Do you read your old, abandoned stories/webtoons?

[honeyandcreambutter]

I have a huge backlog of abandoned stories; from ones with 20+ chapters and ones that are simply a one page concept that I've never published. Most of the time, I abandoned them because I didn't have a clear idea of how the plot will go or I simply have lost interest. Despite all of that, I find them fascinating to reread in my spare time and often, I treat them as if someone else had wrote them. While I don't have plans on coming back and turning them into a long running series, I feel like I might remake them into short stories in the future

So this is a question for you guys:

• Do you read your old, abandoned stories/webtoons? What had stopped you from finishing them?
• Do you have plans on coming back to them in the future?

[imagineemmajun]

I have a few old stories that I would like to look at again, but drawing has always been a problem. I wrote the first few scripts but gave up on finding an artist. I like the scripts tho they are a bit dated now. I hope I could update them. One is about an old feuding couple, Mad Monkey-man and Crazy Cat Lady. They are neighbours and each live with an army of their animals. And they just have a crazy feud every episode. Another was Mr and Mrs Sith. Which was the domestic life of a married dark side couple. And the other one was even more random. I can't remember the full name but there was a cat who lives in an upside down flying top hat and the Rampant ghost, who was only so active cos he went to get ice cream all the time. And random stuff just kept happening to them.

[shfra13]

I read my old stories (especially fanfics) that I posted-but-never-finished-before for cringe factor lol Other than that, I do check my drafts from time to time to look for projects I abandoned but might like to continue. Well, the only reason I abandon those projects most likely loss of passion; and that I haven't gotten a clear view of how I want my story to progress. I kinda wish to go back to most of them, though.

[cherrystark]

I've reread some that I actually took the time to write more than a page. Some stories I made it 10+ pages before quitting. I have learned while writing/publishing online seriously is the idea that not all stories need to be full length novels or full trilogies, etc. The majority of the stories in my series at only about 20K words. But for the series itself, that's more than enough. Some of my old stories do make me sad though, in a nostalgic short of way. Some of my passages/ideas were pretty good. It's a shame I never got around to finishing them.

[domisotto]

I have a file with story ideas that are a page or a few pages each. I pull them to develop when I decide on the next project.

I have a 38K long rough draft that I plan to rewrite next year into a novel, and I have a 140K novel that has to be rewritten again to query or abandoned.

[UrMom]

I have only one abandoned project, and I don't have any interest in reading it, although I do use pages as B&W examples from time to time. It was my very first real attempt at making a comic, it was a sort of "prototype", I pretty much just flew into it with a basic gist of what the story was about. It didn't turn out good, the story had no real direction since I never planned an ending, or even most of the story. After a few years of working on it, due to a combination of becoming to depressed to draw and generally growing up, I slowly lost interest until I just abandoned it.

I never really think back on it since my current project is a better, or more catering to what I want to draw, version. The old comic in itself was just a throw-away story for me to learn how to make comics anyway, so I have no lingering feelings.

[Zaboem]

I don't like to call them abandoned. I do intend to complete unfinished old projects. I actually have a habit of following through and doing just that, even if the end is years later than when I originally thought. But the answer is yes, I do revisit my old writing which includes the unfinished pieces. Why? Because my own goofy gags still make me chuckle like an idiot!

It's sort of remarkable to me how little my writing style has changed over time. Like, none...

[DualDragons]

My laptop crashed three years ago which is why I deleted my old webtoon, so I can't reread it unfortunately. Well, it was kind of cringe anyways

[MeltingCORE]

Yes, I do! I love looking through my old stories. The abandoned ones are all from middle school. One day I'd like to come back to some with my better skills.

[fiddlyturtle]

I have a whole bunch of abandoned stories sitting in my draft that I never got to finish. But I do go back to reading them sometimes, especially the very first one I wrote. It was a really long fanfic which actually shows my growth as a writer. Seeing how my skills grew over time gives me strength to work on my future projects tbh.
I also have an abandoned webtoon which I plan to go back to sometime in the future. But when I have better skills to do it justice XD

[kmlangleyauthor]

I actually really enjoy rereading my old stories. I’ve never consciously thought about it, but my fully abandoned ones I also sort of treat like someone else wrote them.

I write a lot of character excerpts? I guess? Just a little scene that’s not really going anywhere but a fun interaction between a couple people. Those I just count as writing exercises. But the ones that I want to have a plot and a full storyline but I just can’t figure out how to make them work... those get abandoned

Every now and then I’ll have a brilliant idea based off of some of my previously abandoned characters and they get revived. That’s always satisfying

[WoollyPAR]

I have a bunch of stories I started and didn't finish. Every now and then I'll go back and read them again just to see what I did right, what I did wrong, what holds up, and what I still like about it.

