#writerguide

So far after doing my first guide I was able to include everything about the ao3 html formatting and all the common errors you might run into when publishing on ao3! 

But I ran into one text feature I couldn’t quite figure out/I didn’t even know what this feature was even called:

As you can see, there’s a border almost beside this group of text and this border alone has been the cause of extensive research of how the actual fuck do I put that in my writing!??

Well now I know wtf this border is even called and what it’s many purposes are. 

Ladies and gentlemen (and my beloved non-binary hoes) this border is called:

(Did I actually type that out and screenshot it with sparkle emojis? Yes. Yes I did.) 

Blockquote is a text feature used often on ao3 to indicate to your readers that 

a) They’re speaking on the internet 

 b) Texting 

and:

 c) To make your summaries look a little more refined (that’s at least how I interpret it and how many others have according to my research.) 

There isn’t one way—or a correct way to use blockquotes (if we're talking about novel writing/journalism than that’s a whole different story.) But the premise is, here’s the coding format to implement blockquote to your text.

<blockquote> TEXT </blockquote>

It’s going to look a little something like this in your Holy Grail Google Docs page:

But there’s a catch.

For some reason, the holy grail google docs website I first recommended to you guys in the first guide, doesn’t register the blockquote text. Therefore, you’d have to manually implement it into your writing. 

Now, this doesn’t mean you cannot do blockquote on your text (adding the border on your own) onto your word doc. (Google docs, to my knowledge, does not have a border option that will just feature itself to the left of your text but they do have a citation feature. The only issue with that is, that you’d have to implement an actual source to that text.)

But anyway, that is how to blockquote your writing! If there’s a new update to the little blockquoting code to the holy grail docs (which I highly doubt it but eh) then I’ll be sure to make a new guide and include it there! 

Alright! I’m not sure if any of you were aware of this but—ao3 updated!!

There wasn’t extreme changes, just ao3 fixing any glitches or cleaning up some formatting but the one change that I would say is extreme and has affected me as a writer—is the tagging system.

As you can see above (I’m going to use @ edema_ruh fic as an example)(if you haven’t read her stuff I HIGHLY recommend, she’s a phenomenal writer!)  she has a very long tag list for this particular story. 

That’s because before the ao3 update, the tagging system for your story was almost infinite? (I’m pretty sure there was a limit) but the point is that you as the writer can put as many tags on your story as much as you want. If you wanted 100 plus tags underneath your story, go for it! If you want a solid 50, you can do that too! 

Of course, when you find a story with too many tags, it usually pushes readers not to click on that story because it hurts their eyes trying to track all the tags or because you’re telling too much of your story through the tags without letting the reader experience it through reading the actual story. Tags also had a way of taking up too much screen space, hence, when your stories are uploaded to the fandom page where people can find it in the explore section of ao3 (the front page of your fandom tag) those long tags can take up almost the whole page making other stories move onto the next tab. 

Which comes to my theory that ao3 had placed a limit to how many tags a story can have so that all stories can be featured on the front page of a fandom tag without just ONE story taking up so much space. I also believe ao3 placed a limit to the tagging system so it doesn’t affect tags for stories within a series and tags within your bookmarks. 

The current limit to how many tags you can have for your story is 75. And this is including placing character tags, relationship tags, and additional tags. There has to be 75 in total in order for you to publish that story. 

While I believe ao3 updating the tagging system is a good thing (to avoid redundant tags) I do believe they should have placed the limit to the character tag section and the relationship section. For additional tags, I believe the 100 tag system worked for me, especially with works that were on a larger scale (like stories with huge world-building elements) and just for us as writers to write a comment here and there (those are always fun to do!) but alas, I’m not really mad about the update on the tagging system and it gives you space as the writer to think hard on how to simplify your tags to tell your readers what your story includes then just telling them what’s its about. 

I also want to preface this by saying that stories that were already published with those long tags won’t be removed! It’s only if you’re editing through that work and changing the tags around that you’d have to abide by the new update to have 75 tags to be able to publish that work again!

Since my first ao3 guide, I didn’t entirely go into navigating ao3 as a reader! While this may be straight-forward for some of you, it’s not that straight-forward for new readers going onto read on ao3 for the first time! Or maybe even seasoned writers and readers on ao3 who don’t bother to go the extra mile to look for a story that might have specific things they want to read but don’t bother looking! 

So! This is what my fic explore page looks like on ao3. (I’m just going to go on the MHA fandom tag since that’s what I’ve been reading a lot lately)

As you can see, there’s a separate box (gray box) listing a bunch of things you can do to filter through stories. 

In this box is where you can customize your search for specific fics that you’re itching to read. I’m just going to go through how I filter my tags when I’m itching to find a new story and give you an idea of what you might want to look for when filtering through stories. 

