Have you ever started posting a story only later to say fuck it and leave it unfinished but still left it up?
Have you ever started posting a story only later to say fuck it and leave it unfinished but still left it up?
No.
I never post until the complete 1st draft is done. So I wouldn't be in a position to leave a story unfinished. However, I've started stories and gave up on them. But none of it was posted.
Agreed. I never know what I will need to go back and revise to make the ending click, so I would never start posting a story until it's finished.
Sadly yes.
A variety of reasons, but in each case I felt readers might enjoy what I had written so far. And there's always the incomplete and inactive as a warning.
AJ
I don't start posting a book until it's complete. That said, most books end with some kind of cliffhanger or story continuation.
So far, I haven't abandoned any of the series, and don't expect to. That said, some unforeseen Act of God could always intervene.
And then, of course, there is the Undiscovered Country, which is expected, but the date of travel is (thankfully) unknown.
I have a pair of stories that are currently incomplete and 'inactive'... based upon quite a bit of feedback, and an 'ultimatum' from a proofreader, I am not posting any further chapters until my story (or 'First Book') is Complete AND Edited, or at least thoroughly Proofread.
I am working on the primary story at least weekly, until I am done. Currently I am 'self-editing' and that is slowing me down, but I am improving the quality of what I have written.
There are many stories on SoL that are incomplete and inactive, that I enjoy reading.
Unfortunately, I'm stuck in this situation with one of my current stories. I've kind of drifted off track from the original concept, and ended up just exploring some of my own fantasies rather than writing to an outline, which I never created for this story. I want to go back and finish it, but it's going to take quite a few more chapters to get to the end I have in mind.
I won't start another serial without a completed manuscript or at least a complete outline. Lesson learned.
Malcom
I try not to do this, but there are a few that a friend of mine wrote that he told me to continue, that I just couldn't put an end to. I should prune them and take them down.
It is good practice to finish it first and then publish but I have broken my own rule too many times.
Nope. Keep writing, but then, when you have finally a 'complete first draft', then double back, just like you should have done before you first started posting, and go back and revise, making sure the entire thing works together, heading in more or less the same track, following an overarching story arc, building to a conclusion, than than just heading in the right direction and hoping to find land one day.
But again, that's just me, as I've always been old-school, long before 'old-school' was even a thing. ;)
I intend to finish everything I've started whether it's posted or not. I just don't always get to 'choose' what I'm working on at the moment. I have to get the story running through my head out at the moment and that I don't always choose which story is on my mind at any point.
I have more than 20 unfinished stories on the site. I write when I have time, which is only a few hours a week lately. I figure that some people will enjoy reading what I've written so far, even if it's not done yet. For the others, it's easy to tell which stories are complete or not.
Some people get upset about stories in progress, but they are generally the same ones who don't look at the story tags and write angry complaints if it includes content they don't like. Straight guy who only likes romance writes a furious rant about a gay foot fetish story, etc.
If you ignore the label and eat soap instead of candy, did the soap company cause the problem?
If you ignore the label and eat soap instead of candy, did the soap company cause the problem?
Nowadays YES! A warning is needed for everything! I couldn't believe it when I heard people were eating Tide Pods! Darwin's theory at it's finest!
SunSeeker
And why KP Nuts has to put the warning "Contains nuts' on packets of nuts.
This is a food allergy issue. Food allergies can be fatal.
But it goes beyond just "contains nuts".
Peanut allergies (peanuts aren't really nuts) and tree nut allergies are two different things that usually don't go together. People will usually be allergic to one but not the other if they are allergic at all.
What you run into is that most nut companies in the US produce both packaged peanuts and packaged tree nuts (almonds pecans, cashews...). Unless they maintain completely separate plants for each, cross contamination of peanut oils into tree nuts and tree nut oils into peanuts is impossible to absolutely prevent.
Thus you will see packages of peanuts labeled "may contain tree nuts" and packages of tree nuts labeled may "contain peanuts".
