What is with all these dropped stories?

[doravg]

I was looking for something to read, when I noticed that stories with as many as 70 readers had just no more than five chapters, before being dropped. Why? Some of them looked promising, so why are they not completed? 70 readers are 70 people who were looking forward to the next update. Let us not count all the lurkers that didn't bookmark. I don't get it.

The stories got the views and readers, yet were dropped. Mine don't have that many readers per story or that many views, but I do my best to complete them. For myself, and all those who read them. It makes me wonder for what do the writers of all of these dropped stories write for. The fame? That is a rather shallow reason to write.

 

[ModernGold7ne]

I was looking for something to read, when I noticed that stories with as many as 70 readers had just no more than five chapters, before being dropped. Why? Some of them looked promising, so why are they not completed? 70 readers are 70 people who were looking forward to the next update. Let us not count all the lurkers that didn't bookmark. I don't get it.

The stories got the views and readers, yet were dropped. Mine don't have that many readers per story or that many views, but I do my best to complete them. For myself, and all those who read them. It makes me wonder for what do the writers of all of these dropped stories write for. The fame? That is a rather shallow reason to write.

Some people seek validation, others want to hear their readers voice, most leave because of demotivation.
I once left, I came back and can't stop because my story won't leave me alone.

 

[bafflinghaze]

Stories can appear promising, but writing them is hard. I would assume that those authors had initial ideas that drove them to write, but then didn't have enough ideas of how to actually continue it--that, and/or life probably got in the way, and then they lost the initial spark for that story.

I have many such stories that have a few thousand words (or even complete outlines) that never see anyone else's eyeballs

 

[SailusGebel]

70 readers are 70 people who were looking forward to the next update.

This is wrong.

I was looking for something to read, when I noticed that stories with as many as 70 readers had just no more than five chapters, before being dropped. Why?

No more time to write because they changed jobs, got ill, got into college, and so on.

It was a writing practice. They expected that a lot more people would read their works and give tips on how and where to improve. Seeing how there is nothing execpt for "thanks for the chapter," there is no need to post your training pieces.

They changed their hobbies. Writing isn't something unique. It means people can get bored and stop writing to do something else.

 

[Poleg]

I was looking for something to read, when I noticed that stories with as many as 70 readers had just no more than five chapters, before being dropped. Why? Some of them looked promising, so why are they not completed? 70 readers are 70 people who were looking forward to the next update. Let us not count all the lurkers that didn't bookmark. I don't get it.

The stories got the views and readers, yet were dropped. Mine don't have that many readers per story or that many views, but I do my best to complete them. For myself, and all those who read them. It makes me wonder for what do the writers of all of these dropped stories write for. The fame? That is a rather shallow reason to write.

Had to stop writing because of Job related reasons. Thank God I finally quit, because it actually affected my health. Now that I have a month for myself I hope to publish Something again.

 

[Love4NovelGuy]

I was looking for something to read, when I noticed that stories with as many as 70 readers had just no more than five chapters, before being dropped. Why? Some of them looked promising, so why are they not completed? 70 readers are 70 people who were looking forward to the next update. Let us not count all the lurkers that didn't bookmark. I don't get it.

The stories got the views and readers, yet were dropped. Mine don't have that many readers per story or that many views, but I do my best to complete them. For myself, and all those who read them. It makes me wonder for what do the writers of all of these dropped stories write for. The fame? That is a rather shallow reason to write.

Personally, some just don’t think their novel through and run out of ideas even if the readers might have many. Some just want their 5 seconds of fame after doing Unique concept, but know one gimmick can’t make a story.

