ratcreature | do you follow (m)any WIPs?

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do you follow (m)any WIPs?

I'm curious, how many, if any, WIPs do you currently follow? Also which they are, especially if they are in one of my current main fandoms, to see whether I'm missing anything good. I know not everyone likes WIPs, so obviously this is not the post for WIP haters. I like following WIPs along, which has become obvious to me once again now that I read ST: Reboot, where WIPs seem more common than they are in SGA, so the number I keep track of has increased greatly in a short time.

So here's the list of WIPs I currently follow, i.e. WIPs I subscribe to updates for or regularly check (I stopped reading some HP WIPs I used to follow, because currently I'm not much interested in HP, so I'm not listing those). For simplicity it's just title and author with a link, as these are not recs, though I recced some before, and obviously want to know what happens next for all of them:

SGA

Crimes Against Humanity by seperis (unfortunately not updated in a while)
Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves by auburn
In Ways You Can't Possibly Imagine by telesilla
The Little Sister by saffronhouse
Pegasus Ascendant by Tielan
Qui Habitat by Domenika Marzione
Strange Aeon by slybrarian
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by tassosss (unfortunately not updated in a while)

Star Trek: Reboot

24 x 22 cm by leupagus and rageprufrock
As Morning Shows the Day by jade_dragoness
Conversational Vulcan by Blue Moon3
Divergence by 13empress
Don't Stop Believing by kianspo
Evolution by rhaegal
Finding Home by mizzykitty
For I Have Been a Stranger in a Foreign Land by mortigi-tempo
Home by Lanaea
The Ivy Crown by ladyblahblah
Leave No Soul Behind by whochick
Like Ghosts by eldritchhorrors
A Little Left of Ordinary by Anonymous (may have been abandoned, hasn't been updated in a while anyway)
Nothing Lay Between by dancing_mercury (unfortunately not updated in a while)
Only Good for Legends by leupagus
Reverse Order by blcwriter
Secret Vulcan Mating Rituals by Chase820
Slings and Arrows by gone_ashore
Symptoms of Fatigue by JadeMac2442
Take Refuge in What You Know by Corpus Invictus
Through Thorns To The Stars by black_regalia and calicokat (unfortunately not updated in some months)
Two Kirks Are Better Than One by RuthR
Western Skies by anruiukimi

Supernatural

Agents of Fortune by Karasu Yurei
Bent by Rachel Martin (I live in hope but probably abandoned)
Dromoscope by Emily Brunson
Rain Falling Down by maychorian
Teufelshunde by july-july-july
Untitled Riderverse by cofax7
Wellspring by scourgeofeurope

White Collar

Untitled Kink Meme response by Anon

That were actually fewer than I thought, though I may have forgotten some.

Poll #2497 do you follow (m)any WIPs?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39

View Respondents

How many WIPs do you follow?

View Answers

none
5 (12.8%)

none in principle, but there is that one special story I broke my no-WIPs rule for...
8 (20.5%)

a few (say less than ten)
16 (41.0%)

more than a few but not that many (say more than ten but less than 25)
4 (10.3%)

more than 25 but (probably) less than 100
2 (5.1%)

more than 100
0 (0.0%)

more than 200
0 (0.0%)

too many for me to keep track the number even approximately
2 (5.1%)

I have no idea how many, but not because the number is too large
2 (5.1%)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I have no problem with wips, but the fandoms i'm actively following are so few in number that that means the number of wips I follow are also small. There are three I'm following -- Come What May in SG1 by paian; a locked SG1 one; and an original slash one, Captive Prince by Freece on LJ.

I will probably read all or part of Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves eventually, because i love the writer, but I'm not into SGA enough to go to the trouble of following a wip in it.

My reading fandoms are so disorganized that I might not notice if I stumbled onto a wip and read part of it or not.

hi!

I sometimes forget about WIPs as well, especially if I just subscribed to their tag in the journal, but it turns out the author tags after posting, so I never got any of the updates.

