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Hello, Naresha! You make some good points. I guess I did read some pretty bad stuff in the beginning. Anyway, I certainly was not referring to any of your works, or anyone else's that I'm aware of on the lists at MEFA or HASA.

I still don't see the attractions of writing a WIP though. Have WIP authors visualized the final scene and are writing toward it? If not how does one know when it is finished? Please pardon my dumb questions. I think I am imagining a WIP as an incomplete story where the author doesn't know the ending. But I can be taught! What is your idea of a WIP? No need to burn that soapbox. Best regards - Chathol-linn

-------------- Original message --------------


chathollinn@comcast.net wrote:
First, most WIPs did not seem to tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end. They just reported episode after episode in an attempt to keep getting feedback.

Sorry!!! Just have to defend myself as someone who is presently writing a WIP. Methinks you must have read some dodgy WIPs! Not all of them are jus tlike that.

Second, they lacked discipline. The writing was mostly verbose, dialog-oriented ("Did too!" "Did not!" ad infinitum), and poorly organized.

Personally, I do not lack discipline. I write other stories as I write my WIP - and I take my time on my WIP because I want it to be good and aim to tell a story within a story.

I think writers owe their readers the commitment and discipline to think through a story, write it to completion, rewrite it as necessary, and then publish.

There are a lot of writers out there who do finish their WIPs! Some don't - but a lot do. I realise you are not generalising here, but sometimes RL does kick in and screw us authors around. I do not know of ANY author who does not consciously set out to not finish a story. We have a story to tell - we aim to tell the whole story. And sometimes, it is the input of the readers that acts as motivation for finishing.


Naresha
(who apologises profusely (and grovels for forgiveness) for getting on her soapbox in the first place and promises to burn it immediately to save from any future repeat offences.)



~To forgive calls upon our love, to forget calls upon our strength~

AIM: Naresha21 MSN: candyman_gypsy@hotmail.com
ICQ: 142117881 Yahoo: fruitcake5m1
Personal LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/nareshaninya/
Writing LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/writingsofresha/

My Website! Slash Me Happy
http://www.websamba.com/SlashMeHappy

http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?biter=Resha


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HI Chathol-linn,

I'll comment, even though I may not have a real answer for you,
because I've had some confusion in this area.

**in my mind** a WIP is an incomplete story. I used to read them,
when I first discovered fanfic, but more recently only read WIPs that
I beta, because of my level of frustration in an incomplete story
outweighs my enjoyment.

In my own works. I have a general plot outline before I start
detailing the chapters. IOW, my works in progress already have a
beginning, middle, end, character growth and plot twists, before the
first chapter is posted ... It's just that it takes me some time to
flesh out the chapters. (I recently took my current IP fic offline
because it'd been so long without an update because of RL
constraints.)

but I've learned that other people don't work that way. I think some
people start stories and let the plot develop as they go. I find
that difficult to read, but I think many people enjoy them. I also
don't watch the ever-popular soap operas on TV, which proves it is
more of a personal quirk than any problem in the genre.

so I think there must be two kinds of WIPs. .. ones that are actually
dangling and unfinished, and those that are more episodic in
nature. .... and I wonder now if some of us are talking about the
different ones in the same conversation without defining the
difference. (?)

Sulriel.

Hello, Sulriel. Your point about there being two kinds of WIPs is well-taken. And the way you describe your writing style, it doesn't really sound as if they are WIPs. Thanks for clarifying! Regards - Chathol-linn
-------------- Original message --------------

HI Chathol-linn,

I'll comment, even though I may not have a real answer for you,
because I've had some confusion in this area.

**in my mind** a WIP is an incomplete story. I used to read them,
when I first discovered fanfic, but more recently only read WIPs that
I beta, because of my level of frustration in an incomplete story
outweighs my enjoyment.

