I love recommendations (I don't love WIPs)

[brightknightie]

I personally, as a fan reader, don't choose to read fanfic works in progress (WIPs). When I was new to fandom, in mailing-list days, I did try to follow some WIPs, but even those by established, respected, skilled authors, who had previously posted complete, well-crafted, novel-length stories, all eventually petered out, unfinished. I felt ill-done-by as a reader and decided not to engage with WIPs anymore. Even with professionally published series, I can sometimes be wary; I've seen planned trilogies never get their subsequent volumes, and if the first one wasn't written to be sufficiently complete unto itself, that can be frustrating. (And when I learned how George Eliot felt about publishing Romola serially, I felt even more justified. Serial releases are not for every author, not even when they're the custom.)

To be clear, truly complete stories posting a chapter per day, week, month -- those can be excellent! I love serial delivery! But how far can one trust that they are truly complete and edited... (obviously, I also won't read anything declaring itself unedited, eeeek; of course one can't always engage someone to help, but one can always strive to self-edit, and declaring proudly that one didn't bother drives me off).

On the other hand, what I do love to follow, as a fan reader, are recommendations. ♥ A strong, thoughtful recommendation for a well-crafted story, with interesting insights, canon-resonant characterizations, new ideas... chef's-kiss! Some folks post recommendations in their journals. Some make them via the AO3 bookmark feature. Some post them in recommendation communities like fancake and het_reccers. If you do any of those things, thank you! Thank you very much! If you know more recommendation communities for me to follow... recommend them? :-)