into pieces...I think WIP have better story flow than completed stories that break off at an arbitrary word count number.

I guess for me I feel like the author is jerking my chain by not posting the entire story at once. It feels like a cheap ploy to gain more feedback and well this whole deal pisses me off. (I know this probably isn't the reason why some authors decide to post their completed fic over a period of days but I don't understand if the story is complete why not post it all at once and if it's not finished then why is the author saying it's complete?)

Anyway, I've been seeing this around a bit more lately and I'm baffled.

Comments

[tzi.livejournal.com]

Actually, with us, I think it's a case of, "Okay, tizzy's proofed *this much* and she's working on the rest, so... go!" =D That and there's a limited amount of time in the day. With us, though, you KNOW it's done and you KNOW we're gonna get it up. *contemplates* Mostly because the effort it takes to space stuff out is really really too MUCH effort, if we've got it ready to go.

Because, really? I am SO lazy. ^_~

[amalthia]

but yeah I remember seeing you guys saying something along the lines of "the rest is still getting proofread but we promise it's finished" I don't consider a story finished finished until it's back from the beta reader so I consider the story still a WIP.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

Also? They post in LARGE chunks, and they post as close to at least once a day as possible. Which I think makes a huge difference.

As you said above, 3000 word chunks? Yeah. Whatever. If the story is finished, the only reason in my mind to break it up is the LJ word limit, website issues or it really is that large, or it really is separate arcs like that.

[amalthia]

See I think i'm a lot more sympathetic when the story is 50k and the author is posting 10k a day to avoid spamming their flist. (though I think I need to advocate this backdate thing a little more) that 5k a day crap just doesn't fly with me.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

*nods* I'm cowriting something right now that's almost 60k in words and as a compromise with my cowriters feelings, we're going to post a chunk or two a day, but it'll be as close to the LJ word limit counts as possible (i.e. no cutting a scene off in the middle).

I'm mostly okay with that because it's not long enough between chunks that people might forget what happened AND it'll be nice 10 - 20k chunks.

[amalthia]

well I look forward to reading the story but...um yeah I'm already feeling dissapointed in a way. but I get that you have co-writers. So far I've been very lucky that most of my favorite authors do post their fics all at once if they are completed. but yay! 60k word story. :)

and I just read something that made me laugh and feel a bit sad at the same time. Something about being damned if they'd post their 20k word "epic" all at once and miss out on the feedback because people are lazy.

[tzi.livejournal.com]

He =D Some things just get posted daily because it's too big for efiction to handle and we're limited on time, too. But it all GETS posted and you know it's coming. *nods* Kat and Vicky put out 15K words a *day* for some things (I think it was "All That I Am" that they threw together for GL in a three day period, and it worked out to 40K. I guess with us it's as much a size issue as an issue of going-over-this-for-the-fourteenth-time-even-though-I'm-third-on-the-beta-list. =D

The fact that forty pages of fic is "short" for us, and we get excited when we come within 1500 words of the 1000 word flashflic "limit" is probably a bad sign, isn't it? =D

[amalthia]

I'm still puzzled as to why you can't post longer fics into efiction? I'm using version 2.5 and I'm able to post some rather long chapters.

the thing is in all the time i've been reading your stories I've never come across you guys saying a story is complete until you actually had it completely posted. :)

I also have trouble meeting the flashfic requirements. :)

[tzi.livejournal.com]

Well, the nice thing about efiction is it lets us SAY whether it's complete or not ^__^ Regardless of how long the chapters are. I like that part.

[amalthia]

good point. :) basically, in all the years I've been reading fiction by you I never seen you post 2k words a day for a 20k story stretching it out to garner more feedback. (which is what some people do!)

[tzi.livejournal.com]

Pfft. I don't care if there's feedback or there isn't, since I'm in it for the "entertaining myself" part =D But yes. I so get that. Kat doesn't read WIP at all, and I have a tendency to wait to the end unless someone recs it as being particularly fabulous. *nods*

...seriously? 2k words per DAY? Jesus fuck. That'd take more effort just to work it OUT than... Well, look, we have *scenes* that go on further than that. That just wouldn't work at all. *sniff*

[amalthia]

I know! posting stories is hard work I don't even wnat to think about splitting up stories even more and making links to connect them all...but i've seen some weird stunts on the net.