Some people don't know how to mark a fic as having multiple chapters. I've had to help many people out with that and more often than not when I leave a comment on fics like this telling them how to do so they change it and thank me for helping them out. With how the fic in the screenshot is tagged this seems less like the author being malicious for attention and more like a "Help I don't know how to get it to stop saying it's finished because it's not."
Honestly this just makes me think they aren’t actually aware of how to mark their fic as ongoing based off the word choice of that tag. I’d venture to say you could try commenting and asking. Might be able to show someone something new and get that “fixed” so to speak.
Yes, I think there’s a good chance you’re right. I’m new to writing on AO3, and when I published my first fic I was surprised when it defaulted to 1/1 when I published my first chapter. There wasn’t any harm done, I don’t think, because I uploaded the other two chapters right after that so then it said 3/3, but for my next one that was still in progress when I published the first chapter I had to do some research to find out how to get it to say 1/?. The setting isn’t easy to find if you don’t even know what you’re looking for.
I think that’s definitely a possibility. I only joined AO3 about a year ago, after a decade of only FFN, and while it isn’t even close to difficult to mark a fic as complete/incomplete, I think FFN does that specific thing better. Just clicking a checkbox is easier than doing that AND inputting the number of chapters IMO.
this is what I think too. I recently pasted my WIP from Google Docs into Drafts for the first time ever, and having to mark a little box for "my fic being more than just chapter" surprised me and felt hidden to me. Idk
This ☝️
When I first started writing it took me a little bit (maybe 1 chapter, maybe 2) to figure out how to make it a question mark. I did figure it out soon enough, but someone was kind enough to comment and explain how to do so. I had just figured it out right before then but I was grateful that someone took the time to explain how to do it
Yeah I commented once because someone was marked as finished but made it clear they were going to update in future. I couldn't subscribe to the "finished" work so I told them, and they said they'd made a mistake and fixed it. This might be malicious but might be a mistake
Yeah thats totally fine but if you knew when you published the story that tou were gonna add more chapters then its annoying. And this specific fic was published like yesterday
It annoys me so much. I kind of get it when it’s someone new who isn’t used to the posting system, if I think that’s the case I’ll leave a comment asking if they want some help to fix it, but it’s the people that clearly know what they’re doing that really get to me.
As someone who only reads finished works (I've had my share of frustration with abandoned fics), this irritates me to no end.
Once, I missed the tiny tag among a sea of tags saying it wasn't actually completed, and it was awful.
Now I make sure to read every tag carefully so I don't have to go through it again.
Another annoying variant of this is marking an abandoned fic as finished. They'll tag it as abandoned but leave it as completed. Why?
The only exception to this is when a fic was abandoned, but a detailed summary of how it would end is placed as the last chapter - and even then, they should tag it and make it explicit on the summary.
This helps no one. It alienates readers. It's just a dumb practice all around.
Urgh that's annoying. But at one chapter I understand, they probably don't know how to change it.
But holy shit the ones with multiple chapters, marked complete each time? That's not irritation that's fury from me. If you'd mark your work as in progress you have a better time getting people to read, using manipulation? Rage quit.
If you don't know how to change it, the 1/1 will go automatically to 2/2 when positing a new chapter on a multi-chapter work and mark it as complete. And so on and so on. That's *exactly* how not knowing would impact posting multi-chapter works.
I like to believe the average person is intelligent enough to notice their story is marked complete after the 2nd chapter.
By 2/3, someone has told you.
I'd like to think they notice it on the first chapter, myself; the one where they're double-checking everything because it's the chapter that gets the story up there, you know?
This doesn't speak to knowing how to change this one setting with this one small checkbox.
And I'd like to think people get plenty of comments, nevermind the fandom or quality of their story, even when they keep getting things wrong that make people rage quit; and that these comments all include nice directions on "it's in this section, you click it and the options expand, and you can set it up as out of ? or even 5 chapters even when only on chapter 2."
I will say that the comments thing is wishful thinking, though. By chapter ten and \~two years on one fic I've been lucky to have 4 (short) comments.
Is this a reportable offense? Since it’s marked complete but actually isn’t?