When I went through my WIP bookmarks for this post I actually found a few WIPs had been meanwhile finished, only I hadn't noticed.

And the number of WIPs I follow depends greatly on what fandoms I'm currently active in. For some reasons that are not entirely clear to me, some fandoms are much more inclined to have WIPs than others. In SGA they seem rather rare for a fandom of its size and duration, so when I was reading mostly SGA there were never that many WIPs. However for a while my main reding was a mix of Star Wars and HP and at that time I followed a ton of WIPs. In the case of SW it was inconvenient too, because so many posted the parts on message boards.

I keep track of a few but I usually don't start them unless there have been a lot of parts posted and they seem to be posting regularly.

What I really hate are those stories that aren't marked as wips and you read the first thinking it's a oneshot and it isn't. I get really cranky about those and tend to refuse to allow myself to follow them.

Yeah, the not labelling part makes me cranky as well, and I like WIPs, and don't even care that much whether they are regular or not. I'll even read WIPs that look interesting that I know have been abandoned and won't get a resolution, so really as far as WIP audiences go I'm easy. But the label is essential.

As you know, I love WiPs. Other SGA ones I follow that I can think of off hand:

- seekergeek's Valdemar Xover
- whizzy's Black Helicopters

hmmm. It's hard for me to list them, because I'll read the next chapter of pretty much anything that pops up, *except* for the ones I can't stand. The latter category includes stories with little to no Rodney elements, or a BDSM dynamic I don't buy.

I actually read whizzy's series too (though I haven't read the latest novel in it), but I count that more as a series than as a WIP, though of course the boundaries are fluid.

And I read that Valdemar xover too, but had forgotten all about it, probably because I'm not all that invested (I've never read that Valdemar book series, and xovers where I only know one half are always less interesting to me), but also it tends to be announced reliably, so I don't have to keep track of it, and can just read the new part when it crops up.

I am a WIP hater, but I have broken my rule for the Wellspring. Sigh. TINY MESSED UP CLONES! PARENTAL SAM AND DEAN! ♥

I won't comment until it's finished, though.

Hee. Yes, it is hard to resist that kind of DA/SPN xover.

In principle, I'm really unfond of wips.

In practice there's been plenty I've actively or passively followed. They tend to come in two categories:

1)The ones that are just that good that I can't wait until they're finished—usually by an author I can trust to finish. These are rare.

2) The ones that I'm entertained by, but indifferent about, so it doesn't matter to me—and I may not even notice—if they get finished. There's been several of this sort, particularly in Torchwood fandom, which is littered with humongous neverending stories of dubious quality.

The vast number of stories in between, where I care about the story but don't know if I can trust the author to finish it in a timely and satisfying manner, I try not to read past the 1-3 parts it takes me to realize that.

My approach is that in general I'm not that hung up about a stories not being finished, and if they are so good that I actually care a lot, what is there is probably so good that I'd rather have a fragment than nothing at all. So I'm fine either way.

I have no trust. :)

I do sometimes follow a WIP here or there, if it's being updated regularly and the writer has a good track record of finishing. But it's been a while since I've done that - I'm not following any right now.

I don't really mind it that much if a WIP stays unfinished, so I don't really need to trust an author to finish something to read. Actually I still read WIPs by authors whom I've known for years to have a somewhat spotty track record when it comes to finishing. Of course it's better if it gets finished, but if it doesn't I'm not that upset.

Heh, so I polled that I don't follow any WIPs but there are a few, all by Trishabooms, who I am shamefully just lurking at, in fandoms with very very sparse pickings for decent fic.

By choice, I wait for a WIP to be finished. I read fast and I like to wallow in fic for days at a time, given the opportunity. I have zero patience for waiting for the next chapter of anything.

Your list of WIPs is looong.

It's interesting to read a different perspective. I'd kind of assumed everyone who read WIPs did so with a kind of heavy heart, wishing they were finished but not wanting to wait, but I saw elsewhere you said it didn't necessarily bother you if they ever got finished...so that assumption is challenged!

