Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Authors, how do you use these boards?

There's been some discussion lately regarding the hazards of unfinished stories, and it made me think about the following:

Do you see these boards primarily as a place to publish finished stories, or as a place to float a work in progress? Except for one-shot vignettes, I usually have about half of a story finished when I start posting. This is because I need the feedback to help me shape the story itself. I start out with an idea, but the reactions of my readers often bring up questions and issues that I would never consider on my own. The result is both motivation to keep pushing through when the going gets tough and, I hope, an improved story.

So, do others use feedback this way? Or is your story a finished product when you start posting? Do you make minor tweaks based on feedback, or is it primarily cheerleading for you? What about your betas? Do they get the story chapter-by-chapter, or is it finished before you contact them?

Just curious.

Yes.

Tank (who is always happy to share his process with other gentle writers)

Well, I haven't written anything for mumblemumble years, but I used to... so I'll tell you what I used to do.

I don't ever want to start posting a story without knowing how I'm planning to end it, and confident that I'll be able to wind it up in a satisfying way, because I really don't like it when I read part 1 of a fic and part 2 never materializes. I can wait patiently (take your time, Nan!) but I think if an author starts a story they've got a responsibility to readers to finish that story. Because I take that seriously, I won't start posting unless I'm sure I can post the whole thing.

That said, on longer stories (coughHeartsDividedcough), I find myself desperate for feedback (and, yes, public acclaim <g> ) so I really want to start posting. I'll wait until I have about ten parts ready to go before I post the first one, but I don't wait until the whole story's written. Inevitably, I run out of buffer at some point, though. Having a posting schedule helped me -- no, I don't feel much like writing at the moment but if I don't get this chapter finished they'll all yell at me, so I'd better try working on it anyway. If my muse saw that I was serious about writing with or without her, she'd usually buckle down and help me out. And hey, I can always go back and delete the "without her" part.

My betas get things chapter by chapter, usually (I like having about four; gives me an array of viewpoints). Their reactions let me know if I'm doing the right things. I try to get all my changes done before posting, but I've been known to tweak things based on reader feedback. More often, though, readers shape sequels. (I only planned to write My Interview with Superman. The subsequent stories are all *their* fault.

PJ

I agree with Tank!
And Pam!
No, more seriously, I *will* finish "Nighttime in the Daytime" soon, this year! I too, don't like unfinished stories and do know now how mine will end. The path there, though, is somewhat mysterious to me at this point, but it will clear up as I write. I depend on feedback for each Chapter. Feedback made a big turn in my story that I hadn't planned that way and it improved it.
So I use this board as a beta! Writing is a marathon for me, not a sprint.

As to a regular posting schedule, I try, but if life interferes, I can't do it regularly. The Chapter has to work (at least in my mind) for me to post it.

Now I have time to do it and inspiration, I'm not giving up. If I ever think of giving up, I think of Rac and "The Longest Road."

Artemis

My mindset is different from most other writers on these boards. I think.

I have a number of unfinished stories on my WIP list, some of which I know I'll never finish (for various reasons) and some I really, really want to finish but haven't yet. I have written myself into so many corners and been forced to back up so far at times that I won't post a prologue until I have the story finished and farmed out to my beta staff. I don't have to have all the chapters reviewed when I start posting, but I can't post until the story is finished.

I know, that would take some of the fun out of it for many of you, but that kind of pressure isn't fun for me - it's sheer torture. And it's because we're all different people. Neither approach is intrinsically better than the other.

I look for feedback to see if the story is getting the reader reactions I expect. Several times the gentle readers have seen things in my stories which I did not intend to include, and I sometimes tweak a scene in later chapters to account for it. And I wrote the epilogue to "Rebuilding Superman" purely because of reader comments. (And I think the story was better for it.) So I do respond to feedback, just not as much as some others do.

What an interesting discussion!

Most of my stories are one-parters; but even with multi-part stories, I make sure that my entire story is ready before I post even the first part. I do this mainly because I still feel unsure of myself as an author, and I don't want to start posting a story that I won't be able to complete, or at least to complete to my satisfaction. Doing so would be unfair to anyone who chooses to invest their time in reading what I write.

I prefer to have my entire story written before sending it to my beta readers, but sometimes if I get stuck, I'll send what I have written thus far to them in the hopes that something they question or suggest will spur me on to overcome whatever problem I am having with the plot.

Joy,
Lynn

Oh, absolutely! I don't think there's any one way to use these boards - different authors will get different things out of it.

I very rarely began posting a story before it was finished. I've never worked to an outline and so I usually only had the faintest of ideas as to how I wanted the story to end up.

