A Support Thread For Those Who Are Writing Unbelieveably Long Fics And Lack Time And Confidence

See? Even the thread title was long.

Well, I'm currently writing a trilogy *points to sig* and the first part alone is over eighty chapters. Maybe even around one hundred. And the second part is around fourty or fifty. And I fear I won't even have time to finish it...and I really want to, I've got the whole thing planned out in a html document and I love it!...because of schoolwork, upcoming exams, original stories, etc.

And I really really really don't want to abandon it halfway through, but I'm scared I might have to. Or get so scared I do that anyway.

Anyone else have problems like these?

 

i soooo know the feeling! tomorrow i post the last chapter of the second story of a trilogy. the first part was fun to write, but i was struck by a plot bunny and started another story at the time i started this second part. big mistake! now i'm rushing to finish this trilogy by the end of summer so i can finish up the other fic (which is, by the way, also a trilogy!). now i just can't wait to finish one of them so i can actually work on the other!

 

I know how you feel. I'm slowly realizing that my life of Wes Janson series is going to be a massive undertaking. I'm starting university in the fall, and I don't know how I'm going to manage to keep that and all my other fics up.

 

Well, before I ever came here to the JC I had a trilogy planned. It was called The Narundi Dynasty Saga, and it consisted of full-length novels.

I wrote about 120-130 pages of the first one, realized it would probably take many more pages to cover the years of the story, and got stalled.

When I got here I decided I still wanted to tell the story of the second book (the one I wanted to write but felt I couldn't until the first one was done), but I should do it in smaller stories and have those stories be "chapters" of the book. True, one of those chapters is now the same length as the entire first book in the trilogy, but at least I know I'll be finished with it in a few more posts.

That's my advice to anyone who wants to finish something big but doesn't think they have the time. It's easier to handle in smaller bites.

Jae Angel

 

Urgh, I feel the same way about my fic Shades of Gray. It's about sixty chapters at this point, and I can imagine it going to one hundred before it's over. Lately, I've been really blah about it, you know?

Plus, it's intended to be the first installment of a trilogy. Now, I'm the type of person who has a very short attention span, so I'm really worried I'm just going to give this up halfway through. I don't want to abandon it, but sometimes I don't want to write anymore, either...

 

Where do I start?

I've never liked writing assignments in school and have always considered writing a challenge. Lo and behold, here I am with a book on my hands. I REALLY am going to finish it, but I am the Queen of Procrastination. Now, I have another bunny that is bigger than the first and I can't help thinking about it over my current fic (which I have all mapped out in my head, but not fully written yet).

I've enjoyed writing fanfic. (Feedback from fans is WAY more addictive than grades.) But now I find myself wanting to rush into finishing my story and I fear that will seriously degrade what I have planned for the end of the story.

Thanks for letting me vent.

inez

 

I?ve always had a problem with finishing fanfiction ? mainly from lack of confidence in myself and my writing, losing interest in the plot, or feeling that I have just bogged myself down in a plot loophole.

Female_obi_wan, fantastic idea for a thread. I?m not currently writing any fanfiction that I can post on the boards, but let me know if I can do anything to support this well-needed topic.



Am

 

I know this feeling entirely!

I have a trilogy, the first one being "Aftershock", the next two "Moment of Weakness" and "Ascension" respectively, and I REALLY want to get to posting MOW (it's half written) but I'm having trouble finishing "Aftershock". There have been a ton of unforseen plotchanges along the way (biggest one being Kaeta/Jag), but if not for those changes, there wouldn't BE a 2nd or 3rd. It started out as just a simple K/J, and . . . well . . . Not anymore!

I've found it was easier to finish 'fics back when I was writing solely in X-Files. I was popping out longer, completed ones (but not necessarily of decent quality) back then. Now I've got all these stories I'm working on right now, and I'm fairly close to finishing some, others I'm just starting.

My biggest problem has been that I'll get a plotbunny, start working on it, and suddenly there will be three or four more, and I'll have to work on them, and then I'll try to work on the first one, but more will pop up. Currently, I think I'm working on . . . at least 29 different fics. And it's in many fandoms (SW, LOTR, Buffy, Matrix, to name a few).

On these boards, vignettes/one-posters or shorter stories (All At Once, Here I Am, etc.) aside, I've only finished one really big story, and that was "Against All Odds". And I think I went through post-partum depression when I did.

Advice on finishing 'fics would be lovely.

Dana

 

The only fic I've finished was one without a set outline. With the nature of it, I could just eventually decide "This has gone on long enough. I'm going to give it an ending now." I think that's why my four or so I'm doing now are giving me more trouble. There's more of a structured plot.

 

I use general ideas but no structured outline either. I know the direction but not the details.

Jae Angel

 

This isn't something I'm struggling with right now, but I thought I'd drop in with an encouraging note. My epic, Legacy, took nine months to write and ended up at 485 pages in Word-- almost 100,000 words. It was definitely discouraging at times, especially since it's an Ancient History fic and at first did not have many readers. By the end, though, I had a huge fan following, and I was actually writing faster than I was posting. So there's hope yet! If you love writing the story, then just keep going and enjoy yourself, not for the sake of having a finished project, but because you enjoy the writing. Don't let the desire to "finish" your story detract from your enjoyment of writing it.

Actually, although I finished Legacy almost exactly a year ago (wait . . . yes, a year ago to this day! WOW!) it's still being beta-read for submitting to the Archive. So that's a little discouraging.

 

Now I feel like I'm letting my beta-readers for the first fic down, since on top of all that, I'm trying to incorporate the changes they suggested before sending to the archive, oh, four months ago.