First! I always filter through the “Date Updated” tag. By default ao3 has everyone’s search page surf through stories that have either been published that same day or a couple of days from the date that you are searching through stories. I always click on the drop down menu and select, “Hits,” or, “Kudos,” and sometimes, “bookmarks.” For today tho, I’m just going to click on “Hits.” 

Once Hits is selected, I start to scroll down to the Ratings drop down menu. 

Now ratings are important to me! My personal favorite ratings are either Explicit or Mature. And that’s primarily because I find writers that are adults like me (or much older) and I just personally find that they write the story in a very realistic way or semi-realistic way. (Also I find that I love reading smut with heavy plot, like I enjoy reading smut but I can’t just read smut)(my ace ass can’t I’m sorry LOL I mean—I don’t mind one good smut oneshot but lord) 

Anyway, here you can click on a rating that’s best suited to your tastes and if you’re unsure just go through all the ratings and see if you find a story that fits to what you’re looking for!

Now let’s move onto the relationships tag:

Now the relationships tag is just a long list of popular ships within the fandom. If you’re looking for a specific ship I believe you have to use the search engine to find stories within that ship. Either way, if the ship that you’re looking for is within this list, click on it and then move onto the next tag!

Here we are with the additional tags! This is the list of common additional tags many writers use for readers to find their stories very easily and for you as the reader to find a story with a very specific feature to it. For example, I tend to click on the Angst tag or the Hurt/Comfort. Sometimes I switch it up and just click on any of the tags and look through the stories there to see if there’s stories I like within that tag. A lot of the time, this list doesn’t always have an additional tag I want so I’ll use the search bar underneath the additional tag listing:

Here I would put a tag that I can’t find on the listing above! Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, it’s very hit or miss but it’s worth a shot in the event that you do end up finding a story you really enjoy!

More options is a tag listing that I don’t find myself using often but I can see why someone would! 

Personally, I’ve only used it for the “Completion Status,” tag listings because sometimes I don’t want to keep waiting for updates and just reading works that are still updating (though the best fics are usually still ongoing) 

So here I’ll go ahead and click “Completed Works Only,” and then after go right on ahead to “Sort and Filter.” 

Now here is what my explore page on ao3 underneath all the tags I had personally placed start to appear. 

Fair warning: sometimes there will be a story or two that have nothing to do with the tags that you placed in your sort and filter listing. It just happens. If you’re really picky about it, I suggest going to the “Exclude,” box and marking off things you don’t want in a fic. Again, this is a hit or miss but I do see that it does work to a certain extent, especially after going through at least the second to third tabs on ao3.

^ This what your Exclude tag box should look like and ranges from the exact rating you don’t want to read to other additional tags you don’t want to include in your search for a fic. You can even type out a certain tag you don’t want included in your search as well!

Bookmarks is pretty self-explanatory but I’m here to dive deeper into the realm of bookmarks (and then collections right after this)

This is what my bookmarks currently looks like. Now, bookmarks can be separated into two different “tags.” By tags I mean you can either place the story that you’re bookmarking in into a “rec” tab or into a “private” tab. 

By default, everyone I know puts their stories in the “rec” tab. And as you can see, when you bookmark the story you can also add a reader’s note or place it into your collections folder. You can also add tags of your own that are very specific to you as a reader that the author didn’t include. For example, “Izuku is super whiny in this” or something like that. I find that a lot of readers say a lot of cute/super nice things when they bookmark a story they like! 

Yes, we writers can see what you write in your bookmarks and a lot of the time I just find myself blushing at what y’all be saying in those bookmarks, yall cute for that. 

Here you also have the option to add the story into a private bookmark, this way other readers and writers won’t be able to read the stories you like/added to your bookmarks. I think a lot of ppl use this tag so that others don’t judge them for the stories they like or they read a bit of a controversial ship or concept. 

As you saw above, when you click on your bookmarks tab you’re able to see another filtering system there too! This is primarily if you’re a more avid reader and you find yourself adding a whole bunch of stories, you can filter through them by searching the specific tags that that fic had. 

You can also find this filtering system when you click on other readers/writers bookmarks and you can filter through their bookmarks to see if they happen to have a story that you may like. Which is another thing I want to get into:

I’m not sure if this is hugely common but I believe it is if ao3 has you searching through bookmarks on the main fandom explore page. 

Now typically I don’t tend to find stories through the bookmark tag on the fandom explore page but it is an option and I’m sure a lot of you can find stories you personally like by using this little system. I personally just search through all my favorite writers bookmarks or I go onto readers pages and see what they’ve added to see if there’s a story there that I like. Mainly because I can find a story better suited to my interests if I search through another reader’s bookmarks knowing they’ve bookmarked the same story as me. Or I go onto my favorite writer’s bookmarks because if they write all this amazing material, I should be able to find a story that they took inspiration from or enjoy by all the tags that they write. (Sometimes that’s not always the case but it’s always worth a shot in my book.)