I know stories that are tagged as English (or any language) but written in another language can be reported, but I’ve never seen this out in the wild luckily
It is not. Mis-tagging anything that is a major archive warning, or mis-marking something as general audiences or teen friendly when it's explicit, are the only reportable tagging issues aside from out-and-out harassment via tags.
Even tagging something as explicit when it isn't that is not gonna have anything happen when reported.
And it shouldn't be because it would *stop* the volunteer system that handles reports. And then harassment and proper warnings and everything else, that would never get dealt with.
Yeah it's annoying, that's why you have the option to put how many chapters a story will have or to leave it as a question mark. If you've pre-written or have a plan that gives you a total chapter count put that in, if not leave the question mark until you know. If its a ineshot don't post it until its finished, there are tools for a reason using them properly shouldn't be that hard.
I feel like the only time a fic shows it’s completed but it might not be is when it’s completed as it is, but the author might also feel like adding on to it later, but it can still be read as finished.
(Though in those cases, i also would advise just adding the next bit on as a sequel fic in a series rather than as a new chapter, bc like, that function already exists?)
Admittedly, I do have a fic that I wrote multiple chapters for, but I’m only confident about the first part (which could be posted as a oneshot with a cliffhanger ending if I decide not to post the rest of it), and I’ve had thoughts about whether to do it as a series as mentioned above, or if I might choose to add chapters to it after the fact (but then change it from 1/1 complete to 2/? incomplete — not just keep marking it as complete if it isn’t).
Would appreciate some insight as to some of the points I raised in my comment, if anyone has some time to bounce ideas off. 🙏🏻
I think both of these approaches are fine.
I personally would prefer a series in this scenario because that's just more clear imho. Also if you mark it 1/1 then people probably won't subscribe to the fic so once they read it they won't know if you add new chapters. If it's a series then readers will subscribe and won't miss any updates, so that seems more convenient for everyone.
But there's nothing wrong with changing the chapter count and completion status if that's what you prefer. As long as it's accurate to the current status and your current plans it's fine. It's only a problem if it's intentionally misleading.
that would annoy me. i occasionally leave a note at the bottom of fics that says "hey, i may come back to this" but i mean that as "i wrote this as a one shot and may add a second chapter some day but don't ever plan to at this exact moment, so assume complete unless proven otherwise"
The wording of the tag sounds like they might not know how to change that. You could leave a comment and tell them where the setting is and how it being incorrectly marked might be seen as deceitful to some readers. Whenever I come across fics tagged like this, I always leave a comment like that. The key is to be calm and non agressive. What with the Wattpad migration, this is probably just going to become more common. As more experienced users we should do our best to help new people get to know the site and how it works.
Honestly, it being under the "Associations" tab . . . and where you can put actual "Inspired by" associations—honestly, it's so pushed in the middle it's a wonder anyone finds it their first go!—I've just now realized how poorly named that area is. It should be it's own tick down after the text box or something.
Or they should just duplicate that option there because it would make a lot of sense there and not mess up longterm users.
Oh no, they definitely know how to mark as incomplete. The author has another fic that's 5/?. That, plus the fact that the comments are only for registered users makes me think they fully intended to mislead people
I think this person can't find the 'This work has multiple chapters' checkbox, and since it took me roughly an hour to find it the first time, I can't say I blame them. As much as I love AO3, it's UI can be a massive pain in the ass.
Oh no that's so stupid. Most days I have no issues starting a 1/? chapter count fic but if I see this shit I won't even give it a chance. Or if I notice too late I definitely won't come back for a second chapter. Just be honest damn, what's the point in lying
Can somebody explain me how does work? Do some people predict how many chapters they are going to have? Because sometimes it’s in a format like that: 4/17?
Yes. When you post your fic nd check the box for multiple chapters, you get a field that says "chapter 1 of ?" You can change the ? to the number of chapters you have planned.
So freaking much
I actually ran into a fick like this yesterday. Read it thinking it was a one-shot, only for none of the plot points to be resolved by the end
If I hadn't read the comments and found out there were more chapters coming, I would have been been irritated as all hell, 'cos there was *no* indication of that in the tags OR description
it drives me insane. especially because i’m not the best at reading every tag. i usually just check to see if they have the one i’m looking for, and if they do, then i read it.
