Best way to end a fic, let it die or rushed ending?

[Vahn]

Pretty much since I don't have time to write all the story I am only gonna focus on the ones I want. Should I just write a general outline on what I want to happen and post it or should I just let it lie abandoned for all eternity? One one hand it would give people who actually wanted to know the ending a general idea but on the other hand, it's not really a fic is it. Thoughts and advice?

[PCHeintz72]

Pretty much since I don't have time to write all the story I am only gonna focus on the ones I want. Should I just write a general outline on what I want to happen and post it or should I just let it lie abandoned for all eternity? One one hand it would give people who actually wanted to know the ending a general idea but on the other hand, it's not really a fic is it. Thoughts and advice?

If you mean Warped Realities, I would be sad to see it go, as I actually quite liked where it was going...

A way to end it, not that I would be overly happy with it ending, would either be immediately following the battle with Saffron stop the story and have either:
- Ranma after beating Saffron defy Skulds odds and live
- Ranma after beating Saffron succumb to Skulds odds just after the battle or from wounds from it later on leaving Urd.

If the latter he could either die after a final conversation with Urd and others as he lay wounded and dying, or after that instead become a voice in back of head or her angel, and transform into her upon death. (having him become an angel or a voice, and remaining in Urd would also be like an ultimate screw you to Hild, as it would likely muck with her plans).

Having an outline of what was to happen beyond that would be nice.

You may recall another old story, 'Sound Hearts' by KaosQu, also ended after years with a big chapter and then a large outline was given out along with everything the author had for the story, snippets, cut scenes, draft ideas, etc... every scrap of written material organized into a handful of word documents...

A couple Ranma story authors went this route over the years, releasing draft endings or final material and notes. a couple examples:

'Will You Be My Fiance' by Ammadeau has not only two completely different versions of the story, but at one point a short 9th chapter to the 8 chapter version on FanFiction.NET was released.

One of the beta readers got permission from Storm Bringer to release a snippet from the next chapter of 'Warriors of Light and Shadow' some time back

'Destiny' by Smartalek-Arun had two completely different versions of the story, and at one point all the remaining snippets was released for the 1st version in a single large undedited text chunk...

'Uncles!' by Eric Thorsen one of the Uncles bet fics, was officially released to 5 chapters, but up to chapter 11 was available in draft form off the web site to complete the story, to date this was the only Uncles Bet Fic ever taken to completion...


Edited for examples that occurred to me over time.

[Vahn]

Actually XD I have every intention of finishing Warp realities so no worries there! Just had to go back and redo 1-10 because I felt like it. I know exactly where it's gonna go and thanks to the labeling advice I received, now people could know the final cross over in my err mish mash. Thanks!

I was talking about the following fics.

1. Last Line of Defense
2. Wild Blue
3. Surprised
4. The Phoenix, The Dragon and The Horse
5. Slayers What!

I want to end it but not sure if an Outline would be good enough or should I just let it die because in the works is

A different take on Seahorse that might be a series, possibly it's sequel and a FSN/Warcraft crossover.

[PCHeintz72]

Actually XD I have every intention of finishing Warp realities so no worries there! Just had to go back and redo 1-10 because I felt like it. I know exactly where it's gonna go and thanks to the labeling advice I received, now people could know the final cross over in my err mish mash. Thanks!

Whew.... that is a bit of a relief...

As for the rest... note in advance I generally dislike the idea of an author 'deleting' their stories. I'm all for them announcing the story dead though in the description and merely leaving them in place forever.

I was talking about the following fics.

1. Last Line of Defense
2. Wild Blue
3. Surprised
4. The Phoenix, The Dragon and The Horse
5. Slayers What!

I want to end it but not sure if an Outline would be good enough or should I just let it die because in the works is

A different take on Seahorse that might be a series, possibly it's sequel and a FSN/Warcraft crossover.

Ok... I track and have read 5 of your stories, one of which is not even on the list... Warped Realities and Seahorse I both like and have commented on to you before... Both track off the FanFiction.NET account.

Been awhile for the others

I read 'Last Line of Defense'. One of the more interesting options for a fallback in case no senshi.... One of your earlier works, should definitely be reedited and reformatted... I'd rather this one be kept and updated.

I read 'Slayers What'. To be honest, I did not much care for that one...

I read 'Hinako's Life'... Be aware that the FanFiction.NET upload on this one is messed up... it is a incorrect pasting from the MediaMiner.ORG account. To be honest, I did not much care for that one...

If you let that last one sit, you should at least remove the copied MediaMiner header and footer information.


As for a Seahorse sequel... if you drop it instead of continuing, You might at least want to post what you do have somewhere, either on your accounts or in a preview forum... Even if you insist it will not be updated, it would at least give readers the idea of where you wanted to take it...

[Dumbledork]

I loved Seahorse. I'd love to read more.

As to your question, I for one prefer to know the ending of stories I read. Therefore, if I should ever drop one of my stories I plan to give a short summary of the plot and how the fic was supposed to end.

[Spica75]

Pretty much since I don't have time to write all the story I am only gonna focus on the ones I want. Should I just write a general outline on what I want to happen and post it or should I just let it lie abandoned for all eternity? One one hand it would give people who actually wanted to know the ending a general idea but on the other hand, it's not really a fic is it. Thoughts and advice?

Any ending is vastly better than none.

