When you're looking to replace said, think about why. You'll generally want to do this when you need the following:
when the tone of the line needs more context.
when you want to show emotion instead of telling it.
when your character’s body language, action, or expression can do the talking instead.
Take a look at the scene you're writing, is the character saying their line? Or are they yelling it? Screaming it? Are they enraged, or perhaps is their voice a broken whisper from grief?
That being said, you shouldn't always avoid using 'said.' It's easy to read in long sentences, and it keeps the focus on the dialogue rather than the rest of the scenes. That may be beneficial and a key component to parts of your story.
Sharing this in case anyone else felt my pain. I used a variety of different text editors for my fics, but regardless, when I copied the final draft into the Ao3 text box and submitted it, there was an annoying extra space between paragraphs! So it made something
Like this
For example
Into something like this. Not as bad as this (holy cow) but close to it.
Tip: This works for Google Docs. Haven't tested it with others, but if you can find similar settings try it out. In the default new doc window, go up to the upper right under Line & paragraph spacing and choose Add space before paragraph. Also found under the Format menu. Then when you copy to Ao3, it'll have the correct paragraph spacing.
A while ago, I made a site skin that replaces all of the AO3 icons with new ones. I was pretty happy with it, but I wanted more options for changing the colors. So I made a new skin with customizable colors!
Here are previews of the three example color schemes I created (default, berry/reversi blue, and pink) in comparison to the old icons:
Almost all icon background colors (and a few other ones) can be changed to any color you want!
Find instructions for adding and customizing the site skin here on AO3:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
EDIT (20 July 2025): I have added pink icons and updated this post accordingly.
this is a super simple site skin that’s slightly more than just a recolor. i originally set out to create a skin that would get rid of that darn muted users notif and then found myself procrastinating fic writing by customizing a site skin lol
it should be fairly simple to recolor if you like the look but don’t want the pink (or cream), however, the icons are linked images and therefore a set color. so if you’re wanting to change that, the source code uses gray icons so you could refer there (linked below), or you’ll have to upload your own icon images and change the urls accordingly.
other features besides recolor:
-hides “you’ve muted users” notif (ty @ao3commentoftheday for sharing how to do that!)
-changes work stat labels to icons (code from @ao3skin, specifically Tide)
- makes buttons flat (ty to @ao3skin again for sharing how to this!)
skin is shared here w/ installation instructions :)
dededos
kaledo-art
2087
jacobvanloon
yousharknotpass