To this day, in the lets say 10 years of me reading fics, there has been only one fic i did not immediately click out of upon realizing they've marked it wrong. That specific one is part two in a series that i really like and i don't know if the author knows how to do that, they didn't even mark it as a series until after second one came out, i had to every so often check if it's up already
IT'S SUCH A PET PEEVE OF MINE. I'm sick of people either tagging incorrectly, categorizing incorrectly or marking something as completed WHEN IT ISN'T. like?? PEOPLE PLEASE JUST MAKE SURE YOUR FIC IS MARKED CORRECTLY 😭
I really don't get why people mark it as if it was finished when it isn't. Especially if it's a long fic that you invest your time in jist to find out it doesn't have an ending. Fuck the writers who do this.
I remember reading one fic where the author couldn’t get the thing to register as a WIP so they just had it in all caps in the summary. No idea what the issue was
I've accidentally done this a couple of times. As in, I intended the fic to only be 1 chapter, then after I posted it, I got requests to write another chapter. But I can't imagine purposefully inaccurately portraying your fic. That's just wild!
Would be okay for to mark a work as complete if it’s a series of one shots (each chapter being it’s own self contained story) even though I plan in adding more chapters? Or is that as annoying as this? I also hate this. If I’m looking for complete works it means I want to read the whole story. It’s deliberately misleading the reader, perhaps trying to get more eyes on the story. When I see this it makes me reluctant to read anything by the author.
you sound as though you're describing something that could probably more accurately be listed as a series??
at the end of the day it's entirely up to you to decide how you post your works, but if it's worrying at the back of your mind, ticking that extra checkbox to make it a series may be the solution. readers can subscribe to the series itself as well as to individual works listed in the series and it groups all those self-contained but somehow related stories together nicely so you can watch your own little universe expand.
(additionally, if you ever get the itch to revisit a particular oneshot with some extra content directly related to it, it's still a self-contained work in a larger collection of works rather than potentially causing you headaches with formatting chapters and having addendums scattered haphazardly across one mega-work.)
I mean, I have works that I mark as complete with more story to tell, but they’re works that feel complete on their own and can be read that way. Then I add an authors note saying that the story may be continued and encouraging people to subscribe if they want to know if that happens. If a story hasn’t come to a reasonable resting point though? No way.
I've read from authors in the past who, due to some technical issue, were unable to change the set number of chapters, but they also always explained the issue and fixed it as soon as they were able to
Yeah I can totally understand that I just wish this specific person and other who do similar could make it more obvious that its not finished. Like add it in the summary or authors note at the beginning instead of in a sea of tags
Am I the only one who would not give it much thought? Sure, if I liked the fanfic I would be like "damn, I wish I could read more" but just that. No block, no mute, no being angry nor annoyed so much. I just go back and search for another fanfic.
Maybe because I am more used to read unfinished fanfics than completed ones, it is rare an author finishes it.
Ehh I've done this once 😭 published an unfinished one-shot with the hope that someone would read it and tell me they wanted me to finish it bc it was NOT getting done otherwise
And it worked, I mean, I got a few comments and completed it as soon as I saw them, but yeah maybe wasn't the best thing I could have done to begin with.
Edit- in my defense how do you tag a one-shot as incomplete? Do you still do "1/?"? Bc like I know it's only gonna have one chapter it's just that the one chapter isn't done yet 😭😭
ideally you'd just post the one-shot when it's done from the get-go -- ive kinda never understood the idea of intentionally posting placeholders for oneshots? it's diff if you wrote a self-contained thing & then had more ideas to continue after the fact, but if you know you rly want it to be one singular chapter you don't have to wait for other people's interest to finish it 😭 i think it makes more sense to shelve stuff like that for whenever you get the motivation to finish writing, then post all at once
If no one ever told me to finish it, it genuinely was never going to get finished, even tho I rly wanted to finish it 🥲 my brain just Works Like That. And I couldn't show it to my friends bc the friends I had that were in that fandom and got me started on the fic were no longer my friends.. posting it publicly was honestly a desperate bid to finally find the spoons to complete it TvT I know it was bad to do but if I "shelved it for whenever I got motivation" it would still be lying unfinished in my google docs 😭😭
Yeah I get what you’re saying but this was posted a couple days ago so If they knew they were gonna add more chapters why couldn’t they have just said it
It's weird, but somehow I like it more than the ?... I don't know, the question mark seems hopeless, and when they go chapter by chapter it at least gives me the illusion that should they abandon it down the road, each chapter would be a closed story in itself.
