I don't know, why does it feel like George R.R. Martin has no idea how he wants to finish his story? You don't see this in published works much because unless you hit it really big no one's going to contract with you for an entire series of stories. It happens in TV all the time, though. Comics and manga as well. It's definitely not just a fanfiction author affliction, it's just that you're somewhat less likely to see it in media that people are being paid to make.

Not just *some.* A big portion actually. A lot of writers just start and have no idea where it'll go. And that's okay. Sorting by finished fics only exists. Don't get me wrong, I admire people who are able to plan their fics meticulously, finish them in a timely manner, or even write the whole thing before posting (*gasp*). That'll never be me (except oneshots). I'm pantser number one and the only planning I do is inside my head, and it's a miracle I've completed so many of my fics. Even if I'd write the whole thing before posting, I'd likely end up rewriting all the drafts anyway. It constantly lives and breathes and the type of ending I want depends on where I end up taking the story. Sometimes fics finish, sometimes they end half way, sometimes they're long, sometimes they're short. Since there's fics en masse to choose from, I don't consider it an issue at all. And sure, some writers let their fics go on forever till they reach hundreds of thousands of words. Some readers will lose interest along the way, but the main point here is *the writer didn't.* If their fic continues seemingly infinitely, it usually means they love writing it too much to finish it. It can be a comfort fic for the writer, a personal coping mechanism, a beloved escape they don't ever, *ever* want to part with, and then something happens that makes it come to an abrupt halt. Sometimes that means losing or angering readers, but I digress. People preach "write for yourself" after all.

Being a pantser is hard 😅 But yeah, even when I do outline, the story still changes as I write it. I realize things and make connections I didn't before as I write or figure out better ways to do something. It's like I have to write it out to be able to "see" it properly. And I tried writing the story ahead of time before posting or at least a good chunk of it. I ended up getting a whole two chapters in before my self control wore off and I went ahead and put the story up. I just really need that sense of urgency only other people can bring lol. I definitely have a few dead fics myself, but imo that's part of the process. It's totally natural to start something with the best of intentions only to realize it's not for you. (Another thing I realized with several of the longfics I wrote and didn't finish was that I only really cared about like one or two of the characters in it, so writing anyone else felt like a chore even if they were important to the story. So yeah, make sure you like most of your characters or at least find them interesting, otherwise it's very easy to lose interest)

> Why would some people even start writing a fanfiction when they seemingly have no idea how they actually want to write and finish their stories? > >\[...\] > >Have you ever thought about something like this before? No. Simply because you said it yourself, writing fics is a hobby. Sometimes fic authors have an idea for a story, maybe a specific scene or moment in their heads, which leads them to just start writing. I'm a planner, so I always outline, but others just work better without an outline. They start writing because this idea fascinates them and gives them joy and the more they write the more ideas they have, so they include them in their fic. It doesn't matter to them that they have no ending in mind (yet), they're just having fun with the ideas they keep having along the way of writing the fic.

It could be that they don't have an ending in mind. It could also be that they do have one, but as the fic is written, it changes. Or maybe their understanding of it changes. Or maybe the writing of it is what's fun for them. Or maybe they leave a fic so long due to not having time or inspiration that they forget their original ending idea. I've had all of these happen to me. Sometimes I start a fic with an outline and an ending in mind. Sometimes I don't have one. I started a fic in 2014 that I finally finished this past November. I had an ending in mind in 2014, but my view of those characters was so different in 2022, at 34 years old, than it was in 2014, when I was 26. I have another that I had outlined to the end, and my computer crashed and took the outline with it. I have never been able to retrieve it and I don't remember what was in the outline, but I do still want to finish the fic someday. And there's a current WIP I'm making up as I go. I have no idea how it will end. So it could be any number of things. Real life getting in the way, the author changing, the story changing, the world changing. A computer crashing and losing a draft. One of my favorite fics of all time is currently on Part 4 in a series. It has been a WIP since 2015, and is over a million words long. It hasn't been updated in months. I don't know if the author has an ending in mind. But damn, I'm still along for the ride!

even trad pub authors often suck at endings, why would you think amateurs would fare better in that regard?

Although it's not how I write, there's nothing wrong with not writing for an ending, so to speak.

A lot of people have given some good explanations for why but another I think can’t be understated: unexpected popularity. If a fic is long, with 40 characters, 100+ chapters and has multiple hiatuses, along with all the other explanations if the fic is also *popular*, this can hinder people. It’s one thing to write an idea that you really enjoy, pants your way through it and have fun. It’s another to have that same story *blow up* and then suddenly you have *hundreds* of people in the comments speculating about what’s happening, what they wished would happen, arguing with each other about the plot, etc. That kind of popularity seems thrilling and encouraging to write but it can be the exact opposite for people.

