But you can't really be mad at them because in such cases they may have literally done that. As in died...

Yes, it annoys me to no end. That's why I don't want to inflict this to my readers and start posting a story once at least 80% of it has already been completed.

Happens way too much, but I do agee with the first comment.

I do feel guilty sometimes because I think "what if they actually did die" but it happens way too often for that to be the reason all of the time

Yes, but being a hypocrite, I have done that before. Not on fanfiction.net, but on a less fanfiction generic place-Nick.com. I've written Avatar: the Last Airbedner stuff there but just stopped going altogether. I felt bad, but it just wasn't in my heart anymore to write there. I felt bad for just leaving the story, but seriously, it wasn't quite serious writing and that's what I wanted to do.

So maybe people do have reasons, but in many cases, probably not. They just...leave.

I unfortunately have done it in the past. Which is why I told myself I would never upload a story that wasn't finished yet :)

... and it always happens with the good stories!
Why, oh god why???!!!
im trying to finish all my fanfictions -only have 2 unfinished-, and this is why im not working on too many at once. it mostly happens when you get authors block, and go to another story, then get another authors block then you start with something else, totally loosing interest in the first story. If i get a block i simply stop writing altogether until my muse comes back.

sadly I've done it before though. For me, a lot of what it is that is preventing me from going forward is writer's block. I write myself into a corner and I have a hard time getting out of it. The other thing is trying to write 4 stories at once.

Happens way to much for it to be legal. even if they offer it for adoption, it isn't the same, you know?

Honestly, who doesn't hate it?

I've written tons of good Scooby Doo, Happy Days, Andy Griffith and Perry Mason stories and hardly anybody has left favorites, alerts, etc. on the stories and they were all very interesting stories. If you ever stop by my page on the site, will you review them? I took some of my stories off the site to make them look better because a fanfic friend mentioned I should work on rewording my stories. My name there is the same as it is here. I hope you like them!

Happens with like half of the fics I subcribe to and it really irritates me!

Oh, yes I hate it! I would rather they just deleted the story, or as some do: Give the story to someone else to finish! I try not to do it myself, though I have like 5 or 6 stories in progress, but I will finish all of them!

I remember someone's excuse being that they ''just don't like to write anymore'' .....worse than dying, in my opinion.

I mean I've had to take a hiatus before (just got super busy) but I let my readers know.

I started reading this AWESOME fan fiction and I STILL really want to know what's going to happen, but the author hasn't updated it in like, two years. *rage*

Or when they update really tiny chapters every few months.

@fandomfan: I hate tiny chapters, period.

I honestly don't mind tiny chapters.

I get why it happens, but it's still annoying. And it seems to always happen just as the story is getting exciting, too.

When there's no explanation, I think it's more likely that there's a valid reason for the story being dropped - RL becoming too busy or something like a sudden illness. I think fanfic writers are more likely to actually leave an explanatory author's note if they've lost interest in the fandom, no longer like the story or are stopping it due to a lack of reviews.