There are several reasons why Webnovel writers don’t have to care if they finish their works or not, because IRL still exists

 

[Jailbreak571]

...
I write because I wanted to tell a story, not because of money and fame. To be honest, I don't expect people to read my work because there are simply too many books that are just better than mine. But this doesn't mean I don't want fame, I would rather welcome it per se. Writing is also just one of my hobbies but this is my main one for now. Also, them dropping their story can be one of the followings:
1: maybe they weren't satisfied with their work turned out (even in the early stages.)
2: maybe they only tried this out as a hobby but soon dropped it because they didn't like it that much.
3:money, if they think it isn't successful then they will just write another one then.
4: Loss of motivation, this should explain by itself.
5:reviews, bad reviews could affect someone mentally greater than people might think, especially people who are new to this stuff like me.
6:they somehow don't know how to continue their work without ruining it. Have seen many people do this stuff.
7: some in real-life situations that affected their writing.
8:low self-esteem, people who have low confidence in their work think it's bad but in truth, it's actually above the average.
9: change of jobs, if they chose writing as a job and then they quited they probably change jobs.

These are the reasons that I have thought of during the time I read this in my bedroom thinking about life or something.

 

[SailusGebel]

Btw, I forgot to answer the question in the poll. I write for money.

 

[Sabruness]

i keep meaning to get back to writing but life, moti-.. ooh, new novels.... and being neuro-divergent it is a right pain in the ass to edit and clean up what i have written in writing binges as well as write new stuff.

4 gachas and a ton of LNs still to read prob doesnt help either.

 

[ForestDweller]

I mean, if you expect more views and comments, I can easily see why a writer will quit. Or something happened irl that kills your passion to write. Or just a plain ol' writer's block.

Personally, I myself have considered many times to drop my story. I'm not sure why I'm still going myself .

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

I mostly write for the fun of it and see how long I can last before dropping it due to either having some ideas mixed up or having problems about how the story would go. Some of my completed works were just some lucky strokes I got when writing but I can see the idea why you want to see a completed story.

Through money does boost up the effort to continue writing, it only go as far as how much I can put effort into writing before hitting a block where I can go from there.

I thought that writing a story can be easy since all I need were just some creativity and ideas to write from. But time goes on, writing becomes harder as you suddenly get into the complicated stuff such as the settings, characters to even the system place within your story before hitting a roadblock that it isn't creative to write anymore.

Its kinda like a jenga blocks as you try to pull each stick. The more you take,the harder it is to keep it stable to see the holes in your setting as you try to either fix it or give it some rough patches to the story but it becomes strenuous enough to the point where writing becomes a pain rather than fun that I basically had to gave up half-way from writing due to trying to keep it flowing without stop.

Writing becomes easy once you get the hang of it and to keep the brain flowing with creativity but it also need to contain the intelligence needed to keep the story stable or else you might make mistakes while writing.

Chinese authors don't have a problem with that considering that their story mainly info dumps everything while their story comes off linear while stealing other works to keep it stable.

A creative writer can create a good story but not enough to make a good novel. That point is where the line between a good writer and a good novelist belong to.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

I was looking for something to read, when I noticed that stories with as many as 70 readers had just no more than five chapters, before being dropped. Why? Some of them looked promising, so why are they not completed? 70 readers are 70 people who were looking forward to the next update. Let us not count all the lurkers that didn't bookmark. I don't get it.

The stories got the views and readers, yet were dropped. Mine don't have that many readers per story or that many views, but I do my best to complete them. For myself, and all those who read them. It makes me wonder for what do the writers of all of these dropped stories write for. The fame? That is a rather shallow reason to write.

Many are writing, thinking that they got a good idea for a story (and it is, indeed, good). However, a possible combination of poor execution (due to being a new author), demanding and unreasonable readers, real life matters, and the need for validation can happen, that's why it got dropped.

I was once like that, looking for validation in my work. Then, after a lot of disappointments and traumas, I realized I'm not a talented author. Well, what made me continue my work is that, I changed attitudes. I now look at my stories as something I wanted to finish, with reader or none, so I still write.

 

[Lorelliad]

People might not, or can't find the time to continue writing

 

[Renaxan]

Because it is hard to complete a story without getting distracted along the way.

