When is progress no longer progressive?

[Adam]

I thoroughly enjoy reading whenever I have the opportunity. Characters become part of me, my temporary travel companions. A good author can have me foster them as brothers, sisters, sons or daughters for a while. Some have become lifetime companions, such as Kim and the Book Thief, and have gone on to be adopted by my progeny, who have added their own, such as Harry Potter. However, to reach the full roundness of character within a story, an author has to share with his reader the full gamut of his story.

This is what so pains me with much on-line publishing. Somehow it seems legitimate to begin to tell a story, to tempt a reader with an exciting plot, with a cast of fascinating characters, to introduce all sorts of detail, sub plots, multi faceted stories, new tech details, every trick of modern literature, only to leave the gullible reader stranded with no closure. He is gasping with excitement, following the story, enraptured, and ....nothing. The author is AWOL. 

Furthermore, this happens again and again. Stories are marked by the Castle as IN PROGRESS , but have not had so much as an apostrophe added in two years. This is progress? I appreciate that authors here are unpaid in terms of money, but they OWE their readers a debt. I feel I owe readers, assuming I have any, a duty of care. Perhaps because I write in the legitimate market as well, academically, I am disciplined to meet deadlines. And I feel we owe no less to those who read our work on line. To keep people who honour us by taking our words to heart on tenterhooks for months and months on end is quite unconscionable.

I feel the Court of the Castle should put a time limit on when IN PROGRESS becomes redundant and automatically becomes either ON HOLD or UNFINISHED unless the author is sick or has some other valid extenuating reason. We need to treat our readers with more respect.

[Jay]

That is a valid point you make. It also would require a lot of time to accomplish. In a perfect world it would work that way. 

Sometimes the strains of just life itself henders an author. Maybe one day they can revisit the unfinished storeys. Which I hope they will in good time. I for one hate to be left hanging off the side of the cliff. I guess no one really dose.

I do see your point and maybe the CR staff can come up with something. It would give the reader a heads up before starting a read. I can also see it this way. It would have prevented me from reading some awesome novels on line. That I am so glad I did. To far above my pay grade glad I do not have to make such decesion.

[William King]

This is an argument that has been aired many times over. On the one side is the premise that - No one is paying for the work, hence no obligations. The contrary point of view is the reader being left in limbo by unfinished stories, which as a reader, no one likes. Waiting sometimes years for a new chapter is not acceptable in any real sense. One can understand the many things that prevent an author from continuing his or her book, but I agree it would be nice to be forewarned and thus free to to choose to embark upon reading a book in progress or to choose from those many others marked complete (books are actually labelled complete/in progress here on this site). In progress versus on hold, unfinished, yes, I think there is a place for those labels. After say six months of nothing, it is reasonable to class a book as on hold, after a year, as unfinished. I would add that I have read some great unfinished novels,  so I wouldn't want them removed, just categorised.

[Adam]

William, you say that an author, simply because he or she is not paid, owes no obligation to the reader. I beg to differ. There is a moral, ethical and, more deeply than either of these, a sensory bond formed once pen scratches on vellum and the first eye casts on the results of the author's imaginings. It is almost a religious thing, as Blake said. It doesn't matter whether it's the cheapest, most tawdry thing on a back street video store bookshelf, or the musings of Plutarch, once the literary hand is offered and accepted a contract has been made. Money is just a tawdry aside.

[William King]

@Adam spoken like a true author. I happen to agree with you, was just giving the other point of view. 

[Jay]

 Adam and William I find you both to be fine honorable authors in your own right. I know there is no one right or wrong answer here. In some cases an author abandons a story for good reason. Sometimes they abandon a story for lack of interest. I have seen an author prolong the release of chapters. One case is the "Gone from Daylight"  soga. It has been release over a number of years in just a few chapters at a time. In this case it is a marketing tool. As it has spun off a number of sites and copy cat books. When a need to drive traffic to the sites are needed a new chapter is posted. Then there is an author abandoning the story for no other reason than they lost interest in its completion. As in all things in life enjoy what you can when you can. So if reading a story is enjoyable to you by all means do so. We should all try and say thank you to the authors that share their talent with us. To just let them know someone is reading and enjoying their work.

So let me say to all the authors here on CR. Thank you for the stories you share with us your loyal readers and fan.

[D'Artagnon]

I would like to point out one other thing that perhaps has been ignored.  Life happens.  Authors have responsibilities and bills to pay, family obligations, laundry, dishes, dinners to make, employment to maintain, vehicles that need repairs, and relationships that require quality time.  Not every waking second is spent wondering if a particular reader hundreds of miles away is actually pining for a chapter or getting frustrated that there hasn't been a posting in a while.  It is a gift from the author that any story happens at all.  Like rain, you can't just demand it of the sky.  It has to happen.  Patience seems to be a forgotten virtue.  If you want quality writing, it can't be forced.

I'm not ranting to throw fire back at the subject, folks.  This is just the way that life works.  I write, but I have many things that require my attention as well.  Things that affect my ability to just sit and write, but also things that color my experiences and help plant ideas for my writing.  So yeah, I get that people expect things to be instantly there in this modern age.  But if we all got things they way they were supposed to be by popular vote, we would not have Trump in the White House.  Yet we have to deal with that train wreck too.

Robert Heinlein said "Natural laws have no pity," which is a way of saying "life is unfair."  I think we all know this.  Have patience.  Those still writing will write, and chapters will happen.  Those who are no longer writing... can't speak for those that don't speak for themselves, but what can you do?  If you complain to an author who has passed from this world, I wouldn't expect much of a reply.  If you complain to one that doesn't care about the story anymore, you might not get a response you like.  If you complain to an author who is doing the best he or she can, you're just getting in the way of progress for the story you want.

