Failure
When is a project more trouble than it's worth?
It's something that has been plaguing me all week and I couldn't quite figure out what the answer was.
As a writer, it's easy to fall for the Sunk Cost Fallacy, the idea that you've put a ton of time into something and thus you need to see it through to the end.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve stumbled into this trap MULTIPLE times. The first was with one of my earliest projects. It took me nearly a decade to finish and while I DID finish it, the project had evolved and changed so much over the years it was a mess of narrative styles and plot lines that made the story a confused jumble. Even to this day, I’ve tried to rewrite and rework the story because of Sunk Cost, which is even worse because I know what I’m trying to overcome with the project.
But more recently than that, I’ve had to come to terms with the Fallacy as I have dropped deep into writing a web serial. I have thoroughly enjoyed working on Star Launch Academy, and I truly do believe the story has something there, but I think that once again I’ve fallen into a trap.
Successful serials find their footing by about three months after they’ve been released. If they haven’t quite gotten there by that point, it’s a hard road to come back from. Readers on the various sites will see high chapter numbers, but low followers and wonder why. Sure, you might get a spurt of views when you release a new chapter, but there’s no engagement, no community curiosity because many readers that you started with have no longer stuck around.
So it is with a slightly heavy heart that I admit that I am currently putting Star Launch on a hiatus in terms of its serial status. I believe the story is workable and I intend to do some serious overhauls to it, but the weekly releases will come to an end while I decide on it’s future. For those of you wondering what I am already thinking for the eventual overhaul. I’m considering a complete change to the narrative style as the multi-POVs, while interesting, didn’t work as well as I had intended.
Book 3 of The Cadinari Stream is currently in progress as well as several short stories set in the Taldora world that are in various stages of completion (these ones are definitely projects that get worked on as the inspiration hits.)
But for those of you who do like to follow my work on a consistent basis fret not. I am not leaving the serial world completely, instead I am refocusing to a new serial that I plan on starting to release in the next month. Instead of jumping in half assed, which I admittedly did with SLA, I have done far more research and planning around this particular project. From the sites to post on, to the frequency and expectations of the genre.
Having something fail doesn’t make you a failure, it’s just A failure. Not learning something from that failure though? Now that can make you a failure. And I don’t intend on letting that happen.
Just a matter of putting in the work.
It's something that has been plaguing me all week and I couldn't quite figure out what the answer was.
As a writer, it's easy to fall for the Sunk Cost Fallacy, the idea that you've put a ton of time into something and thus you need to see it through to the end.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve stumbled into this trap MULTIPLE times. The first was with one of my earliest projects. It took me nearly a decade to finish and while I DID finish it, the project had evolved and changed so much over the years it was a mess of narrative styles and plot lines that made the story a confused jumble. Even to this day, I’ve tried to rewrite and rework the story because of Sunk Cost, which is even worse because I know what I’m trying to overcome with the project.
But more recently than that, I’ve had to come to terms with the Fallacy as I have dropped deep into writing a web serial. I have thoroughly enjoyed working on Star Launch Academy, and I truly do believe the story has something there, but I think that once again I’ve fallen into a trap.
Successful serials find their footing by about three months after they’ve been released. If they haven’t quite gotten there by that point, it’s a hard road to come back from. Readers on the various sites will see high chapter numbers, but low followers and wonder why. Sure, you might get a spurt of views when you release a new chapter, but there’s no engagement, no community curiosity because many readers that you started with have no longer stuck around.
So it is with a slightly heavy heart that I admit that I am currently putting Star Launch on a hiatus in terms of its serial status. I believe the story is workable and I intend to do some serious overhauls to it, but the weekly releases will come to an end while I decide on it’s future. For those of you wondering what I am already thinking for the eventual overhaul. I’m considering a complete change to the narrative style as the multi-POVs, while interesting, didn’t work as well as I had intended.
Book 3 of The Cadinari Stream is currently in progress as well as several short stories set in the Taldora world that are in various stages of completion (these ones are definitely projects that get worked on as the inspiration hits.)
But for those of you who do like to follow my work on a consistent basis fret not. I am not leaving the serial world completely, instead I am refocusing to a new serial that I plan on starting to release in the next month. Instead of jumping in half assed, which I admittedly did with SLA, I have done far more research and planning around this particular project. From the sites to post on, to the frequency and expectations of the genre.
Having something fail doesn’t make you a failure, it’s just A failure. Not learning something from that failure though? Now that can make you a failure. And I don’t intend on letting that happen.
Just a matter of putting in the work.
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