I'd kind of assumed everyone who read WIPs did so with a kind of heavy heart

LOL, no really not. I honestly like reading WIPs. I like long stories, but my attention span is not always the best, but I'm fairly good at remembering plots, so for that getting a long story in regular parts is a good fit. Also with regularly updated ones it is really nice to look forward to the new part, and even with irregular ones you get pleasant surprises of "yay, a new part!" every now and then. And you can feedback on the parts, instead of needing to keep track of all you liked for one comment at the end of an epic, which is intimidating.

Also some things just work really well as serial, better than if you read it all at once. Not because it is better or worse, it is just a different kind of story telling. Like some tv shows work great when you marathon them, others not so much.

Edited (typo) 2010-03-19 18:56 (UTC)

Like some tv shows work great when you marathon them, others not so much

I have never met a tv show I couldn't marathon...I used to record Home and Away so me and my friend could watch it all in one go at the end of the week. I'm very bad at remembering to tune in every week for tv shows as well, and usually end up going 'huh, weren't we watching x...oh well, I'll get it on dvd'

The only thing I've watched regularly of late is Merlin, and I was late for a couple of those and had to watch them on iPlayer.

I take your point about feedback though, and that fits with when I used to post WIPs, and I'd get probably the same number of comments (particularly those of some meatiness) per chapter, as I do now for a whole story.

I often find it hard with long novels to feedback more than "I liked enjoyed it!", because it seems a bit ridiculous and disproportionate to just pick one thing to comment on, but I'm usually not taking notes while reading either (though actually sometimes I do to remember what to say later on but mostly not).

With short stories it is easy to at least say "I especially liked X" and with a chapter of a longer thing it's the same, and in the end then you'll have maybe a paragraph or even two worth of feedback for the whole thing.

Also with WIPs you can sort of chat with the author because they often give you an opening for conversation, for example with chapter cliffhangers you have an easy opening to for example speculate how things will go or how a character will get out of a situations, which gives the author a reaction, and is easy to do.

Also with WIPs you can sort of chat with the author because they often give you an opening for conversation, for example with chapter cliffhangers you have an easy opening to for example speculate how things will go or how a character will get out of a situations, which gives the author a reaction, and is easy to do.

Heh, this is part of why I stopped posting WiPs. I would find myself second-guessing my plan for the next part, and thinking 'hmm, maybe that idea is better, or no, wait maybe that one that someone else suggested' and also the fact that I was aware of never finishing anything (which I think was tied in...I needed to keep my own strong idea of where I was heading, and when I started dithering my will to write died on the vine).

Yeah, I suppose it's only some authors who thrive on that kind of interaction. But for people who like this it can be fun -- for both readers and authors -- so it's more a YMMV case than WIPs being a worse experience than finished fic posting on principle.

I try not to read WIPs if I know they are such (labeling! labeling is important, and, please, no feedback extortion, that will have me blackmarking both the story and the author), but there are a few I'd say I follow. I don't read them, but I bookmark the beginning and when an announcement goes up that they're done I read from the beginning. I'm doing that with the The Little Sister. I love

saffronhouse's writing, but for me, the wait between posts can kill the story love.

If something is labeled as abandoned story, but looks good enough and is long enough to have some satisfying development even without an ending, sometimes I'll read it anyway, but it's sort of from a different reading space. I don't expect a conclusion, so I'm not disappointed. Does that make sense? I approach Crimes Against Humanity with that attitude, though at one time I hoped the author would return to and finish it.

On the subject of SGA WIPs -- I think maybe there were fewer or you saw fewer, since SGA was very much an LJ fandom and the LJ dynamic seemed to draw more mature fans with a kind of work ethic toward their fan writing. Maybe. This is off the top of my head. Pit of Voles has thousands upon thousands of potentially epic stories that are abandoned after a week or two when the writer loses momentum or runs into the realization that they had a really cool idea but started without any idea of what the solution/ending would be. LJ makes it easier to support the writer and keep the enthusiasm whipped to sparkly froth even though the damn writing has metamorphosed into its own kind of work.