Along the way, I'd find, as you say, that the feedback here on the boards often changed my mind about where I wanted to go. I've added or expanded the scenes I've planned and incorporated ideas and suggestions that appealed to me that I would never have thought of on my own.

It was always the most fun part of the process for me, bouncing ideas around in the feedback folder.

LabRat

I work in pretty much the same way as Terry. I would never post a WiP because my muse is so fickle I know there's a good chance that she will never get round to finishing it - and if my muse isn't helping me what I write will be utter bilge. You FoLCs all deserve a good, finished story rather than one that stops halfway through or one that turns into rubbish because I've forced myself to write an uninspired end. I've never been happy with anything I've written on demand.

I use the feedback on the boards to gauge how successful I've been in getting my story across. If people's comments indicate that they've read it how I wanted, then I'm happy. If someone mentions something I've completely forgotten to deal with but can be written into an up-coming post, I'll add that scene into the story. If it's something that I should have sorted out in a part that's already been posted, a particular mistake that has slipped the net, or I've just made a hash of getting my point across in that part, I'll make a note and make sure I edit it before I send it to the archives.

- Alisha (owner of a large number of WiPs that her muse seems completely bored with, but that she still hopes one day to finish.)

Pam pretty much spoke for me. I feel that I have an obligation to finish a story once I've started, but sometimes I start to post before it's done because I need the feedback to give me a little help with aspects that I'm sure need attention but I haven't thought of for myself. The readers rarely let me down.

I started Smallville a few years ago and, even knowing in general what I wanted to do, I got hopelessly blocked over what I admit were fairly petty details. So I put the story aside and wrote other things until the problems more or less resolved themselves. This is not to say that I don't still need feedback for the story, because the first issue still applies.

Nan

I personally don't post until a story is 100% finished -- or at least, until it's only requiring final edits to get it ready to go. My muse is too fickle, and my writing time too unpredictable, to lay out a posting schedule with any confidence while I'm still writing. I did that once, when I was 90% done with a WiP and figured I'd have no problem finishing ... only to have things get crazy and I ended up totally stressed out trying to get the last few chapters written. I told myself never again, LOL.

As for getting encouragement to finish or feedback on where to take a certain scene, that's what I use betas for. If I was writing regularly on a long story, I might send out chapter by chapter as they were finished ... or I might wait until I wrote myself into a corner and send out the whole thing so far to see how it was received, in hopes it would give me some fresh insight on where to go.

Once I've posted to the board, I take the feedback into account when getting the story ready for the archive. If there was a scene that confused the readers, I might add in some explanation or better sounding dialogue to clarify things. Or if a character did something that didn't ring true to the readers, I might take an extra look at his/her scenes and decide if I agree. And certainly, if readers caught typos, I was glad to hear of them! But my hope was always that anything major would have been caught during the writing and editing process -- either by myself (I reread my work constantly while writing and always try to beta my own work well before anyone else sees it) or by the other writers I enlist to give feedback along the way. My goal was always to get a story as close to "perfect" as I could before I post it.

Which is probably why it takes me so long to finish a story, LOL.

Kathy

Basically, I post because I know that if I don't I'll never get the story written - posting gives me an incentive, but it doesn't always work, I have three or four unfinished out of 100+ stories I've written (most of which aren't Lois and Clark, and one that I have finished took me six years to write!

I've been trying to finish a story for three years, but it isn't happening. In the past, I have not posted until my story is finished. Then I use the feedback to finish and polish the final before sending it to the Archive. Readers often spot things that need to be adjusted or expanded, and they help make the story baetter and stronger.

The only time I ever posted a fragment, I did so to see if it piqued readers' interests. I knew where the story was going and how it was going to end, so having the feedback encouranged me to continue with the way it was going. That was a one time thing, and I've never done it since, because I, as others have mentioned, do not like to read a story that never has an ending.

Jude

Wow. I guess I'm different than everybody else. I pretty much post each chapter about five minutes after I finish writing them. I haven't even had a beta reader in years. I tend to be a little lazy, and so I need the feedback to keep me motivated, like Marcus. Sometimes feedback can give me ideas. I usually plot my stories out ahead of time, and usually by chapter six or seven I know how they are going to end, but they get posted as I write them.

I'm really glad this discussion was started. I'm new to this board, and new to writing fanfiction. I've thought up tons of stories in my head, but I've never written them down. My love for writing has waned over the years, due to... well, I just never pushed myself very far. I wrote mostly short stories. I *did* write one piece of fiction years ago (ugh, Nsync, yes, that's embarrasing to admit), but in a way, a story I'm proud of, because I finished it.