In my own works. I have a general plot outline before I start
detailing the chapters. IOW, my works in progress already have a
beginning, middle, end, character growth and plot twists, before the
first chapter is posted ... It's just that it takes me some time to
flesh out the chapters. (I recently took my current IP fic offline
because it'd been so long without an update because of RL
constraints.)

but I've learned that other people don't work that way. I think some
people start stories and let the plot develop as they go. I find
that difficult to read, but I think many people enjoy them. I also
don't watch the ever-popular soap operas on TV, which proves it is
more of a personal quirk than any problem in the genre.

so I think there must be two kinds of WIPs. .. ones that are actually
dangling and unfinished, and those that are more episodic in
nature. .... and I wonder now if some of us are talking about the
different ones in the same conversation without defining the
difference. (?)

Sulriel.





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chathollinn@comcast.net wrote:
Hello, Naresha! You make some good points. I guess I did read some pretty bad stuff in the beginning. Anyway, I certainly was not referring to any of your works, or anyone else's that I'm aware of on the lists at MEFA or HASA.

That's okay - I know I got pretty worked up about the whole thing! :-P

I still don't see the attractions of writing a WIP though. Have WIP authors visualized the final scene and are writing toward it? If not how does one know when it is finished? Please pardon my dumb questions. I think I am imagining a WIP as an incomplete story where the author doesn't know the ending. But I can be taught! What is your idea of a WIP? No need to burn that soapbox. Best regards - Chathol-linn

No such thing as a dumb question as my 4th grade teacher used to say! I'm sure you're not the only one thinking them, you're just the only one brave enough to ask them! Feel free to ask me as many dumb questions as you wish!

Okay... What I see as a WIP is what it says - it's a work in progress. Like I said before, I have never met an author that set out to consciously NOT finish a work. When I think WIP - I don't see a story without an ending. I see a story that the author wants to share as soon as possible. And perhaps they are not sure if they are a good writer or not - I know a lot of authors who aren't native English speakers are never confident that they are capable of writing a plausible, easily readible story. I know of a few WIPs (but can't think of any atm!) that are published as they are written because the author is looking for reassurance and reason to continue writing. Plus there is a certain lure to reading a story that is still being written. It means that the reader can have an impact on the author. Sometimes, a particular piece of feedback, or a comment can change a way the author looks at character or the story. I know I often get tunnel vision to a degree - I get so used to
seeing things MY way that I begin to forget that not everyone will see it that way. I have had many a debate with my beta over endings and character traits. She's had to fight hard to win some of those debates because I've been so determined NOT to see things another way.

I don't necessarily have the final scene of a story visualised. In fact, I have only written one story that I DID have it visualised but then changed it after many months of strenuous disagreement with my beta. But what I DO usually have is some idea of several things that I plan to have happen along the way. As I write towards these things, I may change the ideas either a little or a lot. Sometimes I have one or two endings in mind, but I really don't like to have these set in stone before I get to the ending because I find that my initial idea never remains 100% true to form as I work through. For exalmple, my WIP Changing Times was never meant to advance past the story - Competitive Behaviour! But it kicked up all sorts of new ideas that I just had to write!

Like I said, an author may not have an ending, but they may have several events. And strange as it sounds, some stories do write themselves to an extent and you can't help but change things along the way. And these things don't always allow you to have the ending you originally thought of. It pays to be flexible as an author - if you aren't the story isn't going to be NEARLY as good. You become so fixed in doing things in a particular way that you trudge on even when things AREN'T working like you thought they would.

Erm... Did that help? At all?! Feel free to email me (offlist maybe north_shore_fruitcake @ yahoo. com .au) if you have any more questions. All my IM nicks are at the bottom of this mail.
Naresha.





~To forgive calls upon our love, to forget calls upon our strength~

AIM: Naresha21 MSN: candyman_gypsy@hotmail.com
ICQ: 142117881 Yahoo: fruitcake5m1
Personal LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/nareshaninya/
Writing LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/writingsofresha/

My Website! Slash Me Happy
http://www.websamba.com/SlashMeHappy

http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?biter=Resha


---------------------------------
Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies.


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Hi Chathol-lin,

>I still don't see the attractions of writing a WIP though.

Well, firstly, I think the question you're asking is really "What is
the attraction of *posting* a WIP?", since every story goes through
the WiP stage. But having split that hair, in response to your question

"Have WIP authors visualized the final scene and are writing toward it?"

