why many authors drop their stories which is still in its beginning.

vish

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I have visited few author's profile to see their variety of stories that they have posted here, and noticed that many drop their stories in its beginning phase, like one or two chapters and bam! dropped. I can think of a few reasons like not having time or loosing all interest after writing couple of chapters but are there more reasons?
 

RaizarP

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I have visited few author's profile to see their variety of stories that they have posted here, and noticed that many drop their stories in its beginning phase, like one or two chapters and bam! dropped. I can think of a few reasons like not having time or loosing all interest after writing couple of chapters but are there more reasons?
Usually in my case? Reader's fault.

Some of the reader was toxic, they insult the author and tell them that their novel is trash or something (I'm not trying to offend anyone)
I even got a message to kill myself because he thought that my novel is trash, so .. yeah. Usually it's reader's fault.

Sometimes though, the Author loses their passion and decided to drop their novel.
 

Minx

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Maybe they lost their motivation after seeing the views and number of people reading his/her story doesn't reach what he expects of? I mean I knew I would be sad if I were in his/her place. Though I wouldn't post my story yet if I hadn't written more than 10 chapters, or I'm not confident with it.
 

SakeVision

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I have visited few author's profile to see their variety of stories that they have posted here, and noticed that many drop their stories in its beginning phase, like one or two chapters and bam! dropped. I can think of a few reasons like not having time or loosing all interest after writing couple of chapters but are there more reasons?
writing is hard
 

SakeVision

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Maybe they lost their motivation after seeing the views and number of people reading his/her story doesn't reach what he expects of? I mean I knew I would be sad if I were in his/her place. Though I wouldn't post my story yet if I hadn't written more than 10 chapters, or I'm not confident with it.

the greatest mind is afraid to be understood rather than misunderstood

thus, the greatest writers are afraid to be read rather than unread
 

LostLibrarian

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Writing costs a lot of time and motivation. It's a craft like sports or playing an instrument or whatever.

How many people buy a gym membership, feel great after the first training, go half the time for the second week, and never return afterwards? The entire gym industry is based on the majority of people with a gym membership who stop going to the gym and still pay.

A lot of authors start a story out of a whim. Or they plan out the first few chapters, write and publish those, and then they are lost. Writing stops being purely fun at this point and a lot of authors stop at that point.
On the other side of a spectrum there are also authors who start a story, write without much thinking, find that "doing x would be cooler", and re-start the story or write something different with that better idea.

For myself: my first story was dropped thanks to a toxic reader on royal road combined with low motivation due to time constraints. My second story is still going strong. My side-project was started on a whim, but I dropped it to rework it, because only 10 chapters in did I find out what I really wanted to write.


In the end, there are a million reasons.
But motivation and time should be the biggest one.
It's a hobby for most. They pick up the guitar, learn three songs for the campfire, and then they stop because something else is more fun than practicing an hour every day...
 

Lorelliad

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I personally think that views don't matter. But for many it affects their motivation on whether they would continue the story. If it doesn't do as well as the author wanted then there's a high chance of it being dropped.
 

SakeVision

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most probably because things doesn't turns out the way they're expecting

it's actually harder to find a person who's still persistent even though things doesn't work the way they want at beginning.
kek my story on royal road got 3.5 star an hour BEFORE it was approved, and then bombed with 0.5, 1 and 1 a month later which knocked the average to like 3.5/5 despite whatever good ratings i got in the meantime

I keep going though, and in fact, I intend to turn this into a motivational story of sorts, finding inspiration even in misfortune

on the other hand, I've seen stories that have like 5 star average and they are still dropped after a couple of chapters. Guess the moral is that talent is pursued interest, no matter how easy your path is, if you don't have the will to keep going, you will lose interest and drop it.

A lot of people, I guess, try writing as an experimental hobby, and if it's not good for them they just move on to something else like playing video games(a perfectly fine alternative)
 

Viator

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There is a common hurdle among all writers that even the extremely successful ones talk about. It is so common it has its own name. It's called "The Marathon of the Middle." Once you hit your stride and get past the beginning of your tale, it becomes difficult to know where to go from there. and getting past the middle of your book is often the dividing line between successful authors and those that don't make it. Even serialized authors have complained at the struggle that begins in the middle. It is a wall each writer must find a way to scale.
 

human

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I have visited few author's profile to see their variety of stories that they have posted here, and noticed that many drop their stories in its beginning phase, like one or two chapters and bam! dropped. I can think of a few reasons like not having time or loosing all interest after writing couple of chapters but are there more reasons?
Me personally, I realized I fucked up the story. I also saw many mistakes in my writing. I'm currently writing it procrastinating, but I don't want to release it again until I write at least a few chapters.
 