The point is, if you have a fatal allergy of something, then unless you are trying to commit suicide, then you shouldn't be eating it. Ignore hidden foodstuffs, as that's a separate issue and not the point I was raising.
Society needs to move on from trying to protect idiots and we should all go back to being responsible for our own actions. If you are allergic to nuts and you buy a packet of nuts and eat them, then that is on you, not the company that supplies the nuts.
At the moment, UK papers are reporting a family suing the council because their darling daughter hurt her arm when she fell off her push bike because the footpath was icy. It's their stance that the council was negligent because they didn't clear the snow and grit the path.
My view is that the parents are negligent for letting their daughter ride a bike in the snow. At the minimum, they should have pointed out that two wheels in snow is not a good idea and that injury is almost certainly guaranteed.
But that's the trouble with society these days, no-one is prepared to put their hand up and go "I made a mistake." It's always someone else's fault.
Interestingly, the reason that blow dryers have the warning label - Do not use while asleep, and irons have the label, do not iron clothes while wearing, comes from situations in the 1960 & 1970's.
Stupid has always existed, always will exist. With social media, we get to see more stupid.
Side side note: as I think everyone knows this one, McDonald's did not get sued because their water was "hot". Sometimes, there might be more to a story than reported by the person/company getting sued.
McDonald's did not get sued because their water was "hot"
I thought it was a cup of coffee that spilled on someone's lap while in their car and burned them. They said it was too hot and won the law suit.
thought it was a cup of coffee that spilled on someone's lap while in their car and burned them. They said it was too hot and won the law suit.
Yep.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants
Liebeck's attorneys argued that, at 180–190 °F (82–88 °C), McDonald's coffee was defective, and more likely to cause serious injury than coffee served at any other establishment.
IIRC, there was a separate lawsuit against a different fast food chain over a similar incident that was not about the temperature of the coffee, but rather claimed that the cup and/or the lid was defective.
TMax may be confusing the two lawsuits.
Nope. McDonald's was sued because they made their coffee way too hot, to preserve heat in drive-thrus, and had complaints about how hot the coffee was. The person received third degree burns (from coffee), because the lid exploded off the top when she placed it in her lap.
The suit was not because she spilled some coffee on her hand and it hurt, rather, she spilled some coffee on her and received third degree burns, that was a superheated and dangerous liquid that McDonalds knew about and chose to serve to people in moving cars through a drive-thru - dangerous to both their customers and their employees.
The large corporation then doubled down on the "fuck you" factor and ran a campaign that basically said a woman spilled coffee on herself and sued us, which, while technically correct, missed the point.
If you gave your significant other a liquid so hot that any spill would cause third-degree burns, then you likely do not like them - ie: dangerous.
Context matters - better headline, a woman sues McDonald's for giving her a liquid so hot that it caused permanent damage, and they knew about the danger, and ignored the issue/potential problem, because of money.
Nope. McDonald's was sued because they made their coffee way too hot, to preserve heat in drive-thrus, and had complaints about how hot the coffee was. The person received third degree burns (from coffee), because the lid exploded off the top when she placed it in her lap.
Your original comment was "McDonald's did not get sued because their water was "hot"." implying that the lawsuit wasn't about the temperature.
It was very much about the temperature and you basically just admitted that Your original comment on it was wrong.
yeah, poor writing skills, I was trying to imply that they were not sued because it was hot, like normal coffee hot, but rather lava hot, like lava...
Great thing about my writing, no one confuses it for AI, because AI writes better than me :)
I couldn't believe it when I heard people were eating Tide Pods!
Though to be fair, that was mostly children.
ah ok... I thought it was mid teens and up...still kids but kids who should know better :D
SunSeeker
Though to be fair, that was mostly children.
Up to the age of 20. The ones I heard of dying here in the Phoenix area were 14-19 years old. Most were 17-19. And the wonder why they are treated as children.
My wife bought a bag of multi-colored glass ovals for in her clear glass vases, and the bag was prominently labeled, "NOT CANDY!"