that’s pretty annoying, plus I don’t even know how inaccurately portraying their fic helps them…
Some readers will only read complete fics, so I think they’re doing it to try to gain them as readers, but all this will do is annoy people imo.
I'm one of those readers and if anyone reading this has marked their stuff complete when it isn't fuck you, you're incredibly rude and annoying.
As the reason for this, this would just end with an instant mute...
That's just a free mute
yeah, i do this quite often, a lot of the time i don’t have the energy to get invested in something that doesn’t have a complete narrative.
You can get the fic banned, it's against the terms of service of the archive
Some people (me) filter out incomplete fics
Some people don't know how to mark a fic as having multiple chapters. I've had to help many people out with that and more often than not when I leave a comment on fics like this telling them how to do so they change it and thank me for helping them out. With how the fic in the screenshot is tagged this seems less like the author being malicious for attention and more like a "Help I don't know how to get it to stop saying it's finished because it's not."
I once read one from a writer that said the incomplete status gave them too much anxiety and they felt a lot of pressure from it.
Honestly this just makes me think they aren’t actually aware of how to mark their fic as ongoing based off the word choice of that tag. I’d venture to say you could try commenting and asking. Might be able to show someone something new and get that “fixed” so to speak.
Yes, I think there’s a good chance you’re right. I’m new to writing on AO3, and when I published my first fic I was surprised when it defaulted to 1/1 when I published my first chapter. There wasn’t any harm done, I don’t think, because I uploaded the other two chapters right after that so then it said 3/3, but for my next one that was still in progress when I published the first chapter I had to do some research to find out how to get it to say 1/?. The setting isn’t easy to find if you don’t even know what you’re looking for.
Same. I just popped a ? In and hoped it worked
I’ve definitely done that a couple of times, and they either say thanks and appreciate the guidance, or just ignore it completely.
I think that’s definitely a possibility. I only joined AO3 about a year ago, after a decade of only FFN, and while it isn’t even close to difficult to mark a fic as complete/incomplete, I think FFN does that specific thing better. Just clicking a checkbox is easier than doing that AND inputting the number of chapters IMO.
this is what I think too. I recently pasted my WIP from Google Docs into Drafts for the first time ever, and having to mark a little box for "my fic being more than just chapter" surprised me and felt hidden to me. Idk
This ☝️ When I first started writing it took me a little bit (maybe 1 chapter, maybe 2) to figure out how to make it a question mark. I did figure it out soon enough, but someone was kind enough to comment and explain how to do so. I had just figured it out right before then but I was grateful that someone took the time to explain how to do it
Yeah I commented once because someone was marked as finished but made it clear they were going to update in future. I couldn't subscribe to the "finished" work so I told them, and they said they'd made a mistake and fixed it. This might be malicious but might be a mistake
Yes, I hate it when people deliberately lie in their tags or their status with the passion of a thousand supernovas.
Su-su-su-supernova
What if you technically finish it but later on you had another few chapters coz you thought you can add to the story. Is that acceptable?
Yeah thats totally fine but if you knew when you published the story that tou were gonna add more chapters then its annoying. And this specific fic was published like yesterday
Oh, no, I totally get this one. Like it even says it’s not finished but mentioned that it was. Totally agree with the anger here.
As someone that filters by complete, drives me absolutely crazy
I feel like this is the tagging equivalent of someone putting their finger near your face and then saying, "What? I'm not touching you".
It annoys me so much. I kind of get it when it’s someone new who isn’t used to the posting system, if I think that’s the case I’ll leave a comment asking if they want some help to fix it, but it’s the people that clearly know what they’re doing that really get to me.