I'm sure it varies with each author, and may also vary for any one
author among several WiPs. For myself, yes, I do have an end in mind
for all of the WiPs that I am currently writing and which are publicly
available somewhere on the web. What is looser is the route that gets
me to that end, and of course, things do evolve and may actually
change the ending.

> If not how does one know when it is finished?

Well, since I do have endings in mind and various waypoints, I tend to
know when I've reached the end, even if the end has changed over the
course of the writing.

> Please pardon my dumb questions. I think I am imagining a WIP as an

incomplete story where the author doesn't know the ending. But I can
be taught! What is your idea of a WIP? No need to burn that soapbox.


For me, a WiP is simply a story whose overall plan I know (or at
least, I think I know, unless further work shows me a different,
better finish *or shows me I have fundamentally screwed up somewhere*)
and that I post as I write it. One of the attractions of writing a WiP
is that sometimes your readers will be very clever in their
interpretation of what you've written, such that you say "Ooh, you
know what? S/he's right. And now I can use that three chapters down
the line when I get to the part concerning X." Another is that it does
help one through the times when you just feel like throwing up your
hands because your obligation to the reader is not an abstract
one--there are actual readers out there who want to know what happens
next. And of course, it is nice to have encouragement as you go.

I think the case of the WiP is *loosely* analogous to the case of
slash insofar as 90% of WiPs are awful *because the author doesn't
have a story to tell*, just as with 90% of slash (or 90% of any genre,
really). Having a story to tell is the real issue, and that is why the
90% of bad WiPs out there come out in pieces--it's because they never
had a coherent form in the first place.

So IMO, it's not the form of a WiP per se that determines the worth or
quality of the work, it's whether or not there's a plot that the
author is working on in the first place. True, plotlessness takes the
form of a WiP, but only because it has no other choice--it inherently
can't be completed since there's nothing to complete, and even
"completed" stories without plots are like this--we always come away
thinking that the story didn't end properly, that the story was
incomplete and lacking in some serious way, even though "The End" is
written at the bottom of the page. But someone with a story to tell
can do it in serial fashion. The true frustration of the WiP comes
from those stories which are unfolding nicely and then stop, not from
the myriad unworkable "stories"

Dwim




Best regards - Chathol-linn

>
> -------------- Original message --------------
>
>
> chathollinn@c... wrote:
> First, most WIPs did not seem to tell a story with a beginning,

middle, and end. They just reported episode after episode in an
attempt to keep getting feedback.

>
> Sorry!!! Just have to defend myself as someone who is presently

writing a WIP. Methinks you must have read some dodgy WIPs! Not all
of them are jus tlike that.

>
> Second, they lacked discipline. The writing was mostly verbose,

dialog-oriented ("Did too!" "Did not!" ad infinitum), and poorly
organized.

>
> Personally, I do not lack discipline. I write other stories as I

write my WIP - and I take my time on my WIP because I want it to be
good and aim to tell a story within a story.

>
> I think writers owe their readers the commitment and discipline to

think through a story, write it to completion, rewrite it as
necessary, and then publish.

>
> There are a lot of writers out there who do finish their WIPs! Some

don't - but a lot do. I realise you are not generalising here, but
sometimes RL does kick in and screw us authors around. I do not know
of ANY author who does not consciously set out to not finish a story.
We have a story to tell - we aim to tell the whole story. And
sometimes, it is the input of the readers that acts as motivation for
finishing.

>
>
> Naresha
> (who apologises profusely (and grovels for forgiveness) for getting

on her soapbox in the first place and promises to burn it immediately
to save from any future repeat offences.)

>
>
>
> ~To forgive calls upon our love, to forget calls upon our strength~
>
> AIM: Naresha21 MSN: candyman_gypsy@h...
> ICQ: 142117881 Yahoo: fruitcake5m1
> Personal LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/nareshaninya/
> Writing LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/writingsofresha/
>
> My Website! Slash Me Happy
> http://www.websamba.com/SlashMeHappy
>
> http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?biter=Resha
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies.
>
>
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>
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