I have dropped 3 stories now, the reason for all of them was because I don't have fun anymore with them and thinking of other ideas that might be cooler to write and then here we go, I move on from my old stories

 

[BenJepheneT]

Motivation is a pivotal factor in this. Those who said it's due to health or job-related reasons got it right but only by half. You can ABSOLUTELY sacrifice your career or fuck your liver just to write; live on just enough sustained income so that you can pay your internet bills and write for another day. Of course, this is an extreme, but there are stories where people live in sheds or rent apartments just to sustain a particular hobby. You've seen otaku coom caves before. You've seen car guys who invest their lives into their cars only to live their life in said cars. Sad? Yes, but it's a life they chose themselves. If you love something enough, you'll start loving it more than yourself.

With enough passion in a medium, you can absolutely do it. It's just whether you're passionate (or mad) enough to forgo societal comforts in pursuit of your craft. I've seen it happen before.

Oh yeah, or realizing it's just a fad you had or that it's just a creative exercise. Any of those two reasons are valid in their own right.

---

Personally, I write out of a completionist OCD and out of spite. I still hold affection for my ideas and creative endeavours, but more than anything, I like complete something I've started to the very end. Doesn't matter how long it takes, so long as I knew I held it to its last light.

I also know people out there who would want nothing more than to burn my sketches or scrub my works off the internet. I write for them. I also know people who are looking forwards to my work but I'll be very frank; I'm a negative guy. I get motivated by negative emotions, and there's nothing more satisfying in your life knowing your shit makes someone seethe and that they can do absolutely nothing about it other than jack off on the keyboard in spiritual protest.

I also like my ideas, so it's cool to put it on paper, I think.

 

[gaylolis]

I blame Jenshin Impact. They're probably grinding primos for Kazuha rerun and they're f2p.

 

[owotrucked]

If we take a step back, giving up is quite normal in other areas of life. Why do people quit the gym after a month? Why is Harry Potter the last novel they read? Why stopping drawing after 5th grade? Why graduating without a PhD? Why selling their business? Why stopping playing the guitar? Why not getting another dog? Why stopping programming stuff? They started well and they could do so much more!

Doing new stuff is like throwing shit on a wall. Sometimes it sticks, sometimes it doesn't. It depends on personal sensibilities. Through this process, you paint an overarching stain of shit that defines you as individual.

So I think the motivation to start writing can be disconnected to the motivation to give up. I've spoken with plenty people who valued art highly. But for the life of them, they just can't sit through and draw (over life-long period of time) because it demands too much of a type of mental task that they don't enjoy. Valuing the finished product isn't the same as enjoying creating it.

In conclusion, some people might stop writing due to shallow reasons (note: being moved by shallow reasons mean they are more proactive go-doer of important selfless mundane tasks such as cleaning, fixing, organizing, giving a hand to neighbor, etc...). But that's just a tree in the forest: people stop for the much more general reason that they're in fact human beings and they found 'better thing to do'

 

[XKARNATION]

Lmao, I am rather guilty of this with one of my stories:
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/504417/reincarnated-as-a-lich-litrpg/

For me, the idea started out good but I had no idea where to take it so it's just sitting there gathering dust.

 

[IDKWtWrite-San]

I actually kinda Hiatus'd my first story because of studying and now trying to continue it only to find feeling some sort of blockage that prevents me to continue it.

Alas, I'm trying to make a progression that may go now on what plot that I remember in the story.
Though I must say, for them that dropped the story is because of personal reason from their lives

 

[doravg]

Many are writing, thinking that they got a good idea for a story (and it is, indeed, good). However, a possible combination of poor execution (due to being a new author), demanding and unreasonable readers, real life matters, and the need for validation can happen, that's why it got dropped.

I was once like that, looking for validation in my work. Then, after a lot of disappointments and traumas, I realized I'm not a talented author. Well, what made me continue my work is that, I changed attitudes. I now look at my stories as something I wanted to finish, with reader or none, so I still write.

Same. It seems I can only write light-hearted stories, and people say they lack depth. But they are the product of my hobby, and I still share them.