TotallyHuman
It's good to be home.
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2019
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- 3,996
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- 183
The title doesn't convey what I wanted to discuss well.
Here's a somewhat extreme example: you want to start a bg romantic comedy fantasy, and your title and your description and your tags are all indicative of this.
Halfway through the story though, you suddenly feel like your story is outgrowing your original intentions (and that's a large story, so your half-way is, say, 100.000 words, 4 months and 3000+ readers in) and you want to change the way its going to something very different. Something like, for example, a bl tragedy/drama and the fantasy is actually just very advanced technology that's been forgotten.
End of example.
Now, let's analyse the problem through this example. While it's ultimately your story and only you have the final say on where it's going, you also have amassed a considerably large following (in example's case it's 3000+ readers) and prior to your sudden decision there was no indication of you changing your original intention and from the initial chapters and the premise of the story that could be gleamed from your title and tags and description, there was also no indication of any following developments. The readers who follow your story do so while having strong expectations of what your story is going to be and they have already invested a considerable amount of time and emotions into what you wrote. Is it fair for you to just change what you wrote despite it?
I guess, dropping the extreme example, I wanted to discuss how far from the original expectationsset in your story you can deviate while not facing such a dillema.
Personally, there were too many times when a story I read ended up veering off into territories that were completely off of what was initially implicitly promised to me, after a large number of chapters. That did not feel nice even when I wasn't that invested in stories, so I decided to set up those expectations from the beginning and not move too much outside the range with my stories.
Of course, the absolutely ridiculous mythical people who probably aren't even real and who plan out their entire stories from the start don't have to face this problem but we mortals probably should consider this.
How do you feel about this question?
Here's a somewhat extreme example: you want to start a bg romantic comedy fantasy, and your title and your description and your tags are all indicative of this.
Halfway through the story though, you suddenly feel like your story is outgrowing your original intentions (and that's a large story, so your half-way is, say, 100.000 words, 4 months and 3000+ readers in) and you want to change the way its going to something very different. Something like, for example, a bl tragedy/drama and the fantasy is actually just very advanced technology that's been forgotten.
End of example.
Now, let's analyse the problem through this example. While it's ultimately your story and only you have the final say on where it's going, you also have amassed a considerably large following (in example's case it's 3000+ readers) and prior to your sudden decision there was no indication of you changing your original intention and from the initial chapters and the premise of the story that could be gleamed from your title and tags and description, there was also no indication of any following developments. The readers who follow your story do so while having strong expectations of what your story is going to be and they have already invested a considerable amount of time and emotions into what you wrote. Is it fair for you to just change what you wrote despite it?
I guess, dropping the extreme example, I wanted to discuss how far from the original expectationsset in your story you can deviate while not facing such a dillema.
Personally, there were too many times when a story I read ended up veering off into territories that were completely off of what was initially implicitly promised to me, after a large number of chapters. That did not feel nice even when I wasn't that invested in stories, so I decided to set up those expectations from the beginning and not move too much outside the range with my stories.
Of course, the absolutely ridiculous mythical people who probably aren't even real and who plan out their entire stories from the start don't have to face this problem but we mortals probably should consider this.
How do you feel about this question?