The 4000 Year Old Virgin -- to publish or not to publish? · 5:41pm May 5th, 2017
Perhaps some of you remember that months ago, I ran a poll and let readers choose which story I should write. One of the ones picked (the only SFW one) was The 4000 Year Old Virgin (The other princesses find out that Celestia's a virgin, and they seek to rectify that).
Now, the difficulty: This story has ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated -- there's just a lot to go through if it's not going to be ludicrously rushed. I have 5 chapters finished, but that's probably only halfway through the story at best. She's only just now met the actual love interest.
Now, I promised people who voted that I would at least start on these stories before mid-April, and I've technically done that, but I was hoping to have them published by then, too. Even worse, I'm back at school (studying creative writing), which curtails my writing time, and I'm not having a lot of time to get things finished. With more urgent projects in the way, progress on this story is stalled ... and probably will be for months.
That leaves two options:
A) Sit on the unpublished story until I can finish it, then publish it.
B) Publish what I have now, and leave it as incomplete for months. Add new chapters sporadically, as I'm able to.
Either way, sadly, the end of the story is months away. But would you rather have an incomplete story or wait for the full thing?
Under normal circumstances, I'd go for option A, since I hate incomplete stories. But since promises were made, I'm going to leave this one up to you, my readers. What should I do?
I'd be willing to read part of it now and wait as long as needed for the rest
I'd rather wait for the whole thing.
I'll be slightly selfish here, please understand this is because of a large list of other reading material, and ask if you can publish it when complete or near to it; if you think the last couple chapters from the end are in sight. This will save forgetting some of the story while it's in a hiatus and make it more enjoyable overall.
Just one readers thoughts.
If people waited before a story was mostly completed before posting, there would be 8 stories on fimfiction.
I would prefer to wait until the whole story was finished. Personally, I find it to be better when a story is complete so I can read it in one go.
Sit on it.
I don't mind incomplete stories. Post away!
Well, while I would be happy to see what you already have, I'd also be willing to wait so I don't completely forget what's happened by the time the next parts are out. I guess that leans me towards 'wait on it'.
I would go with waiting until it's further along. Maybe not so you can publish beginning to end all at once, but when the updates can be regular at the very least. I personally prefer weekly, but that's me. The big issue I have with a long pause is that a large amount of what happened before is forgotten by the reader (and I'm pretty sure the writer in some cases, although I doubt that applies in this particular one). As a result, it does not always have the emotional impact it could have.
Option One: Complete the story before posting. I can wait. :P
I think a solid compromise would be to let the first chapter go live, and then save the rest for when you are approaching when you can afford to drop 1-2 chapters a week. That way you get your readers more involved in the story as well!
Post it, and they will read. Me for certain.
B: publish
I'd wait to publish it until you're done.
So Celestia is a virgin? Who is the lucky mare that will give her horn sex and rectify that problem?
4601556
Um... you realize this has already been done, right? This is a pretty old blog post.
It's already been partially published.
Oh, and there's a new chapter of it that will be coming out soon.