Anyway, this is how to find stories using the bookmark method!

Collections, in my opinion, is the best way to find really amazing stories!

I call it a level up from bookmarks.

What I tend to see when it comes to collections, if your story ends up in multiple collections, it’s a huge compliment because not only does one reader think your story is worth being in it’s separate folder but multiple readers think the same thing. Here I’ll be explaining to you how to create your own collection and what to look for when searching for stories through a collection folder.

As you can see on the left side, you’d find collections right below bookmarks. This is just a short list of collections that I have separated by fandoms. On the top right, you’re going to click onto “New collection.” 

Just like when you’re getting ready to either publish a new story or add a new chapter, the window for the collections page is formatted in a similar way.

Collection name and Display Titles are very important here. Since collections are very common, naming said collections are very common. Therefore, if you want to name your collections a specific thing, 9 times out of 10 that name is already taken. I just wanted to warn you guys in advance so that when you’re making your own collections that you’re not married to a name. 

Everything else to edit through on the collections page is self-explantory but I wanted to highlight the preferences window for a bit because I find that this is important to readers and how they would like to manage their collections. 

Commonly, collections are a public and a moderated affair. Meaning, almost anyone (guests and users alike) can go onto your collections and pick a story from there, filter through them, (I believe leave comments as well?? Not too sure about this one so take it with a grain of salt) and just openly surf through your collections page. Others can also become members of your collections page and moderate it to their liking with permission. 

Another common occurrence is having to be invited into a collection page you believe will have stories you think will suit your reading needs! Usually I find that the moderators or owners of the collections are good with accepting invitations but there is a bit of a wait time in order to access said collection. If you’re not impatient, I suggest this option to you if you find a collection page you really like. 

Now, when adding a story to your collections page, you need to type out (word for word) the title of your collection page. This is primarily because there are so many collection pages that might have the same name that you don’t wanna risk adding your story into the wrong collection page. 

Now that your favorite story is added to your collections folder, you can start adding a bunch of other stories onto that same collections page or make different collection pages for specific fandoms that you read from!

Fair warning!!! 

If you’re adding stories too quickly onto your collections page or just cleaning out your bookmarks (deleting stories you never ended up reading etc) just know that ao3 will crash on you! 

This is mainly because ao3 is trying to adjust to those new changes as quickly as it can but it needs some time to adjust to those changes! So what I recommend is, after adding 3 to 5 stories onto your collections or removing them from your bookmarks, allow a 5 minute break for ao3 to adjust to those changes so it doesn’t crash on you’d end up waiting a solid 10 minutes just to load back your ao3 page!

I believe this is obvious but—! You need to have an ao3 account in order to add stories to your bookmarks or collections! If you are a guest reader, you unfortunately cannot make bookmarks or add stories to collections/make collections. 

To make an ao3 account is very easy, you just have sign up like how you would with any other website. The only unique thing about ao3 is that unlike other websites, ao3 isn’t an instant account making machine. Your sign up needs to be approved beforehand in order to be an avid reader/writer of ao3 and usually takes up to 2 weeks to get an invitation into ao3 with an official account. 

I find that you don’t end up waiting 2 weeks but instead like a couple of days (a solid 2-5 days) after you sign up. Make sure to look through your junk mail and stuff to know if you were approved or not!  I hope this little explanation helps and doesn’t deter you from making account and joining ao3! If it helps, you can still read on ao3 even after making an account and waiting to get approved!

I hope you guys enjoyed this little guide! I appreciate all of you who came from my first ao3 guide and reblogged and tagged it with comments telling me how you found this very useful and informative! 

I’m not sure why so many people like to gate-keep information, especially important information like this but I’m here to tell you how to navigate a pretty complicated (albeit amazing) platform that I believe everyone should have access to. Especially as a writer and a reader. I hope you find this just as useful as the first one and if there’s anything that you’re curious about or can’t exactly find the answers to, don’t mind reaching out to me through my ask box here on tumblr! I’m always ready to spread some knowledge or go through endless articles, videos and tirades of information to give you all and my readers the best reading experience possible!

That’s all for this guide! If you didn’t know, I am a fanfic writer and novelist! I’m currently writing for fandoms like MHA, Voltron and BTS! If you liked this guide and enjoyed me as a writer, go on ahead and follow my tumblr here and check out some of my work on ao3! 

Above you can see a couple of my links and my new ko-fi! (I finally made a ko-fi lmaoo) so if you want to support me on an even deeper level, you can now buy me a coffee 💗

You can reach out to me through my twitter and tumblr if you have any questions or just want to chill and talk to me! Twitter is the best way to find me and get updates to my stories! 

It’d be super helpful if you reblog this and spread the this information around, you never know when a fellow writer or reader needs it! 

Again, thank you to those of you who came from my first guide and found it very useful and helpful! I hope to keep creating content that can help other writers and readers in the near future!