Amalthia's recs and fan works

Master Posts are posts where an author lists their header information as well as chapters to all the parts in their LJ posted fic. This helps the reader find all the parts in the story.

The basic Master Post shares essential information about the story such as:

Author:
Title:
Pairing:
Fandom:
Word Count:
Warnings:
Summary:
Artist: (Include link)

Most authors get this part just right.

The part many authors miss is helping the reader find all the parts to their fic. I don’t think readers are asking a lot. We want to read your story, we want to read it in the correct order, and we actually want to read ALL of the story.

Some authors use tags, which helps, but tags are not nearly as effective as a simple list of links leading to each chapter or part in the story.

But in doing that, sometimes the links aren't enough either because they lead to locked posts, they aren't in a logical order; in so many ways, writers shoot themselves in their own feet by making it difficult to read multiple post fic.

For example, what many authors do is list Chapter 1a but make no mention of 1b in their chapter post let alone at the top of Chapter 1a, which could lead the reader to believe that there are no links at the bottom of the fic. This is NOT good. Not everyone (like me) is going to scroll down 18 plus chapters to see if there is more at the end. Trying to read a story shouldn’t be like a scavenger hunt.

This sucks. And the author gets no cookie or brownie points from me or any other reader that has experienced this.

Another issue for the multi-part stories is that some authors make 2 Master Posts. For the reader this is confusing, first because it makes me ask why there are two master posts for the same story? Why not just have one master post and list all the links there.

One time there was a multi-part story with two master posts, and in master post #1 (which was part 1), there were (let's just say) seven chapters numbered 1 through 7. But in the master post #2 (which was part 2), there were eight chapters, and they were numbered 1 through 8. If you stumbled upon master post #2, you might think you were at the beginning of the story, but instead you ended up in the middle. Much confusion develops for the reader when trying to figure this out.

If you MUST have two master posts (though it boggles the mind as to why you would want this kind of maintenance nightmare), then the chapters should be consistently sequential from beginning to end. Like this:

Part 1

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Part 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6a
Chapter 6b

It’s the author’s job (if they choose to share their writing) to make the access to their stories clear and not confusing. It does not inspire confidence in a story if an author cannot share their story in a way that does not confuse the reader or cut them off from the rest of the story.

Many workplaces now block social networking sites such as Livejournal. Readers have found a few ways to get around these blocks such as downloading fic to usb sticks, emailing the stories to themselves, and etc…as a result when they (including myself) are at work and have the time to read the fic, this is not the best time to find out they missed downloading parts of the author’s story. Keeping in mind with a limited amount of time in the evening to download and etc…this happens quite often.

These are just some things to keep in mind if you’re an author posting a multi-chaptered story or splitting a story up due to LJ word posting limitations. The simplest solution would be a single file version but if that is not possible then it is rather important that the author make it as easy and clear as possible for their readers to find every part of their story in a single post.