Old unfinished stories

[coyote62]

I hope some of the writers can either rewrite or finish stories that have been left untouched. One story in mind is The Girly Boy. It was part one but has since not been touched. So many good stories but left untouched for years. If the writer is not on Lit anymore for 2 years someone should be able to pick it up provided the previous writer is mentioned....

My thoughts.... For God Sake ginish the dam stories please!!!

 

[NotWise]

I hope some of the writers can either rewrite or finish stories that have been left untouched. One story in mind is The Girly Boy. It was part one but has since not been touched. So many good stories but left untouched for years. If the writer is not on Lit anymore for 2 years someone should be able to pick it up provided the previous writer is mentioned....

My thoughts.... For God Sake ginish the dam stories please!!!

I've heard that sentiment before.

I have an old, as yet unfinished series that I'm trying to close up. It's hard. Trying to write something I'm not really feeling is killing me.

The right approach is to have it all written before any of it is published.

 

[KeithD]

If the writer is not on Lit anymore for 2 years someone should be able to pick it up provided the previous writer is mentioned....

Not without the original writers written permission, no.

This topic comes up periodically here. The answer continues to be no.

 

[ElectricBlue]

If the writer is not on Lit anymore for 2 years someone should be able to pick it up provided the previous writer is mentioned....

Umm, no. All rights (copyright, moral, whatever) to a story remain with the author and only the author. No-one has the right to step in and "finish" someone else's story, not without explicit permission from the author.

You'd be better off pleading with someone to write an original piece (which might be similar); but writers really should develop their own characters and story lines, not purloin someone else's.

 

[Emirus]

Complete or unfinished - that is the question

. The right approach is to have it all written before any of it is published.

If the series is only going to be a few chapters then to me the sensible thing to do is complete it before you submit it with the submissions about five days apart. With a series of that length you surely must have the storyline set in your head before you begin writing and just need to connect the dots from A to Z.

I’m in the process of writing such a series, my first, and I must admit I’m not finding it easy. I think the problem is I’m used to writing stand alone stories and, although I know the story I want to tell, I’m finding it difficult not to write a series of stand alone stories connected by common characters. Which is not, to me, what a series is about. So the series will be completely finished before I submit it. Underneath the title of the first chapter, in bold or italics will be the sentence: this is the first of a seven chapter series. Right through to: this is the final chapter of a seven chapter series.

If writing a longer series you still have to have the complete story in mind but perhaps not so much defined that you can say how many chapters it’s going to be. But you must have a basic idea of what you want each chapter to say. You’ve also got to publish chapters at regular intervals so your reader knows approximately how long they will have to wait not wonder whether the next chapter will be in one month or six months. You can’t begin a series and then meander around until you get to a conclusion. Although you might not know how many chapters it’s going to be then write: this is the first of a multi-part series; this is the second of a multi-part series etc.

 

[MColton84]

I hope some of the writers can either rewrite or finish stories that have been left untouched. One story in mind is The Girly Boy. It was part one but has since not been touched. So many good stories but left untouched for years. If the writer is not on Lit anymore for 2 years someone should be able to pick it up provided the previous writer is mentioned....

My thoughts.... For God Sake ginish the dam stories please!!!

Me personally, I don't have a problem with someone picking up a story that I've left untouched or unfinished, especially for that long. However, that would of course be with my consent. That having been said, I don't think that it would be right to Simply pick up someone's abandoned or unfinished story and continue it on without their permission. Ultimately it is their story to finish or abandon, something that the readers will simply have to live with.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I've heard that sentiment before.

I have an old, as yet unfinished series that I'm trying to close up. It's hard. Trying to write something I'm not really feeling is killing me.

The right approach is to have it all written before any of it is published.

Yes, I agree, but as you admit it's can be difficult. The first true series I tried here took me six months before I came up with Chapter 2. Definitely a mistake on my part, but the remaining chapters mostly got decent scores.

Then there was a stand-alone story that kept generating sequels. It should have been a series but I didn't think that far ahead. It did come to a conclusion eventually.

If you're not feeling something, don't sweat it. You're higher power will eventually tell you what to do. Then again, maybe he/she won't.

 

[PaxNurgle]

I had a story I started nearly a year ago.

It was more than half finished, Then...everything shut down. Along with my entire life, My mental state, and my taste for finishing the story,- everything went into a tail spin. I still have tenative plans to go back and finish it, but it will take me a while to re-read it and remember where I was going with it.

I had not actually published any chapters of it, however. I typically would rather submit a finished story all at once (and simply have it run longer) than do it piecemeal. One reason, it allows me more freedom to revise and update parts of the story as it evolves, if the early chapters are not previously published and set in stone.

 

[RelentlessOnanism]

The question I get asked most consistently by readers is when will there be a part two to my story Boardroom Bitch. The answer is I don't know. I had intended the story to be self-contained, but then threw in a twist ending, almost on a whim.

It was a rookie mistake, and I agree with others that it's daft to publish the first part of a story if you haven't written (or at least mostly written) the whole thing.

I have no idea where to take Boardroom Bitch (or only the vaguest of ideas) and I don't know when part two will appear. I think it will at some point, but don't quote me.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I had a story I started nearly a year ago.

It was more than half finished, Then...everything shut down. Along with my entire life, My mental state, and my taste for finishing the story,- everything went into a tail spin. I still have tenative plans to go back and finish it, but it will take me a while to re-read it and remember where I was going with it.

I had not actually published any chapters of it, however. I typically would rather submit a finished story all at once (and simply have it run longer) than do it piecemeal. One reason, it allows me more freedom to revise and update parts of the story as it evolves, if the early chapters are not previously published and set in stone.

I write even when I'm in a low mood because it makes me feel better. I had a therapist a while back who said, "Just sit down and give it fifteen minutes." I wound up giving it two hours. (I had written before but I had given up on it.) Now I say to myself, "Just do it." In a short while, I get the groove back. A lot of times of course I have to spend time proofreading and reviewing existing material.

Charles Bukowski, who certainly had his share of problems, put it this way, “Basically, that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.”