Personally, I'm going to be watching developments on AO3 with interest, to see if the environment eventually skews more toward the archival model of Fanfiction.net or the more interactive community model from the journaling services. That is, will it fill up with WIPs. [I want clearer markings on them and easier filtering to avoid them while searching. I want some kind of graphic that will show all the dates between postings so you can easily figure out what's been abandoned. I want a cookie and a new SUV, along with a good hair day too. :-) ]

On a embarrassed but pleased note: I've finished the first draft of the last part of Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves. It still needs to be beta-ed and revised, but sometime this month it'll shift from being a WIP to complete and then I'll post a link to the entire thing at my site as well as posting to Wraithbait and AO3.

What I love about ff.net that I hope AO3 will do eventually are the story and author alerts. They make it really easy to follow WIPs. For example the Secret Vulcan Mating Rituals story that I linked on AO3 because there you can see the whole story and it has no ads potentially carrying malware (a problem on ff.net as well recently from what I heard), I actually have on alert on ff.net, because AO3 doesn't offer that yet. (I just hope nobody will complain about that story, because I'm pretty sure its level of graphic content goes beyond what ff.net would consider still "M" rated.)

And I'm happy to hear that about GT&T. Though I actually still have the last part in my "to read" pile, because I've been reading a ton of Star Trek with only some SGA recently.

(I want clearer markings on them and easier filtering to avoid them while searching. I want some kind of graphic that will show all the dates between postings so you can easily figure out what's been abandoned. I want a cookie and a new SUV, along with a good hair day too. :-)

Put in a feedback/feature request! The coders may not be able to swing the SUV or the good hair day but some of them are Magic and might be able to get you the rest.)

What? No good hair day? That's a deal breaker, I tell you. Are you sure they couldn't do something about the frizz if I donate to OTW again?

...well they do give out pretty nice swag for donating... You could probably get someone in your timezone to show up at your house and do your hair - they're just crazy enough to do it too.

My absolute horror at the thought of anyone 'showing up' to do my hair is hilarious. Concentrating that much crazy in one small area in addition to my own might cause the planet to implode or something.

I intend to follow WIPs, but I rarely do, because I have the attention span of a squirrel on speed. I'll go "Hey, this is good!" --> "If there were more, I'd read it" but rarely make it to "I should check back and see if there's more!"

I mean, I now try to subscribe to things, to watch 'em, but I ain't so good at it.

I have the same problem if there isn't a decent notification system. I was quite happy once LJ started to offer tag tracking, only that some people post and then tag, and then I miss stuff. And I really hope that AO3 will implement alerts like ffnet has soon.

I subscribe manually to the rss feeds, because I'll get notifications for post-hoc tagging, that way, but some people forget to tag anyway.

SGA
i follow the WIP of Keira Marcos
http://keiramarcos.com/stargate-atlantis-fan-fiction/the-sentinels-of-atlantis-atlantissentinel/
http://keiramarcos.com/ties-that-bind-sga-au/
http://keiramarcos.com/what-might-have-been-series-atlantis-au/

The Allo series by puddleofgoo
http://puddleofgoofic.wordpress.com/a-life-less-ordinary/

The Origin of All Things series by chocolatephysicist
http://iloveatlantis.livejournal.com/7719.html

Rising above by Susan (no update for the while)
http://www.wraithbait.com/viewstory.php?sid=9716&warning=12

The pack by nightchaser
http://nightchaser-sla.livejournal.com/9770.html#cutid2

xover torchwood/sga
Atlantis cafe by soledad
http://community.livejournal.com/otherworlds_lib/

That list is interesting.

I think I read the start of Origin of All Things but then never checked for updates.

I also read some A Life Less Ordinary, but lost interest at some point. And I checked out the TS xover one, because I really like TS, but the characterization there is really not my thing.

