#long wips

[sulkybender-retired04042026]

I wish there was a button on ao3 next to "subscribe" called "wake me up when it's done"

[winter2112rose]

The readers poll I did about reading unfinished stories, for me, revealed surprising results. I generally wasn't expecting the (albeit small amount of people) poll to reveal that readers don't mind if a story isn't completed before posting.

It must be something that just annoys me. I know the fandom is very quiet, but after four years working on stories two multi chapter ones. I'm sure you can guess one of those stories?

This may seem selfish or arrogant but I don't want to leave them in a folder never to be shared. At this point even if I just post them to say I did it for me. To help me get past the terror and nerves I get at sharing my work. With my change in career pending I need to get past that and fast!

So one day soon, if I feel confident enough maybe I will get past the felling of guilt/nervousness/uncertainty at posting a story that isn’t completed. Just so I can say I've finally been brave enough to share these stories that mean so much to me.

To those that do post their stories unbeta’d, not completed and go with the flow without a care. I admire you and thank you for keeping our little corner of fandom going.

But I’d also love to know how you do it?

What advice do you have ?

Rant over

Love a pathetic

❄️🌹

[rented-space]

I’m sure you’re all sick of wips and no results...sorry about that...

[barbex]

Woes of longfic writing:

You take so long that the game/show/series you originally started writing for has moved on to the third sequel by now

By the time you finish, the fandom has moved on to other shores

You see your fic drop off rec lists because even in a fading fandom, new fics are still more exciting than old WIPs

You yourself and how you write has changed so much that you contemplate rewriting and editing the WIP, again -- only the monumental size of that endeavor stops you

To continue the fic requires rereading the fic and that already takes days of time you don’t have

You can only continue by keeping the fic on AO3 open in another tab, showing the entire work and Ctrl-F through the mentions of names you made up

You know you foreshadowed something at some point but you forgot what it was and where it was

The longer the fic grows, the fewer readers are willing or able to commit to such a long thing

The longer you write it, the lonelier it gets