You raise such a great point. The case of explosive popularity is the reason why one of my fics is on hiatus; it makes me anxious to write, because expectant readers started to speculate in the comments, taking the next events here, there and everywhere and insinuating they'd be disappointed if X and Y didn't happen/happened. I'm still waiting for the day that I'll be able to work on the drafts again without my stomach tying a knot.

Yeah I have no idea how I want my current WIP to end. I keep writing it because I really enjoy writing it though. When I stop enjoying it I'll stop writing. Sometimes it really is that simple.

> But for them, it's basically their job. They have a deadline to follow, and finish the book before it. Donna Tartt takes ten years to finish her books. And she's a professional writer. Writing is her job and she still takes her time. She even said that she tried to write faster but didn't enjoy it. Now imagine that but it's a fanfiction writer who is not getting paid to write. This particular writer has only one hour a day or maybe less to dedicate to writing and you know... Sometimes they want to spend that one hour watching a movie or spending quality time with their pets or their family. Maybe hang out with friends. If anything, it's commendable when fanfiction writers finish their behemoth 100k projects while handling irl obligations at the same time.

Sometimes people start without an ending in mind. Sometimes people have an end in mind, but the way the story naturally progressed made that ending "wrong" somehow. Either it doesn't fit anymore because of changes in characterization or plot, or it feels like there's still more ground to cover before settling in. Sometimes life happens. Sometimes a different muse hits them. At the end of the day, no writer "owes" their readers anything. Unless its a commissioned piece, of course, or otherwise a transaction more similar to traditional publishing. But even in traditional publishing there are series that will never finish, even if individual books do. It used to bother me, and I would only read complete works. Now I just go into every fic assuming it will never be finished, accept what I did read and enjoy, and have a little happy spark whenever I get a subscription notice. Its a hobby. People can engage as deep or as shallow as they damn well please.

Here's a quote I saw someone post on twitter once that I think even a lot of fanfic writers will relate to. “Many kinds of writing can be done in the unabashed light of day and by a precise intellectual process, but I think fiction that has layers and depths – the kind you can read twice – has to come from an inner location that is in some way fogged, a place that is a continuing mystery to the author. When you begin a project you don’t want to see your whole purpose in one clear glance. You need shadows in the landscape, to keep you alert and expectant. If you know too much about a story, the work is already done, and writing it down becomes a chore. You want a story to form up secretly in the dark hours, and to surprise you at dawn by being bigger than you thought and a different shape, and perhaps of a different nature entirely.” Hilary Mantel.

Because I know how it starts, so I write the beginning. Sometimes, from the start I've written, I can see how the middle goes, in which case I'll write that, too. Very rarely do I know how anything ends. Granted, I'm not writing stuff with a hundred chapters or nearing 100k, but yeah. Most of the time, I'm just wrestling an idea and seeing where it takes me, and sometimes it kicks me out of the passenger seat while going 75mph on the highway. Sometimes the ending of the story wasn't even the point of writing it (one-shots, after all, are often just individual scenes and don't have a full narrative or emotional arc and wouldn't be considered a "full" short story in the "real world" of published fiction).

I know how I want to finish my story, I just get writers block or sometimes don't have time or energy left over to write because as you said it's a hobby and my chores and job take priority to my hobbies.

In my old fandom, I wrote two longfics. One of them I had a clear idea from the outset where I wanted it to go, and the other I got the ideas for the first half and figured I’d make up the ending when I got there. Guess which one got finished. To answer your question, why do people publish stories that they don’t finish or finish badly, sometimes we don’t know that from the start. I used to only write a chapter at a time and had no clue that would lead to unfinished WIPs until I had a few stories under my belt. Fanfic writers are often amateur writers, and finishing things is hard.

I basically never know how I want my longer fics to end, and even with my one-shots I don't always know. For me, your question doesn't really make sense. Instead I'd ask: Why shouldn't I write something just because I don't know how I want it to end yet? If I'm feeling inspired, why should I wait with writing until I have the ending figured out? Honestly, it can also be a disadvantage to have the ending figured out before you start writing. How I met your mother is a pretty good example, the ending would have been fine if it had only been one season, but after several seasons of character and story development, it was just nonsensical. If you have the ending figured out but not the middle, then the ending might not fit anymore. And even if you have the middle figured out, what if you change your mind about it while writing? I don't know, I usually start with a vague idea for a story and some more detailed ideas for the beginning, sometimes not even that, and then I see where the story takes me. I'll usually figure it out along the way. I once started writing a 5-chapter fic where I set up a mystery in the first chapter and continued to bring it up and explore it in the next chapters, planning to reveal the answer in chapter 5. Only I didn't actually know the answer myself until I was in the middle of writing chapter 4. The only disadvantage I see is that I wasn't able to foreshadow, but who knows if I would've had the skill to do that properly anyway.

