My Dear fellow writers. PLEASE THINK ABOUT ORPHANING YOUR AO3 FICS INSTEAD OF DELETING THEM!
If for whatever reason you're thinking about deleting one (or all... or a few) of your stories - whether because you're embarrassed about the quality of an old work; or because someone from your life has found your account and you're afraid that the contents of those stories might somehow negatively affect your peace of mind or even your safety (you never know); or for literally ANY other reason under the sun - please please PLEASE consider pushing the 'orphan' button instead of the 'delete'.
There is nothing more heartbreaking for a reader than seeing this between their bookmarks.
Orphaning a work will have the same effect for you personally. Because orphaning a story removes your name from both the story AND from any replies you might have made in response to someone's comment. NOTHING will link back to you. The only difference is that the readers will still be able to read the fic they enjoyed.
And it's not very complicated to do. Just click to edit your work and then look in the upper right corner.
And once there follow these instructions.
THOUGH BE CERTAIN THAT YOU DO WANT TO COMPLETLY CUT THE LINK BETWEEN YOU AND THE STORY BECAUSE THIS IS PERMANENT. THERE IS NO WAY TO AFTERWARDS EDIT OR DELETE THE STORY.
The full information in detail about exactly what happens when you Orphan a work CAN BE FOUND HERE.
On a slightly related note but directed more toward the readers.
Don't be the asshole who creates Collections and then puts them on private. THIS HIDES THE STORY FROM EVERYONE EXCEPT YOU AND THE AUTHOR.
Collections being private and hidden are meant for things like Secret Santa Fic Exchanges (not what they're actually called but you get the point) where all the fics can get revealed simultaneously.
IF YOU WANT TO SAVE STORIES BUT DON'T WANT ANYONE TO SEE WHAT YOU ARE READING YOU CAN DO THAT. You just Bookmark it and SET IT TO PRIVATE.
Your username will never appear in the lists of people who have bookmarked that story. NOT EVEN FOR THE AUTHOR OF THE STORY.
(the only thing that author will see is that that there are more bookmarks in the their statistics than on the bookmark page of the story)
IN CONCLUSION. Please don't delete your stories without at least considering orphaning them AND don't ask authors to let you add their fics to your collections only to then hide them from all other readers.