Heh, I have a crazy irrational love for WIPs, and I'm kind of sad that I don't really have any right now. For a while I was following a couple that were John/Rodney, but I'm not really interested in that pairing these days. There used to be a bunch of gen writers in SGA who did long WIPs, but they're either not writing anymore or they've moved on from the WIP format. (Including me, apparently! I'd actually been thinking of resurrecting one of my long story ideas as a WIP. I just don't quite trust myself to finish them anymore.)

Yeah, for all that they have a bad rep in some corners of fandom, I really enjoy reading WIPs. It's especially nice if they are updated on a schedule, because you have something nice to look forward to, but even with irregular ones I never really have trouble to keep track. I think maybe it's training from following comics with their often long, convoluted stories that come in short installments.

*nods* I'm also a fan of comics, manga and anime, and I enjoy their serialized aspects as well. I do love sinking into a good novel or movie, but I'm also quite fond of the anticipation of looking forward to the next installment in a series.

The WIPs I'm following in ST_XI and SGA are on your list already. My other big one is an HP fic that I let accumulate many more chapters before rereading the whole thing - which takes about two to tree weeks because it is long, but I love it.

I have more mixed feelings about WIPs these days. As a reader, I read so much that if it's been a while between updates I've forgotten the details of what's going on. In some ways I like them because I can comment on each part and think about it - more like serial tv and I don't gt stuck at the end trying to sum up everything I liked at once.

As a writer, I have two outstanding stories that are not yet done which makes me feel both guilty and sad so I dislike writing WIPs anymore - or at least posting them that way because I'm afraid I won't finish them. (The stories are not yet abandoned btw, just trumped by having half the free time after I finished school and my breakup with SGA during 3rd and 4th season.) I used to have a only-write-one-story-at-a-time rule that got broken with T3pi and I also, despite having less free time, get more story ideas that I want to do than I used to which I think correlates to my more active participation in fandom.

Currently I'm actively working on three stories, have the two old wips, two major stories I haven't posted any of that are respectably started, one major story idea that I want to work on this summer, and two other major ideas in the Bridges'verse that have been in the back of my mind for about three years that I want to write eventually. Sometimes I hate my brain.

I think many authors work on more than one story at a time, though I can see that it might lead to feeling somewhat frazzled. Though if it stresses you you're probably right to avoid posting as WIP. I'm not that hung up on the chance for WIPs to become abandoned. Sure, I like stories to be finished, but mostly when they are not updated I just forget about them.

Sometimes if the author doesn't set up a decent notification system (like remembers to tag with posting on journals, or posts to an archive that alerts you like ff.net or has a list) I even forget I'm following something when it is still being updated. For example when I went through my WIP bookmarks to post this list I found a couple that were actually finished now, but I had never seen the later parts, because I somehow never saw the updates anywhere.

And now I'm curious, which is the HP one? I used to follow a ton, but haven't kept up with most.

The HP one is the Resonance, Revolution, Resolution trilogy. I talk about it here - a year ago at my journal (http://tassosss.livejournal.com/93155.html) and haven't caught up since that re-read. It's had about twelve chapters added since then so I'll probably wait a little longer before getting back to it.

I've run into the same thing about finding a WIP finished that I didn't follow closely enough to know about. That's the funny thing about ff.net alerts - sometimes there's a surprise!

I know that one! I've read the first two, but I don't remember whether I read any of the last. I think I might have.

I don't follow WIPs at all. I find it too frustrating and I've been burnt too many times by awesome stories that never got finished. I'd rather wait until a story is finished and then read it in one go!

I seem to feel less strongly about story completion than some others. Of course I like stories to be finished eventually, but the WIP is awesome I still usually rather have a fragment than nothing at all, and if they're average I'm not that invested anyway. I'll start reading a WIP even if I know an author often won't finish their stuff. That just isn't such a big consideration.

Late in replying...

Another factor for me is that I already can't keep track of all the finished stories that are being posted, there's no way I can keep track of WIPs as well. Back when I still read them, it happened often enough that by the time the next part of a WIP was posted I couldn't remember much of anything that happened before in the story.

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do you follow (m)any WIPs?

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