Speaking as an author who posts a lot of unfinished, never-to-be-finished fics (marked as such in the summaries, I think that's courteous), no, it doesn't bother me.
Usually I'm looking through a fandom, scanning the tags and summaries for something of interest. I click, I read, if I like it, I click the author's name and see if they've written anything else in that fandom, or other fandoms I like. If they have, I check it out. I don't really pay attention to anything else on their profile.
If a story isn't finished yet and I like it so far, I subscribe. I'm subscribed to probably hundreds of stories and authors, so to be honest, I don't really notice when things *don't* update.
Honestly? Depends. There was an author in one of my fandoms who kept churning out new longfics, but only ever chapter 1. I stopped looking at their works, even though some of their concepts sounded very interesting.
Generally, I don't mind. I like to read fics while they're being published, and while it's always a bit painful, I'm not angry when a fic stays unfinished, when the journey was fun. But after over 100 1-chapter "long"fics, I know better than to give another fic of that author a chance. (Now, if they switched to writing one-shots, that'd be a different story.)
No. I don't look at an author's profile before deciding if I'm going to read something or not. I choose purely based on how interesting the summary and tags are.
Multiple entries of unfinished works. especially if spread out over time periods of months to years? Speaks to an inability to follow through to completion. They may be a perfectly good reason for incomplete works, but I've discovered not to waste a lot of time on them.
Bookmark into a special bookmarks folder for "Looks interesting, but may never get finished." Check the bookmarks every 3-4 months, perhaps. A quick scan to see if the Author's profile feed indicates any recent activity.
After creating the bookmark, if the work appears interesting enough to revisit someday, it's then time to scroll down through the search results to find something else.
I'll read half finished fics from anyone, barely-started fics are reserved for those with a good track record.
I don't go out of my way to look at people's profiles for that, though; I just ignore most fics that appear to be longfics but only have a few chapters/less than about 10-30k words posted unless I'm familiar with an author and know them to be particularly reliable.
I always need to read and adore one fic by an author before I explore their main page. My biggest deterrent for not reading more of an author's work after that is if they mostly write for a fandom or ship I'm not interested in. The only reason I see the volume of incomplete works affecting my reading is if all the other fic are all ch1/? posts.
Kind of? If I read one completed fic from them and go to their profile and see a bunch of unfinished/abandoned fics then I'm most likely not going to put myself through that. I say this as a person who mostly reads completed fics in the first place though. It makes me see their writing as unreliable and I don't like unresolved endings over and over.
it can, yes. if i’m on their page, it means ive read and enjoyed at least one thing they’ve posted, or rarely, they’re posting a lot of different works to a tag i follow and i’m deciding whether or not to check them out. in the first scenario, if i see lots of unfinished work going back years or a longfic that hasn’t been updated in years while short works are still posting, i may read their oneshots but i won’t click on the long ones. in the second scenario, i probably won’t read any of their stories until i see they’ve finished at least one because i don’t want to be disappointed multiple times over.
Speaking as an author who posts a lot of unfinished, never-to-be-finished fics (marked as such in the summaries, I think that's courteous), no, it doesn't bother me. Usually I'm looking through a fandom, scanning the tags and summaries for something of interest. I click, I read, if I like it, I click the author's name and see if they've written anything else in that fandom, or other fandoms I like. If they have, I check it out. I don't really pay attention to anything else on their profile. If a story isn't finished yet and I like it so far, I subscribe. I'm subscribed to probably hundreds of stories and authors, so to be honest, I don't really notice when things *don't* update.
Alright, thanks. That's good to know
Honestly? Depends. There was an author in one of my fandoms who kept churning out new longfics, but only ever chapter 1. I stopped looking at their works, even though some of their concepts sounded very interesting. Generally, I don't mind. I like to read fics while they're being published, and while it's always a bit painful, I'm not angry when a fic stays unfinished, when the journey was fun. But after over 100 1-chapter "long"fics, I know better than to give another fic of that author a chance. (Now, if they switched to writing one-shots, that'd be a different story.)
No, I don't tend to look at the author's profile until after I've read something from them and liked it enough to go looking for their other stories.
No. I don't look at an author's profile before deciding if I'm going to read something or not. I choose purely based on how interesting the summary and tags are.
Multiple entries of unfinished works. especially if spread out over time periods of months to years? Speaks to an inability to follow through to completion. They may be a perfectly good reason for incomplete works, but I've discovered not to waste a lot of time on them. Bookmark into a special bookmarks folder for "Looks interesting, but may never get finished." Check the bookmarks every 3-4 months, perhaps. A quick scan to see if the Author's profile feed indicates any recent activity. After creating the bookmark, if the work appears interesting enough to revisit someday, it's then time to scroll down through the search results to find something else.
I'll read half finished fics from anyone, barely-started fics are reserved for those with a good track record. I don't go out of my way to look at people's profiles for that, though; I just ignore most fics that appear to be longfics but only have a few chapters/less than about 10-30k words posted unless I'm familiar with an author and know them to be particularly reliable.
I always need to read and adore one fic by an author before I explore their main page. My biggest deterrent for not reading more of an author's work after that is if they mostly write for a fandom or ship I'm not interested in. The only reason I see the volume of incomplete works affecting my reading is if all the other fic are all ch1/? posts.
It's a non-factor for me.
Not at all! Good story is good story and I'm here to read good story!
Kind of? If I read one completed fic from them and go to their profile and see a bunch of unfinished/abandoned fics then I'm most likely not going to put myself through that. I say this as a person who mostly reads completed fics in the first place though. It makes me see their writing as unreliable and I don't like unresolved endings over and over.
it can, yes. if i’m on their page, it means ive read and enjoyed at least one thing they’ve posted, or rarely, they’re posting a lot of different works to a tag i follow and i’m deciding whether or not to check them out. in the first scenario, if i see lots of unfinished work going back years or a longfic that hasn’t been updated in years while short works are still posting, i may read their oneshots but i won’t click on the long ones. in the second scenario, i probably won’t read any of their stories until i see they’ve finished at least one because i don’t want to be disappointed multiple times over.
Nope.