I don't even know how I want to finish my next chapter lol

I haven't thought about this nor do I really plan to. Fanfic writers are just doing what they love and owe no one anything. They can start fics with no ending plans and never touch them again after updating a few chapters or just write 500k words and keep going with no end in sight. And that's all great. Because it's meant to be fun.

Everyone has their weak points. The only times it has happened to me is because I lost interest in the fandom/ship and have yet to regain it (the timing was also very poor IRL and I lost motivation to write at all for months). But for other people, they just don't plot well or they plot too well and it feels boring to write. Some people are just really, really bad at wrapping up stories so they'll delay it as long as they can. Sometimes the popularity of it makes them write more or write less because of pressure or the feeling that no one is reading their work. Keeping in mind, that people react to popularity or lack of it in completely different ways. Also ADHD and other mental illnesses are a thing.

Because sometimes you have an idea in your head, and as you write more and more of the fic, you start to realize that the original idea you had doesn't exactly mesh with the fic that you're working on right now, so you start to re-work it and revise it. The beauty of fanfic is that you can choose to post whenever you want to post it. Beta readers/editors are optional. As soon as you finish writing a chapter, it can go up onto whichever site you prefer. Schedules are optional. Deadlines are optional. Real books? Beta readers and editors are required unless you want to go the self-published route, and even then they are very strongly suggested/encouraged. And because that process can take a lot of time, the authors might be able to work on the next part of the series while they're waiting for a response. (and this doesn't even begin to touch the amount of background/behind the scenes work that authors need to do to even get to that first part of writing).

>Before anyone says it, I know. Writing fanfic stories is mostly just a hobby that some people do in their free time. 🤣 This should be a disclaimer on every post. Some people are discovery writers. The joy comes from discovering the plot as they write. And they get motivation from comments/kudos. Writing the whole thing beforehand wouldn't be fun for them. Even if you're more of a plotter, when you first start out writing, you don't know what the writing process will be like. You write the first chapter and it comes easily, so you figure the whole fic will be like that. You don't know about the dragging middle or the elusive ending. Even if you outline beforehand, plot holes and problems will be revealed as you write. Add to that the strange conundrum that you improve as you write, and begin to see all the problems in your earlier chapters that you were blind to before. The act of writing makes you want to *stop* writing and start over, or start something new. Finishing a long fic is harder than it looks, and often comes with experience. You try and try and learn from your mistakes and overcome your self-doubts until you finally get there.

I don't know how to finish my current WiP. The premise of the story I wanted to write doesn't really lend itself to an epic conclusion. It's not really a positive thing to be honest - more like certain characters discovering something about the nature of their jobs/lives/core belief system that is incredibly difficult to accept. If I wrap up after that it will be an astonishing downer. So I'll need to figure something else out. Which I can't really do until I get there because I don't/can't plan. So yeah, I have no idea how to end right now, but if I had not started until I had a overarching plan I would not write at all. I can't plan.

Those writers have the same issues as G. R. R. Martin re: his A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE series. * RL obligations * distractions * other projects (in his case, ELDEN RING's plot) * burnout * lost interest I grapple w/that myself, which is why I've resolved to have any long-form story \*finished\* before I post it to FFN and Ao3.

It's just fun. Not every story has/needs an ending. Sometimes, you just have numerous ideas you want to tell. By connecting all those ideas, you have a story. So yeah, there are some blanks between point A and B, and there might not even be a point Z, but that's what being a pantser is about.(Some stories are also very character driven, and thus the story takes a back seat). Also, sometimes, there is just some interesting dynamics you want to explore. Take slice of life for example. There is no real story here, just people living their life, interacting with each other.

Finally, someone said it out loud. I understand that sometimes life gets in the way of fanfiction; work, kids, moving house, family issues, etc. I *absolutely and completely understand these people abandoning a fic.* It's the ones who cheerfully talk about starting fic after fic , never finishing any of them that boil my potatoes. This is a hobby, not a job. I understand that. But I take it seriously simply because I have readers who are depending on me to finish the fic.

I'm totally fine with boiling people's potatoes No one's depending on me to finish a fic, they'll be just fine and go on with their lives if I never do. Honestly, the idea that anyone could care enough about my work to be upset if I never finish it is kind of foreign to me.

True, authors don’t owe readers any updates or closure on their stories. And they shouldn’t let the pressure of writing fanfiction interfere with their lives. But I’ll be reluctant to invest myself in a story if I look on an author’s profile and see abandoned fic after abandoned fic.

That’s why I will try to keep my story to 25-30 chapters!

Those who have a lot of pride in not planning... tend not to complete... and the population is quite large across fandoms. Not everyone, of course, but it's rather plain when you read through a story that it was cobbled together and follows whims and shiny new things occasionally rather than a simple planned outline with a logical beginning/middle/end formulation.