#Or get partway through a fic; grow bored/stuck; and never write for that fic again

[dracothedeatheatingcupcake-ao3]

Hey all! So, I have a question that I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I wanted all of y’all’s opinion on it.

So, I have multiple, multiple WIP fics that I’ve never, ever published. Some of them are halfway through, while others are closer to the beginning than the end. I’ve never been a fan of posting WIP fics since there’s always a pressure I put on myself to finish them, but I know that once I stop writing a WIP, it will never be finished. Literally, I have never finished a WIP I abandoned (and yes, I’m starting to think my Bowuigi fic is going to go into that category, I’m sorry to all who enjoy it.)

Anyway. What I wanted to know is if anyone would be interested in reading a fic they know won’t ever be finished. Because I’ll read these WIPs sometimes and I honestly really enjoy them! Even if I never read the ending, I enjoyed the process of reading them, especially since I have the vague knowledge of where I wanted to go with it. I want to share these fics with the world, but I’m afraid that people will be disappointed or off put by the fact that they’re unfinished and likely will always remain that way.

So! I wanted to ask, in a more general, non-specific to any particular fandom way. Would you ever be interested in reading a fic you knew was never going to be finished? Would it be better if you had a synopsis of the rest of the story that would never be finished, kind of like a “after the events here, Character A and B got into a huge fight that made them both cry. Then they ran off and talked to their friends. Then—“ so on and so forth, but better written than that. Just a taciturn telling of the events so you know where it was supposed to go, even if it’s not written. I also want to know if you would prefer it if the fic writer (me in this case) kept it separate from their usual fics, perhaps in a new account.

I’m just curious, so I’ll put a poll. It’s not necessarily about my writing specifically, but just in general.

Without further ado…

Anyway, just let me know! I really like some of my abandoned WIP works and really like the writing, but I just… I just can’t find it in myself to continue. I don’t know why, I just get a block and for me, it’s impossible to overcome it. None of those posts about how to overcome writer’s block work for me, and at this point I’ve come to not worry myself over abandoning fics. I write for fun, and if writing just becomes stressful and unenjoyable, I prefer to leave it than stress. But I still love the WIPs I wrote and want to share them, even if they’ll never be finished.

(Also, I do know that ultimately this is my decision and I can post whatever I want. I more just want to know what all of y’all think about this. I write for me, but I post for others, and I want to know what others would want to see in this case. If that makes sense.)

[curiosity-killed]

Fic writer meme 2 electric boogaloo

Ty for the tag @veliseraptor & @mikkeneko ^-^

Tagging @aurumdalseni @gusu-emilu @hoarder-of-stories-27 @xihe-jun @perkynurples if you wanna but no pressure!

(under cut bc LONG)

How many works do you have on AO3? 

118

What’s your total AO3 word count? 

994,456 which makes me happy for no good reason except that it means I have written well over a million words total (including original fic and unpublished works) and that I will tip over that mark on AO3 itself when I post my next wip 🎉

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? 

7: Voltron, MCU, Assassin’s Creed, MDZS/CQL, Supernatural, TGCF, and WOH

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 

Oh this actually makes me happy bc the middle three are my favorites of my own fics 🥰🥰

a bow for the bad decisions (2671)

upon this altar (1121)

whipstitch (1095)

of swords and wings (975)

the dead horse (965)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yep! I generally try to respond to comments both as a thank you and because I find the conversations there super super rewarding! That said, I generally don’t reply to comments that: annoy me (okay sometimes I do bc I’m petty), are super old and I forgot to reply, or are from someone reading a finished fic chapter by chapter (I am SO appreciative and delighted by those comments but I feel bad replying like a week later when you’ve already finished the fic orz so I usually just reply to the latest comment)

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

off hesperus LMAO yeah uh…can’t think of anything that really comes even distantly in second

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Nah. My first fic was a crossover of MCU & Norse myth but I don’t really enjoy reading or writing crossovers

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

mm sort of I guess? I’ve gotten people with their pants in a twist especially over whipstitch (the iconic “wwx whump fetishist who only wants lwj to nut” DOES live in my mind rent-free and crack me up ngl) which is why I turned off anonymous comments till about after it was done. Mostly I’ve just gotten people yelling about how much they hate certain characters I clearly care about which is less hate and more ?? Sir this is a Wendy’s

Do you write smut? if so what kind? 

Very rarely & usually the half-finished kind bc I get bored partway through writing it 😅

Have you ever had a fic stolen? 

Not that I know of! I hope not lol

Have you ever had a fic translated? 

Yes!! and if she leads was translated into mandarin by AlllltheFish …I am still jazzed about it

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope!

What’s your all time favorite ship?

I’m boring but I don’t really have one? I tend to like different ships for different reasons that make them meaningful and important to me in a given moment so 😅 if I had to pick, I’d probably say AltMal and Hualian—the hurt/comfort, acceptance, and individual characters make them pretty lasting loves for me

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

:’) so many.

nah, in all seriousness I don’t like to say things are abandoned because I tend to circle back to old ideas eventually. Ones I actually don’t think will ever be finished are: (1) the post-canon tgcf fic from the POV of hua cheng��s middle brother, (2) the AU where wwx grows up on Baoshan Sanren’s mountain, (3) the sequel to ‘i have watched you down the mountain’ where lxc and lwj work together to prevent some of the canon tragedies, and (4) the hualian pygmalion AU that was my first long-fic i started in this fandom 

What are your writing strengths? ah I hate this question despite having just answered it lmao I think I’m good at sort of immersing a reader in the story? Like I tend to write pretty visceral descriptions and stick to a relatively deep POV and based on reader reactions, that seems to somewhat effectively make people feel...a lot...??

What are your writing weaknesses? My biggest weaknesses come from structure imo. I have a really really hard time planning stories which leads to me getting stuck partway through the story and either having to force myself to trudge through it or abandoning the story because I don’t know what happens. Pacing is another definite struggle zone—I have a tendency to bounce from “30k of introspection” to “oh fuck all the plot has to happen RIGHT NOW.” And I almost never proofread! So there’s uh some struggle zones

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? Depends on the moment and purpose? In the context of CQL/MDZS & TGCF I tend to leave it for terms that are a) hard to translate well and b) well-known in the fandom/audience I’m writing for (e.g., familial terms like jiujiu or xiao-shu, martial family terms, occasionally units of measurement). 

I don’t mind it in certain other settings, again going back to where it would be difficult or clunky or lose important meaning in translation or if it’s used like…purposefully?? God I’m making no sense but like…I think there are times when another language is more effective, and perhaps more importantly, the switch matters. Like...there’s a part in Station Eleven where a character is suddenly cut off from his loved ones and sort of watching the apocalypse happen in real-time and his thoughts get kind of hung up on tu me manques—not ‘I miss you’ but the French where the structure more emphasizes ‘you are missing from me’—and I think that’s a great example of times where the switch matters both because of how it makes the reader shift their thinking briefly and of filling out a character and the emotional impact of a moment.

....no idea if that makes sense

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

MCU ;____;

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Three way tie between whipstitch, of swords and wings, and upon this altar, with whipstitch just barely beating out the other two!