I read at the archive, but it's not so much because I'm worried about stories not being completed. I've been involved with fanfiction long enough to have pretty well accepted that possibility as part of the culture and learned to live with it. I choose to read completed stories because these days I don't have the brain cells required to follow multiple WIP's - the vast majority of which (in this fandom) involve the same two leading characters and many of the same supporting characters in often similar situations.
Wait...was that the one where Clark swallowed the Kryptonite? Or maybe it was a Kryptonite bullet? Or a Kryptonite massage oil? Anyway, he got darn sick, I know that... It just gets confusing!
On the one hand, WIP's can be lovely, because they fit into those "coffee breaks" that are pretty easy to manage, whereas a four-hour read-a-thon can be awfully hard to fit into real life, but I enjoy the reading more if I can do it straight through and really enter one author's world. And when I'm writing, I stick with MY world, for better or for worse, and don't read other stories at all until mine is finished. It's just too easy for other authors' interpretations/characterizations to creep into my own writing and affect the internal consistency of the story.
Just the new girl's .02
Caroline