I have this one JoJo's Bizarre Adventure story I wrote with a cast of characters that I wanted to be 100% original. I called it "Drehe die Kammer" because the main character is German and he has a stand that's basically a humanoid revolver. It's my first long term story that ended up having 43 episodes with no conclusion. It started July 7, 2019 and the latest one came out October 9, 2020. It's technically still on hiatus, but it's really feeling like it's done for good and I've already moved on to something else. Maybe I'll try to finish it at some point, but right now I think I'm done.

It's only on Amino, I tried reposting some of it on Wattpad, but I was too lazy to change the format. So here's a link if anyone's interested in reading an unfinished story. Maybe there's some value there

Drehe die Kammer: All Episodes (so far) | Wiki | JoJo Amino Amino

I also had this story that only made it to 3 chapters. I called it Ghost Gun and it was about a man who was made by some strange scientist people to be the perfect human, but messed up and he came out blind. Later you find out he's not the only mess up and there are others who are just as perfect as him, with some sort of disability or imperfection. The scientists that made them have little to no respect for these people they made, so some of the mistakes try to take revenge on them while others side with them because it's all they know. They all just want a place in the world and a life separate from their shared origin. I deleted the chapters from their place on the internet, but I still like the idea a lot so I think I'll bring it back with some changes to it eventually.

But yeah, I have a lot of old stories. It's fun to look back on them, see how far I've come as a writer, and maybe even cringe a little bit.

[FritzC]

I don't personally read through my old comics that often, because I get frustrated and embarrassed, but I have a 100+ episodes comic on tapas, that is currently on hiatus because it was just too much work and I loved it, but I just didn't see any future for it (low follower count, no opportunity for a patreon or any other monetization).

edit for clarity: I didn't stop drawing it because it wasn't popular, but it was a traditionally drawn comic, coloured with watercolour, and the workload was enormous and when the comic in itself wasn't motivating enough for me because I couldn't handle the workload and there were no other motivators, I decided to shelf it.

But now that I started my new comic which is fairly popular, the people coming to read it find my old comic and binge it and then get angry it's on hiatus... Welp

[darthmongoose]

Sometimes.... when I want to feel a strange mixture of extreme cringe over how bad they are mixed with a feeling of "hey, bits of these hold up pretty well considering they were by a clueless 22 year old".

I'll say this of my old comics; they're rough around the edges, cheesy, clunkily written, paced way too fast and try a bit too hard to make fun of themselves to avoid being emotionally sincere, and they were often very obviously made up as I went along if they're not short-form comics... but they're not boring. A lot of the jokes hold up, they're full of energy and the characterisation isn't bad. So they're readable and entertaining, they're just...er... not necessarily...good?

[ble]

No and no.

But most of those ideas are in my head, so I could recycle those ideas into newer projects. Like the name of the villlain from my first series (wich was never say before i abandoned) i will reuse that for a more current series.

[AnonymousHouseCat]

Yeah! I think it's fun to look at my old work sometimes, whether it's comics, drawing or writing. My current project is the first comic I ever put online, But there was another one I started in middle school and worked on all throughout high school in physical book form (a lined composition book filled with 10 chapters of storyboards and 1.5 chapters of ink on printer paper cut in half haha). I think I learned a lot from it, and I still really like the villain from that series, but it was definitely something written by a middle-schooler. Also, the plot was too convoluted. Sometimes I like to re-draw characters from my old sketchbooks :). There was another story I was typing up in non-comic form but I dropped the laptop it was on on a concrete floor...not a good time.

[hannahlaine]

I 100% read through my old stories.
A lot of the time, the old stories with only a few chapters or just a good idea, end up being used in my current stories. They will sometimes give me an idea for the story I am working on that makes that story even better.

Other times, when they get turned into short stories.

When I am writing, sometimes I will come up with an idea for another story. So I will stop and write down everything I can think of for that story. Sometimes it is a rough draft of a few chapters, a really great scene, or even a solid first chapter. Other times it is just an idea. I usually stop after I have written everything I can think of because if I were to continue, it would distract from the main book I am working on.

[siluscomics]

Every so often I'll be cleaning out my office and I'll find some old comic I drew when I was a teenager and just... the cringe is real.

I'm actually re-drawing an old comic of mine now because I still love the characters and the story, I just didn't have the skill or commitment to finish them... Thankfully I storyboarded more than I actually drew so there's that going for me I guess! Not that the writing was too good either...