Cipiteca396

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My notebook has dozens of unfinished stories that I had a bout of inspiration for, then just never came back to because I didn't have that inspiration anymore. Theoretically, I could go back and add onto them, but that requires me to read that cringey piece I made in a fit of hysteria/deliriousness/horniness/genuine-brilliance-that-has-no-room-for-grammar.

tbh, i never knew toxic reader is even a common thing.

i thought they're a rare occurring spawn or something.
Yeah, toxic readers can start to sound like first world problems when you don't get readers at all, lol. Still, one bad apple ruins the bunch.
 

Kilolo

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Yeah, toxic readers can start to sound like first world problems when you don't get readers at all, lol. Still, one bad apple ruins the bunch.
i mean, my perception of toxic reader is someone who purposedly read newly published webnovel and start trashtalking them after reading it.

i hear about a single person who actually doing such a thing, and when i ask some authors what they think about them. their answer is : they actually bothered to read my webnovel and telling me why they didnt like it! that's better than someone who spamm low rank vote and said nothing at all.


unless if there's another definition of toxic reader that i didn't know about.
 

LostLibrarian

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tbh, i never knew toxic reader is even a common thing.
They are rather rare. The problem is that people who are toxic/agitated often have more motivation to leave a comment on your writing or review compared to the silent readers that just enjoy your story.

In my case, there are a handful of positive readers who comment on every chapter (even if it's only "Thanks for the chapter" as support), I have some readers who only comment on "big chapters" or when something unexpected happened, and the overwhelming majority of readers is silent.

When you have a toxic/agitated reader, they often leave a bad comment on each chapter. So one new toxic/agitated reader can mean 30 new comments and 28 of them are hurtful. That can kill all the motivation. Back then, I had someone who even wrote PMs and attacked me personally and it pushed me away from writing for more than a year.

Though there is also a difference between toxic readers, agitated readers (some who wrote negative reviews even apologized and changed them when I just wrote them a nice message thanking them for their feedback or pointing some stuff out without going "You are wrong"), and honest feedback based on their personal scale.

But in the end, negative stuff just hurts that much more and stays a lot longer in your mind. It's the same reason we have a hundred threads about "early 1 star ratings" but none about "early 5 star ratings". And that can also "inflate" the numbers of toxic readers, because a lot of authors don't talk about all the nice support they are getting.

I literary had people come to me and say "To me, this is the best story on SH and I come every day to check for an update" and yet I put a lot more thought on a "This is boring shit"-comment that openly showed that he didn't understand the tags or the core of the story.

It's a learning process to accept the problems with your writing, to accept that there'll always be people who are toxic no matter what you do, and to see the fun and motivating things in writing. But when you are a new writer with only a handful comment and go through people writing you daily messages to kill yourself, this learning experience can come at the expence of a dropped novel and some time off...
 
D

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I didn't drop my story nowadays. I switched sites.
 

Cipiteca396

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i mean, my perception of toxic reader is someone who purposedly read newly published webnovel and start trashtalking them after reading it.

i hear about a single person who actually doing such a thing, and when i ask some authors what they think about them. their answer is : they actually bothered to read my webnovel and telling me why they didnt like it! that's better than someone who spamm low rank vote and said nothing at all.
Ha, my perception of toxic readers is the same minus actually saying why they didn't like it. It's so common for people to just say, "shit story don't read lol". Although it IS more common to get nothing and just find a 1 star and a 'dropped' status.
 

Renaxan

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Motivation. I think theres a lot reason but I can list some, based on my experience.

One of the cause is they (new author) probably set expectation too high, and too much care against statistics for their motivation fuel.

Toxic reader also one of another reason, and easily motivation killer. My first fan fic was literally bombed with negative comment and review on 'webnovel'. I tried to don't care but It was too much for me (like 99 comment about negativity lmao) so I never crossposted anything there anymore. Call it cowards move, imagine you just writing for fun (no, not for any $) and people told you to duck off without any reason lol.

The last thing probably ran out of idea, procrastinating, due to writing is just experimental hobby (try something new). It was so fun at the beginning but much later I find it like a chore now. This is literally my case currently. Even if I actually have write a chapter and I just need duckin publish it... I just dont feel like to press it xD

Conclusion : Motivation run out so they stop.
 

Anon_Y_Mousse

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A few years ago, I always wrote drafts of my stories without planning an ending, it usually ends up in me not knowing what to write after a certain scene, then I drop it.

That's most likely the case for said authors, just that they decided to share their story.
 
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