So I had a dream a couple of months ago, and to my husband's loving insistence, I'm writing it. I came here because I had the hope of finding a beta, and the idea was also brought to mind of sharing my story here, and using feedback as another beta source to me as well.

I intend to do so (be watching out for "Dreamspell" in the unsaid future). I can't say that I'm halfway finished yet, but I have not posted as early as I had planned to because of realizing many people do not like reading an unfinished story.

This discussion here helps provide confidence, that if there is the assurance that I am *not* going to be a writer who leaves a story unfinished, there will hopefully be a patient crowd out there who will give me needed feedback, and stick through with me.

However, I am someone that isn't satisfied with posting a freshly written chapter that hasn't been looked over by my beta reader yet, who has been *so* awesome to me. I want a half decent work of writing to show. Which, because I am getting back into the habit, is a slow process for me, especially because I am getting into my nitty gritty of plot details and enlightening my readers to much-needed explanation.

So I can tell you that my *current* technique will be to make myself sit my butt down and focus more on my writing and making myself break through my writer's block, because it is easy to let Real Life sweep me up and say "I don't have time." The honest truth? Work has been busier the last several weeks, where I promise I have *not* spent time sitting at a computer writing down my story because my mind set goes into "I'm at work, and writing is work.... the two fit togehter." Nope. Never done that. Ever.

What I may end up doing is posting circumstantial questions to help me get different ideas that can help me generate more plot movement. Because I know how I want it to end, and I know what direction I'd like it steered in. I just need help figuring what happens before each turn. I think. So far. . .

Well, I’m in the group of those that never post anything until it’s finished.

As for the original question of how I use the boards. For me it’s community… and the feedback.

My long stories are very different that my short ones. Shorts generally show up out-of-the-blue fully formed. They are easy. Get them down, get them betaed, then post. No problem.

Long stories are different. When I get an idea for a long story, most of the time I don’t know the ending. While working on various stories, I have said to The Fabulous Beverly many times that I’m “looking for the end.” I don’t want to face the pressure of posting a beginning without knowing the final scene.

The other reason that I don’t post until I’ve finished a story is that I am constantly going back and changing things. If I’ve already posted a section, then any significant change isn’t fair to those that have read along.

Finally, I like the feedback. It’s fun to hear how others react to the story as it unfolds. I love chapter-by-chapter feedback. Of course, sometimes the feedback – or the lack of it – tells me I haven’t done as good a job as I’d hoped, but that is also valuable.

Lately I’ve been in a confusing place.
1. RL has been crazy busy.
2. I have hardly heard from my muse this year.
3. The ideas I have gotten are all for BIG stories that I don’t have time to work on because of ‘1’.

So right now, I’m just an infrequent observer. However, I hope to be an author again sometime.

Bob

Thanks for everyone's feedback. As I suspected, there is a wide variety of writing styles, and it sounds like we all find what works for us.

Well, I'm late to the party, but I figured I'd contribute anyway

Typically, I create an outline for a story, start to finish, before I start writing, so I at least have a basic road map, and I know where my start and end points are. I don't force myself to stick to the outline once I've started, but I've found that an outline helps me keep a basic tally of all my running plot lines, gives me a general time line for when I want to introduce new story bits, and reminds me where I want to go. If I change my mind and decide to go in a new direction while I'm writing, I always take a few nights off from writing to rewrite my outline. I *always* need to have a clear end point, or I feel like I'm flailing instead of writing.

Once I have an outline, I'll write and post chapter by chapter. I get each chapter beta-ed individually. If the audience isn't receiving something like I thought it would, I might amend future chapters and story directions, but what's posted, I consider final. I do, however, always appreciate and encourage constructive feedback even on parts I've posted and 'finished'. I say my mea culpas and use that constructive feedback as advice for the future.

I used to finish stories before I posted them, way back when I used to write shorter pieces, and I didn't mind waiting a month for feedback. But in recent years, I've started tackling projects that take me a year or more to write, not because of lack of time, but because they are so. SO. LONG.

My current WIP is about 220k words thus far. I've been working on it since May, and I've only written 14/30 planned chapters. The last long story I wrote was over 460k words, and it took me a little less than a year to complete.

I'm a procrastinator. If I have a project, I'm likely to stop working on it at some point. I rarely finish anything. *Except* my writing. I always finish that. Why? I write for myself, yes, but I also write to tell stories. To entertain people. I've come to rely on feedback as motivation to continue. I know that if there are people out there waiting to find out what happens, I'm more inclined to push through rough spots and bad evenings where I just don't feel like writing anything at all.

So, really, I use boards like these, or my livejournal, or ffnet, or what have you, as, not only a tool to help myself improve my writing, but as a motivational impetus to keep going and finish my monstrous projects.