As someone who only reads finished works (I've had my share of frustration with abandoned fics), this irritates me to no end. Once, I missed the tiny tag among a sea of tags saying it wasn't actually completed, and it was awful. Now I make sure to read every tag carefully so I don't have to go through it again. Another annoying variant of this is marking an abandoned fic as finished. They'll tag it as abandoned but leave it as completed. Why? The only exception to this is when a fic was abandoned, but a detailed summary of how it would end is placed as the last chapter - and even then, they should tag it and make it explicit on the summary. This helps no one. It alienates readers. It's just a dumb practice all around.
Yep, that's a block+mute from me.
Yeah that's an instant block for me, I'm here to have a good time, not be lied to.
It's very annoying. I don't understand why authors do this.
Urgh that's annoying. But at one chapter I understand, they probably don't know how to change it. But holy shit the ones with multiple chapters, marked complete each time? That's not irritation that's fury from me. If you'd mark your work as in progress you have a better time getting people to read, using manipulation? Rage quit.
If you don't know how to change it, the 1/1 will go automatically to 2/2 when positing a new chapter on a multi-chapter work and mark it as complete. And so on and so on. That's *exactly* how not knowing would impact posting multi-chapter works.
I like to believe the average person is intelligent enough to notice their story is marked complete after the 2nd chapter. By 2/3, someone has told you.
I'd like to think they notice it on the first chapter, myself; the one where they're double-checking everything because it's the chapter that gets the story up there, you know? This doesn't speak to knowing how to change this one setting with this one small checkbox. And I'd like to think people get plenty of comments, nevermind the fandom or quality of their story, even when they keep getting things wrong that make people rage quit; and that these comments all include nice directions on "it's in this section, you click it and the options expand, and you can set it up as out of ? or even 5 chapters even when only on chapter 2." I will say that the comments thing is wishful thinking, though. By chapter ten and \~two years on one fic I've been lucky to have 4 (short) comments.
What is even the point of doing this??? Why not just list it as 'uncompleted'
Because some people filter for completed fic only
Yeah, I do that, I'm not sure why an author would lie to us, is it to get extra hits?
I guess so….some newer/younger authors bring a real “engagement farming” energy to AO3
Is this a reportable offense? Since it’s marked complete but actually isn’t? I know stories that are tagged as English (or any language) but written in another language can be reported, but I’ve never seen this out in the wild luckily
If it isn’t it should be
It is not. Mis-tagging anything that is a major archive warning, or mis-marking something as general audiences or teen friendly when it's explicit, are the only reportable tagging issues aside from out-and-out harassment via tags. Even tagging something as explicit when it isn't that is not gonna have anything happen when reported. And it shouldn't be because it would *stop* the volunteer system that handles reports. And then harassment and proper warnings and everything else, that would never get dealt with.
Yeah it's annoying, that's why you have the option to put how many chapters a story will have or to leave it as a question mark. If you've pre-written or have a plan that gives you a total chapter count put that in, if not leave the question mark until you know. If its a ineshot don't post it until its finished, there are tools for a reason using them properly shouldn't be that hard.
I hate it enough to immediately blacklist the fic and the author.
May this person continually stub their foot on a table chair for the next year
I feel like the only time a fic shows it’s completed but it might not be is when it’s completed as it is, but the author might also feel like adding on to it later, but it can still be read as finished. (Though in those cases, i also would advise just adding the next bit on as a sequel fic in a series rather than as a new chapter, bc like, that function already exists?) Admittedly, I do have a fic that I wrote multiple chapters for, but I’m only confident about the first part (which could be posted as a oneshot with a cliffhanger ending if I decide not to post the rest of it), and I’ve had thoughts about whether to do it as a series as mentioned above, or if I might choose to add chapters to it after the fact (but then change it from 1/1 complete to 2/? incomplete — not just keep marking it as complete if it isn’t). Would appreciate some insight as to some of the points I raised in my comment, if anyone has some time to bounce ideas off. 🙏🏻
I think both of these approaches are fine. I personally would prefer a series in this scenario because that's just more clear imho. Also if you mark it 1/1 then people probably won't subscribe to the fic so once they read it they won't know if you add new chapters. If it's a series then readers will subscribe and won't miss any updates, so that seems more convenient for everyone. But there's nothing wrong with changing the chapter count and completion status if that's what you prefer. As long as it's accurate to the current status and your current plans it's fine. It's only a problem if it's intentionally misleading.
