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updating stories

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mare:
What are your views on stories that take forever to update? Do you find that you still jump to read them, or that you have to go back and reread the last few chapters before you continue on?

It would grate on my nerves when people would take forever to update but then say I would love a review please!! Or maybe you'll have to go back and reread to see what happened last but then don't forget to review me!! lol

I mean is it fair as writers to expect people to continue reading our stuff even if we take a long time to update inbetween chapters?

I was thinking of putting up a recap chapter as a little 'before I post my real one here's what happened so far.' Do you think that's a good idea? Because it's been a very long time since I even thought about writing on Scars and I realized if I can't remember what the last thing that happened was, how do I expect my readers to? And what's worse is why should I expect my readers to have to go back and reread things just because I haven't had the desire to write?

I used to have a huge problem with authors who took forever to update between chapters but now i've become one of them.  :-\

Teri:
I try to update as often as I can. But sometimes one story begins to take precedence over the others and you want to finish that before going on to the others. And yeah it's pretty hard to keep up to date with all of them when you have like 50 billion stories going on, but if people are loyal enough they'll come back to it eventually I think.

RokofAges75:
Most of my favorite stories are the kind that are/were only updated every few months.  I've just learned to get used to it.  If the story is good enough, it's worth the wait.  Sometimes I do have to backtrack a little and read the last chapter or two to refresh my memory about what's going on, but that's okay.  Again, if the story is good enough, I can get right back into it once I do that.

From the writer standpoint, I used to update every single day.  I would churn out at least one chapter a day, sometimes more than one.  This was back when my chapters were really short, only a couple of pages, but even so.  To write 2+ pages every single day is impressive, but I didn't think anything of it at the time.  I was obsessed with fanfic, I loved writing, I had endless ideas, and somehow I had a lot of time to write.

Then I only started to update every few days... and then about once a week... and now it's more like once or twice a month.  I'm still not as bad as the ones who take six months to get together an update, but I wish I could update more regularly.  I'm honestly just too busy though.  It's not that I don't want to write; I just don't have the time... or the energy, most days, cause I'm so tired.  But my love for it is still there, and I guess that's what really matters.  As a reader, as long as I know an update IS coming, I can wait for it.  It's authors who just disappear that bug me.

rebellious_one:
Wow... interesting question. Seriously, I think it's all up to the readers. Sure I get a little antsy when I'm reading a really good story, and there's no update from them for a while, and I do have to do a little backtrack to get myself back in tune with the story, but here's how I look at it; if the story's good, and the reader is interested, they'll come back for more when it's there for them. They might have to see where they last left off, but I've come to realize when a story captures you, it's hard for you to forget what it was about. That's how it was with my story "Satan's Playground", I posted it at a completely different site, came back here to post it and try to complete it and someone from Vaffel found it here was all like "I remember reading this story a long time ago on another site, I loved this story and I'm glad there's an update."

So like I said, it's all up to the reader. I've been that way with many stories that are incomplete but have slow updates (not mentioning any names Mare, Mers and Julie!! Lol.) I do my backtracking, and continue on with the update. Is it a hassle? No, because I'm interested in the story, obviously the story captivated me when I began reading it. Sure, people tend to lose interest if it's not updated for the longest, but it's funny because as soon as there is an update, people do come swarming back to read it, but everyone's different. I've lost a few of my readers, but the thing is they have to understand that authors do have lives to live, things to do... maybe they're just too busy to get around to their stories, or maybe they're suffering from writer's block, and that's something pretty serious with authors, lol. I mean, it takes a while for an author to complete a good novel, and that's how I look at fanfiction. If anything, updating stories is a task for me personally because I have to do MAJOR backtracking to see where I left off and how the story was suppose to go anyway, lol.

honey:
I sort of agree with everyone. Well, all three who've given an opinion so far. If the story is good people will want to finish it when they can. I think we're all pretty understanding in this area because we're all facing the same challenge. When it comes down to it, how high up is writing fan fiction on your daily list of priorities? It's not that we don't love it, it just takes time that many of us don't have.  So from a writers standpoint, I'd say that if you honestly do plan on continuing with a story but it's just slow going, then by all means, don't worry about your readers, they'll understand. But, if you really don't intend to finish something for whatever reason, then please show a little respect to the people who take the time to read your work by letting them know or taking the unfinished story down so that they aren't left wondering forever.

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