 

I never finish my stories, because I'm always overwhelmed by my sheer number of ideas flooding into my brain everyday. A moment after I start a new story I'm bombarded by an even better idea, and I become so occupied by that plot bunny to continue the former. It's frustrating.

--Den

 

I leave stories on my to-do list for ages because I refuse to abandon my other ones. Ask anyone how long Celebrate the Power was in my bio as "Coming soon". I think it was nine months.

 

I don't get plot bunnies very often. I just have the problem where you need to get from point A to point B. Take a current example of mine:

Point A: Characters have problems with their ship and need to make a detour to an occupied world.

Point B: I feel they have to somehow get off that planet, but not too easily. It needs to be realistic.

That translates to lots and lots of pages worth of details and close-calls.

Luckily I'm almost done!

Jae Angel

 

[color=006699]Like my reading where I am usually reading several books at once (average 5-6) so that I read whatever captures my mood; my writing is the same way - I have about five stories going at once - some are plot bunnies, some are writing challanges, etc. and my mood dictates which story I work on when. For example, I have one where the plot centers around a character's presumed attempted suicide but I can only work on it when I am in one of my depressed moods - go figure.

Wedge :>o<:
Cross into the Blue[/color]

 

My fics usually grow out of hand...it's terrible, in a way, great in others. Currently I'm writing Negotiations with Destiny, and I've been doing that for more than two years! It's really a very long fic now...and the trouble is, though it's not finished yet - and won't be in the nezt few months, I believe - I'm not all that interested in it anymore. It was very exciting, but now I feel like I'm done with the particular situtation [that I have created for the fic] and I want to move on - I have the next fic planned already, and I'm dying to start writing it. I won't do that until I'm finished, though. I can't handle writing one fic at a time (duh, the last four months I think I've posted three times...!) not to mention two!

But...in one way, I don't want NWD to end. I've written two other fics and neither of the has received the same kind of appreciatone (okay, so the first was really bad - English isn't my native, and when I wrote that first story a couple of years ago, I certainly couldn't handle the language. I can't now, either, but now I have a great beta to help me) and I have to admit I will miss my readers - they give me such a lovely ego bust.

While I would like to be able to write things shorter, I believe that fics must be allowed to be as long as they need - I could have rushed through NWD, but I would have missed all those conversations and small moments I so love to write. So...I guess my fics always will be long. They usually deal with character's development - Vader's in particular - and that takes time.

 

My mistake was trying to fill in the gaps in the history of a character with next to no past.

 

My problem is that life catches up with me interupting my ability to keep the flow going. so when i finally get back to the story, i have to read it basically from beginning to end and the one story i have on this site is sooo long now that it takes a lot of time.

another problem is that i sometimes think the story to its conclusion without writing it down. inotherwords, i finish the story in my head and lose the desire to finish on paper. but i'm determined to finish them all because i tell myself i owe it to the people reading my stuff. it's hard though but i struggle through somehow

 

Well I'm crazy and working on 4 stories of mine.

All of them are going to be incredibly long...

The longest is Angel's Plight, which the posts in the beginning made my readers heads spin. On my computer it's 104-105 pages 10print New Times Roman.

My next one is Shorts in the Dark at 57 or so pages 10 print New Times Roman...

I have no idea how long Rebel High is and Wastashi is short only because I just began.

Angel's Plight is only through the first fourth (1 of three major sections) of the story in my head. The trailer (which is my first post) is 7 pages on my computer) and it is only telling part of the outline in my head...

What can I do since I just started working again and soon will have college to deal with?

~*Amilight

 

I guess we're just going to have to find time to post when we can and hope our readers understand...

 

Well for my first fic here Leibe und Folterung I was okay. I had most of it written when I began. But then when I started Pain and my Obidala series and my SW/Where the Heart Is crossover, I got stumped at times. I've been working on the Obidala series for about 4 years now, same with the SW/WTHI crossover, then I got into the K/J stuff.

I also have some Harry Potter fics that I need to finish but just can't find the encouragement to do so and I run into the whole thing of I know what I want to write, but I open the file and my mind goes blank.

I recently, also, started my first original piece of work, at least fleshing it out, and I am running into the same problem there. I know recently I haven't been able to concentrate since my father passed away, but I was having these troubles even before that, and I notice that it happens more when I have emotional spikes. It's such a pain.

~~Jilly

 

This is a great thread idea.

I have one super-long story that's three fourths done but the problem can be summed up in the following formula

I am so busy looking for a job -->
I post less often --->
A number of my readers have stopped reading -->
I get more discouraged because less people are reading -->
I post less often -->

And it continues on a vicious cycle.

Oh, and in every --> I also have a couple of plot bunnies trying to take over my old in-progress stories.

Any suggestions for help, as in
1)Anyone know someone who wants to hire a wonderful math major in Atlanta?
2) Anyone know a way I can motivate myself to write when I keep losing readers (there is always that nagging thought I keep trying to supress: "Maybe your writing has gotten worse so people aren't reading anymore")
or, 3) Something else.

 

Your readers may not realize something has been updated. I noticed you were bad and didn't edit your title on Old Rogues. Make sure you haven't done that elsewhere.

 

Kettch~ If you're losing readers, maybe they're reading and not posting replies. Just remember that!

The serious problem I have is too many ideas. I get like fifty ideas, and then I have no ideas on which ones to incorperate into my storyline and which ones to throw away. Another problem is not rushing my plot, I know what is going to happen and I want it to happen now! Not when it would be best for the story...