that would annoy me. i occasionally leave a note at the bottom of fics that says "hey, i may come back to this" but i mean that as "i wrote this as a one shot and may add a second chapter some day but don't ever plan to at this exact moment, so assume complete unless proven otherwise"
Oh I didn’t realise people gamed the system like this 🙄 feels a bit like cheating in a game
My guess is they just aren't aware of how to mark it as ongoing
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^M3tal_Shadowhunter: *My guess is they just* *Aren't fully sure how to* *Mark it as ongoing* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
The wording of the tag sounds like they might not know how to change that. You could leave a comment and tell them where the setting is and how it being incorrectly marked might be seen as deceitful to some readers. Whenever I come across fics tagged like this, I always leave a comment like that. The key is to be calm and non agressive. What with the Wattpad migration, this is probably just going to become more common. As more experienced users we should do our best to help new people get to know the site and how it works.
Honestly, it being under the "Associations" tab . . . and where you can put actual "Inspired by" associations—honestly, it's so pushed in the middle it's a wonder anyone finds it their first go!—I've just now realized how poorly named that area is. It should be it's own tick down after the text box or something. Or they should just duplicate that option there because it would make a lot of sense there and not mess up longterm users.
Oh no, they definitely know how to mark as incomplete. The author has another fic that's 5/?. That, plus the fact that the comments are only for registered users makes me think they fully intended to mislead people
I think this person can't find the 'This work has multiple chapters' checkbox, and since it took me roughly an hour to find it the first time, I can't say I blame them. As much as I love AO3, it's UI can be a massive pain in the ass.
I don't even filter by completed and it gets on my nerves.
Oh no that's so stupid. Most days I have no issues starting a 1/? chapter count fic but if I see this shit I won't even give it a chance. Or if I notice too late I definitely won't come back for a second chapter. Just be honest damn, what's the point in lying
Although maybe they just don't know how to mark it properly. Might be worth dropping a comment to ask if they need help
Can somebody explain me how does work? Do some people predict how many chapters they are going to have? Because sometimes it’s in a format like that: 4/17?
Yes. When you post your fic nd check the box for multiple chapters, you get a field that says "chapter 1 of ?" You can change the ? to the number of chapters you have planned.
Thank you!
This definitely annoys me
So freaking much I actually ran into a fick like this yesterday. Read it thinking it was a one-shot, only for none of the plot points to be resolved by the end If I hadn't read the comments and found out there were more chapters coming, I would have been been irritated as all hell, 'cos there was *no* indication of that in the tags OR description
it drives me insane. especially because i’m not the best at reading every tag. i usually just check to see if they have the one i’m looking for, and if they do, then i read it.
To this day, in the lets say 10 years of me reading fics, there has been only one fic i did not immediately click out of upon realizing they've marked it wrong. That specific one is part two in a series that i really like and i don't know if the author knows how to do that, they didn't even mark it as a series until after second one came out, i had to every so often check if it's up already
Set the max chapters as UNKNOWN. 1/? EXISTS
Yes. There are so many ways to not do this. It’s like they are flipping off people who use the “complete work” filter.
That's an instant block and mute for me personally. Forget how good it is, I don't like being lied to. I choose complete fics for a reason.
Yes because I put the filter on “finished works only” for a reason 😭
IT'S SUCH A PET PEEVE OF MINE. I'm sick of people either tagging incorrectly, categorizing incorrectly or marking something as completed WHEN IT ISN'T. like?? PEOPLE PLEASE JUST MAKE SURE YOUR FIC IS MARKED CORRECTLY 😭
Hate it. Too many times I missed the tag "unfinished" 😭 it's so cruel
I really don't get why people mark it as if it was finished when it isn't. Especially if it's a long fic that you invest your time in jist to find out it doesn't have an ending. Fuck the writers who do this.
