Novel project gone sour

[Liar]

Some advise, please. I have this novel series I'm posting here, where I have so far come to chapter 6 out of an estimate of maybe 20. Reponse and ratings are good, but my own response to it is not as good. I simply don't care for it anymore, writing it is not fun. So I probably won't continue it.

So, should I leave it be, or take it off the site? I mean, each chapter contains enough entertainment to be a standalone piece, but the plot might feel weird unless you get the whole deal. On the other hand, reading half a novel, or even less, might just annoy people.

Let 'em be or yank 'em? WWYD. What Would You Do?

 

[tolyk]

Personally, I would hate to lose that much work. What I would do is go back and read them all and find the point where you stopped liking your own work. Then scrap it from there and do it over.

 

[rgraham666]

Leave 'em. Use the feedback that comes in to boost your ego.

Who knows? In the future, you might come back to it.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Some advise, please. I have this novel series I'm posting here, where I have so far come to chapter 6 out of an estimate of maybe 20. Reponse and ratings are good, but my own response to it is not as good. I simply don't care for it anymore, writing it is not fun. So I probably won't continue it.

So, should I leave it be, or take it off the site? I mean, each chapter contains enough entertainment to be a standalone piece, but the plot might feel weird unless you get the whole deal. On the other hand, reading half a novel, or even less, might just annoy people.

Let 'em be or yank 'em? WWYD. What Would You Do?

I would say leave it Liar. Who knows what will happen down the road and apiece you have no ffeelings for at the moment may reignite. If each works as a stand alone story, then you really have no impetus to remove them, it isn't as if you have a deadline to finish. I let the fourth chapter of football Widow sit along time before I found a renewed interest in the work and finished it. That renewed interest was out of the blue, no reason I could see, I just suddenly heard the characters talking to me again.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Some advise, please. I have this novel series I'm posting here, where I have so far come to chapter 6 out of an estimate of maybe 20. Reponse and ratings are good, but my own response to it is not as good. I simply don't care for it anymore, writing it is not fun. So I probably won't continue it.

So, should I leave it be, or take it off the site? I mean, each chapter contains enough entertainment to be a standalone piece, but the plot might feel weird unless you get the whole deal. On the other hand, reading half a novel, or even less, might just annoy people.

Let 'em be or yank 'em? WWYD. What Would You Do?

Let 'em be, Liar. If you're in a nihilistic mood, you might kill off all your major characters and finish with a couple minor characters talking about how life's a bitch and then you die. Just make sure you leave a loophole so you can bring 'em back to life if you decide to restart the series.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[cantdog]

Rumply's idea could be 'way fun to write!

But I'd yank 'em. I do lots of lengthy work, and I've decided that I won't post 'em any more until I have them all complete. For me, folk would have a legitimate beef if the novel never finishes. Plus, if I should ever want to revise any posted sections, I've been nailed to what's put up, unless I want to be unfair to the folks who have been reading it right along. That's my decision. You obviously can't do that, under the circumstances.

But doing a Reichenbach Falls or Twin Peaks thing, just truncating the story, might be a really keen challenge.

cantdog

 

[English Lady]

Leave'em be Liar love. You never know when you might feel inspired to continue the tale and I think it'd be a shame to pull a whole 6 stories

 

[Weird Harold]

Personally, I would hate to lose that much work. What I would do is go back and read them all and find the point where you stopped liking your own work. Then scrap it from there and do it over.

Pull the posted chapters or post a final chapter, but don't leave a half finished novel hanging.

Save the chapters on your sytem so that you can go back to it when and if interest ever revives.

 

[wishfulthinking]

I'm up to ch.11 in a series, and I can tell you that ch's 5 & 6 were simply the hardest things for me to write! I don't know why - perhaps the intro was over, the characters explored indepth, it was on the path to where it was intended to end up - and the challenge had gone?

I left it for a long while, because the interest and motivation for that series had left me. And all the "when's the next chapter?" feedback nailed the coffin on the motivation thing, and had the reverse effect.

Leave them, and perhaps in several months time the interest will come back. But don't force it, don't think about it. Work on something fresh and new. This helped me, as each time I finished a chapter, I would then write something else to give me a breather, and once that was completed then I wrote the next chapter.

Anyone got change for a dollar?

 

[tolyk]

Pull the posted chapters or post a final chapter, but don't leave a half finished novel hanging.

Save the chapters on your sytem so that you can go back to it when and if interest ever revives.

Personally I see no difference in leaving them be and coming back to them later, than there would be from writing them and submitting them one at a time. People would just assume the next installation is taking longer.

(Then again, this might be due to the fact that I am an extremely slow writer and I never expect others to churn out works every month or something)

 

[Weird Harold]

Personally I see no difference in leaving them be and coming back to them later, than there would be from writing them and submitting them one at a time. People would just assume the next installation is taking longer.

Leaving an abandoned story posted could have an adverse effect on other story's scores.

I tend to abandon authors who leave stories unfinished. Even though I'm not vindictive enough to down-vote or denigrate their other works because of an unfinished story, I seem to be somewhat unusual inthat respect.

Either way, leaving an unfinished story hanging online for a year or two is bound to frustrate anyone who wants to see the end of it and frustrating your fans is not a good way to build or maintain a reputation.

 

[cantdog]

Exactly.

I'd yank 'em. I'm not leaving an unfinished work up again. They can wait for the whole novel much easier than they can for the next installment of a series. And a series with no deadlines is just a fuckin hobby.

 

[Blackie Malone]

Leave em...........but don't ever pulll this novel writing shit again, what do you think you are...some kind of author or something???

 

[wornoutkeyboard]

Personally... I find that I begin to loathe my characters after a while...or I just simply don't like the direction the story progressed to but feel incapable of changing it. I always keep thw work because many times I go back like 6 months later and I find I'm no longer arguing with it.

~WOK (Who argues with herself)

 

[Liar]

Exactly.

I'd yank 'em. I'm not leaving an unfinished work up again. They can wait for the whole novel much easier than they can for the next installment of a series. And a series with no deadlines is just a fuckin hobby.

Ya think this is my job or something? Of course it's a fuckin hobby.

ANyhoo, you're right. I'll go with yours and WH's suggestion. Take them down and keep them stored until I might have the urge to finish them.

Thanks for the input, y'all.

#L

 

[lil_elvis]

I'm currently working on something that will contain multiple chapters, but won't submit it until all of them are done. I don't want to put up something that's not finished and depending how it finally resolves itself, earlier chapters might need revision to keep the story/characters consitent.

20/20 hindsight...just what you wanted to hear

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I've had an unfinished novel up for over a year now and haven't heard anything about it.

I'd originally finished it, but people werent happy with the ending and so I pulled the last chapter. Never figured out an alternate ending that I liked, so there it sits.

I don't think it matters much. No one reads novels anyhow, do they?

---Zoot

 

[cantdog]

More's the pity, no, they don't.