Quote:
Originally Posted by binaryhermit
So I assume you don't read a series of books until the entire series is "complete"?
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A series of books is different from WIP's, or 'chapters'. Unless the book series is all cliffhangers (which I hate and won't read if I find this out ahead of time) a WIP, Chapter, or 'Serial' posted stories aren't complete stories until the last bit is given. They're just bits of the arc, however small, that don't have a conclusion or a natural stopping point.
It's not like getting to the end of the first Harry Potter story, for example. Or even a full tv episode. They're like someone picking a random chapter in the book and tearing the later chapters out, then handing you that first bit. You may, or may not, ever, get the rest of the story.
The author may not even know what the rest of the story will be. It's part of the reason so many WIP's are abandoned. Even the author gives up and moves on. (When I was saving WIP bits, years ago, I found that about 35-40% were not finished, even after five years)
Or like watching a tv episode, where a commercial break comes up part way through, and finding out that the commercial break has an indefinite period. It may be a few minutes, a day, a week, a month, a year, before it takes back up where it was interrupted. You may never know, as many authors promise posting dates they can't keep.
When it does come back on, will so much time have passed that 1) you don't remember what was going on, or 2) care?
At least with a book series, I can place my bet that that bit of story arc is complete. However small. But I can't count on that if I get invested in a partial story. Been burned WAY too many times with that.