As for the rest... note in advance I generally dislike the idea of an author 'deleting' their stories. I'm all for them announcing the story dead though in the description and merely leaving them in place forever.

Deleting a story should be a criminal offense.

[Vahn]

Sweet I will start start working on the final summary of those other fics. Nice as last line was it was going to be just as long as warp in scope size and depth. So way more work then I have time for. As for Seahorse , I am still undecided technically I had another one shot-ish sequel in my head for quite some time but I also didn't want to ruin the nice feeling the first one created hence a possible different story on the seahorse take on would be a series. Maybe. Undecided.

Arggh !been wrestling with that for like three years now. -_- bleah....

Slayers what ultimately was suppose to show a pretty abusive ranma who take zero shits from anyone and an incredibly capable usagi/gourry in the end who get his own harems in the form of magical girls princesses. It was my attempt at crack and saying Lina + gourry = chibi moon and that her dark lady personal was a shout out to lina.

Still that seahorse ....

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

When I was writing Different Colors, I had the story plotted out all the way to Crystal Tokyo, with Ragnarok in the middle. (Sure, Ryoga's dead -- but now he's einherjar. That'll give him a large role to play in Ragnarok.) So I ended the first arc of Different Colors with a note. The story continues -- but now as a series of short stories, each complete in itself.

If you can, that's the way to go: take your story to the end of an arc, and stop it there. And leave a note saying where you intend to go if it continues.

[PCHeintz72]

Deleting a story should be a criminal offense.

According to my current numbers... of the stories I have read and track (5,392), some 427 have been deleted or removed from the internet.

That is not counting the ones that can seemingly only be found by way of internet Archive links... which is another 243 stories....

That is a lot of criminal offenses...

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

Deleted stories? Not gonna let that happen. As I read the story, I save it on my hard drive. And I back it up, eventually having it in four places. (There are many other things backed up with it, of course!) I have copies of stories which are nowhere to be found on the net. Some of them never were there, others were given to me upon the promise I'd keep them to myself, others have succumbed to bit-rot, deleted domains, or the changing minds of writers. Over two dozen of them can be purchased from bookstores.

I'm no wayback machine, but if I found it and read it and liked it, I have it.

[PCHeintz72]

Deleted stories? Not gonna let that happen. As I read the story, I save it on my hard drive. And I back it up, eventually having it in four places. (There are many other things backed up with it, of course!) I have copies of stories which are nowhere to be found on the net. Some of them never were there, others were given to me upon the promise I'd keep them to myself, others have succumbed to bit-rot, deleted domains, or the changing minds of writers. Over two dozen of them can be purchased from bookstores.

I'm no wayback machine, but if I found it and read it and liked it, I have it.

Oh I have them myself still, I meant they are no longer available on line... they are due to virtually every reason imaginable... here are but a few:

- site deleted author account due to plagerism even if not all the stories were such
- site deleted author account due to TOS violations
- author did it on whim
- author removed with a promise of rewrite that never occurred
- author removed as did not want people asking on updates
- author removed due to embarrassment
- author moved to another fandom (I hate this the most, as it does not mean those stories need to disappear)
- author did it to annoy community
- host went defunct
- host admin died
- stories not updated consistently when on multiple sites, or on multiple sites under different author names
- author multiple times tried deleting stories and changing author names, not realizing that the account on most sites and direct link remains the same.

etc....

I go to fairly extreme lengths to keep a link to a story, even tracking to alternate sites... but that helps only so much.

[Cheb]

Of these, I can only remember "Slayers What!". My advice would me to make it open-ended and leave it at that.
Hmmm... Why do I... Ah, right!

http://ranmafics.ru/fanfics/slayerswhaat.shtml -- the Russian version, translation by Siberian Troll.
Please check if the author info and author home page (at the bottom) are provided correctly (I suspect they are not). Also here http://ranmafics.ru/fanfics/index.php#slayerswhaat and here http://ranmafics.ru/about/personal/inde ... ho=vahn_77

P.S. Also http://ranmafics.ru/fanfics/ph_d_mh.shtml / http://ranmafics.ru/fanfics/index.php#ph_d_mh

P.P.S I would also like to have a link to author's home page, FF.net page, of whatever, instead of the obsolete and bothersome e-mail address (I hadn't strength to weed all e-mail addresses imbedded in the html pages, but the database now hides e-mails from visitors. It's for admins only)

[PCHeintz72]

P.P.S I would also like to have a link to author's home page, FF.net page, of whatever, instead of the obsolete and bothersome e-mail address (I hadn't strength to weed all e-mail addresses imbedded in the html pages, but the database now hides e-mails from visitors. It's for admins only)

You mean these:

Vahn's FanFictionNET Profile Page

• [Direct] http://www.fanfiction.net/u/14950/

Vahn's MediaMinerORG Profile Page

• [Direct] http://www.mediaminer.org/user_info.php/1989

Do note he has not been on MediaMiner.ORG in literally 10 years according to the profile... but the stories are all still there.

While the old Geocities site is of course defunct... that site was copied by Oocities (Reocities and Geocities.WS do not have it):

Vahn's Home Page

• [Direct] http://www.oocities.org/vahnwt/index.html

[Cheb]

Thank you. I updated the base.

[Vahn]

OMg, I forgot about my old home page! LOL Defenders of the Wrong Fiancee indeed! LOL