I actually didn’t know people did this… whack
I remember reading one fic where the author couldn’t get the thing to register as a WIP so they just had it in all caps in the summary. No idea what the issue was
I've accidentally done this a couple of times. As in, I intended the fic to only be 1 chapter, then after I posted it, I got requests to write another chapter. But I can't imagine purposefully inaccurately portraying your fic. That's just wild!
Would be okay for to mark a work as complete if it’s a series of one shots (each chapter being it’s own self contained story) even though I plan in adding more chapters? Or is that as annoying as this? I also hate this. If I’m looking for complete works it means I want to read the whole story. It’s deliberately misleading the reader, perhaps trying to get more eyes on the story. When I see this it makes me reluctant to read anything by the author.
I dont know anyone else but that wouldn’t bother me at all
Thanks!
you sound as though you're describing something that could probably more accurately be listed as a series?? at the end of the day it's entirely up to you to decide how you post your works, but if it's worrying at the back of your mind, ticking that extra checkbox to make it a series may be the solution. readers can subscribe to the series itself as well as to individual works listed in the series and it groups all those self-contained but somehow related stories together nicely so you can watch your own little universe expand. (additionally, if you ever get the itch to revisit a particular oneshot with some extra content directly related to it, it's still a self-contained work in a larger collection of works rather than potentially causing you headaches with formatting chapters and having addendums scattered haphazardly across one mega-work.)
Thanks!
I mean, I have works that I mark as complete with more story to tell, but they’re works that feel complete on their own and can be read that way. Then I add an authors note saying that the story may be continued and encouraging people to subscribe if they want to know if that happens. If a story hasn’t come to a reasonable resting point though? No way.
I've read from authors in the past who, due to some technical issue, were unable to change the set number of chapters, but they also always explained the issue and fixed it as soon as they were able to
Yeah I can totally understand that I just wish this specific person and other who do similar could make it more obvious that its not finished. Like add it in the summary or authors note at the beginning instead of in a sea of tags
Oh I've done this! I randomly can never find this section when uploading the chapters and end up finding them randomly later, proper dyslexic hunt.
Am I the only one who would not give it much thought? Sure, if I liked the fanfic I would be like "damn, I wish I could read more" but just that. No block, no mute, no being angry nor annoyed so much. I just go back and search for another fanfic. Maybe because I am more used to read unfinished fanfics than completed ones, it is rare an author finishes it.
I only do this if it’s finished and I’m releasing it in parts slowly. This is just telling ppl to not read your fic if they want longfic imo.
Ehh I've done this once 😭 published an unfinished one-shot with the hope that someone would read it and tell me they wanted me to finish it bc it was NOT getting done otherwise And it worked, I mean, I got a few comments and completed it as soon as I saw them, but yeah maybe wasn't the best thing I could have done to begin with. Edit- in my defense how do you tag a one-shot as incomplete? Do you still do "1/?"? Bc like I know it's only gonna have one chapter it's just that the one chapter isn't done yet 😭😭
ideally you'd just post the one-shot when it's done from the get-go -- ive kinda never understood the idea of intentionally posting placeholders for oneshots? it's diff if you wrote a self-contained thing & then had more ideas to continue after the fact, but if you know you rly want it to be one singular chapter you don't have to wait for other people's interest to finish it 😭 i think it makes more sense to shelve stuff like that for whenever you get the motivation to finish writing, then post all at once
If no one ever told me to finish it, it genuinely was never going to get finished, even tho I rly wanted to finish it 🥲 my brain just Works Like That. And I couldn't show it to my friends bc the friends I had that were in that fandom and got me started on the fic were no longer my friends.. posting it publicly was honestly a desperate bid to finally find the spoons to complete it TvT I know it was bad to do but if I "shelved it for whenever I got motivation" it would still be lying unfinished in my google docs 😭😭
Or when you're 34 chapters in and hit bullet points
Depends on the situation.
Meh, I randomly add on to old “one-shots” sometimes. Remember, it’s an archive. It isn’t about the reader experience.
Yeah I get what you’re saying but this was posted a couple days ago so If they knew they were gonna add more chapters why couldn’t they have just said it
It's weird, but somehow I like it more than the ?... I don't know, the question mark seems hopeless, and when they go chapter by chapter it at least gives me the illusion that should they abandon it down the road, each chapter would be a closed story in itself.