Patience.  Understanding.  Besides, the anticipation is half the excitement about getting that next chapter.

Conversely, if you don't like the waiting for chapters, maybe you should put your hand to pen and paper and see what flows?  See what the other side is like.

Just saying.

[Jay]

I would like to rewind a bit here. I stated the "Gone from Daylight" was released over a number of years. Let me clarify the story was first posted on Oct 15, 1999. The present book "Blood Ties" was first released in 2008. After 10 years 45 chapter have been posted. In most years no more than four and as few as two chapters. The story has numerous spinoffs as well as four web sites. It has as well a number of short movie clips on UTube and numerous rewrite ebooks. In no way am I saying am author should not make a profit from their work. The author has asked and placed go fund me pages to shoot and produce the short movies. In this case the author asked for tens of thousands of US Dollars from the fan base. I do say that I think this story is being milked for all it is worth. In the mean time many of us still follow this story.

What is your thoughts on how this has been marketed?

What you think the fans responsibility is and the authors responsibility to the reader if any?

[William King]

Although if you focus on Gone From Daylight it appears a simple topic to address, the more you look the more complicated, because it is not just about one book, or one author. The point you raise has implications across the board. 

Last time I counted, Comicality had 22 books in progress, ask him about the publication schedule and he will reply saying, he writes different chapters for different books when he is in the mood, that he has a lot of other stuff going on, and that he owes nothing to people when it's all done for free, writing is a therapy, and can people (readers) stop demanding new chapters.

Does it count as still being for free when you raise money by subscription, Patreon or ebook promotion and selling? This applies to other authors, not just the very well known. Maybe it's even a trend, I know a couple of authors seeking sponsorship. I know a couple of authors using sites, Gay Authors, for self promotion - against the site rules. Those authors publish five chapters, then a link to go buy the rest of the book.

This is why I see the issue you raise as being complex and rather bigger than one book taking twenty years to finish! There is a lot of secrecy, or so it appears to me, in the world of online gay publishing. At least here on this site you can speak to the people running it and have an honest straightforward and rational conversation. That is not the case everywhere, at least it has not been my own experience.

I apologise for going somewhat off topic, but it has broader implications than simply taking years to publish a book, the question being raised, is this a commercial tactic? My own thoughts, it's simple a tangled web that has been weaved over a number of years, that everyone has their own reasons and their own justifications for what they do and how they act. I don't believe anyone has set out to make some huge amount of money out of anything, that I think is simply not possible. 

Therefore, you choose to support or not sites and authors, you choose to read or not, become a fan or disregard the book, at the end of the day GFD is not Harry Potter and never will be, for myself I haven't read either of them. So the fan's responsibility and that of the author appear to me to be whatever they want to make it, whatever they want to assume, nothing more, nothing less, just dictated by their own conscience. 

 

 

[Adam]

I am pleased to have opened somewhat of a can of worms here, but if you'll forgive my mixed metaphors, let none of us get hot under our collars. Each I feel have made valid points, but Bill, I do know of writers for on-line publishing sites whose books have gone hard back and sold on the "legitimate" market very successfully. Riding Lessons is a modest example, surely. And if sites such as the Castle are a breeding ground for gay talent to be noticed by a broader market, well bravo I say, even if it is certainly not its focus or raison d'être. If you'll forgive me again, Comicality is beyond a bad joke. He is to the tradition of Dickens, Hugo and Goethe what D.J.Trump Esquire is to the western liberal democracy.

Obviously, as a young narrative author (not chronologically but experientialy, you understand), I have things, as my English cousins would put it, arse about face, in my esteemed fourth musketeer's opinion. You see I assumed one already had the plot of the story panned out before one scratched the first letter on paper. I may be very old fashioned, but my mind is racing several chapters ahead of my pen and my computer fingers cannot keep up with my thoughts. I DO have a very full time job - and a very time consuming after hours refugee commitment. The difference as I see it is, at the risk of being boring and repeating myself, I feel I have entered into a commitment with my readers every bit as real and binding as if they had bought a book costing $25.00. My word is not for sale! I promised them a story. Not an unfinished one.

QED 

[ken barber]

Wow,

This is some great dialogue. Let me throw my two cents in as well. I completely agree with D'artagnon, life gets in the way. I would love to sit all day in quite space writing until my fingers fall off but there are two major factors that prevent that. One is life itself. I work 50-60 hours a week, clean up after some messy roommates (still love em), add another 10-15 hours a week on volunteer stuff, add a few hours a week spending time with family and friends and just a few hours a week sleeping. My writing time is limited to a few hours a week and if I have a busier than normal week I may not get any writing done. 

Adam you are correct we owe the readers but the readers owe us as well. They owe us feedback, they owe us patience and they owe us understanding. I currently have 4 different stories I am writing and possible adding a third one with this new damn contest coming up (watch for it tonight). Keeping up with all of them is taxing and when I get very little response from the online community about a story it starts to take a back seat to others. slowly it becomes a distant memory until someone mentions it or I have one of those ah-ha moments. 

The final piece of the puzzle is just writers block. It has lasted days or weeks or months. Nothing I write works, nothing moves the plot in the right direction. So I set the story aside and move on to a different one for a little. This is just the nature of my writing style.

So to be honest, yes I made a commitment to the readers to finish my stories but they made a commitment to me to give me constructive feedback and to be patient, neither of which seems to happen. 

I write because I enjoy writing. If I am not enjoying it I stop. So here is my plea to everyone keep encouraging us to write and tell us what you like and DON'T like but please do not demand from us. Our stories are our gift to you respect them.