things I wish I’d known when I started writing fic on ao3
use & for friendships, colleagues, familial relationships and use / for romantic or sexual relationships (or encounters)
not everyone reads fic. Lots of people use screen readers, and screen readers can’t see what’s on images. use descriptive text to help them out.
lots of people download fic to read on other devices, not all downloads capture images too.
there’s a big difference between No Archive Warnings Apply (NAWA) and Author Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings (CNTW). NAWA means that there’s nothing in the fic that needs to be warned for using the official Archive Warning system. CNTW means there might be something that requires a warning and the author is either avoiding giving out spoilers or they are unsure how to interpret their plot point with respect to the official Warnings. (in both cases, additional tags are where it’s at - you can explain yourself there)
the reason why the number of bookmarks in the fic is different from the number of bookmarks on your stats page is because your stats page number includes bookmarks that are hidden
there’s a preference setting where you can receive emails with your own comments/replies.
there’s a site skin that hides stats so you don’t have to see them
writing in rich text format makes my life easier
knowing html allows me to do fun things in the comments section like comment/reply with reaction gifs
knowing html also allows me to do interesting formatting in my fics that I can’t do with rich text alone
those little blue bubbles with the question marks in them will answer my questions a lot of the time - and also teach me something new
the FAQ is linked under the word About in the header
if you write your fic in the draft window, you might end up losing it so make sure you copy the text before you hit Post, just in case
they aren’t kidding when they say drafts are deleted after 30 days
Here’s some additions.
The Anonymous collection will allow you to post anything you want and retain ownership over it.
Your identifying information will not be anywhere within the fic to any other reader. Though you will see it from your end when looking at it as a logged in user.
When you reply to a comment, it will anonymize you, so feel free to respond to your commenters!
You can take your fic off Anonymous at any time
When you are signed into AO3, you can easily access your Anonymous fics by looking at the “Works In Collections” tab on your page. Nobody else will see these Anonymous works on this page.
Works can be added to the Anonymous collection at any time
Just because a fic is Anonymous does not mean it is Abandoned or Orphaned.
Speaking of Orphaned fics:
If you have posted a story and for whatever reason you no longer want it on your account or associated with you, you can Orphan the fic.
Orphaning fics will remove all of your control and ownership of the story.
Orphaning fics is not a reversible process. Once a fic has been Orphaned it cannot be taken back. You cannot delete it. You can’t check stats and it does not show up on your Works page anymore.
Orphaning and the Anonymous collection are great options for when you no longer want a fic associated with you, but you don’t want to delete it either.
Also: dark mode skins are great! I use Reversi on this page and it’s much easier on the eyes than the white background. Here’s how to use skins.
Also also: how to use html om AO3.
Don’t know if someone else has already said this in the notes but unless your bookmark is private the author can look and see what tags or additional notes you’ve put on the bookmark (I like to check them to see if anyone has :D). Also, yes, you can add your own tags to bookmarks and make different lists to organize them! You can comment on fics anonymously (though I think you have to log out to do so as of now, really wish it was an option while signed in but still great it’s even an option at all!) You can save new chapters on fics as a draft (without the 30 day limit if I remember). I do this a lot. There is separate sections for both beginning and ending author’s notes (you can use both on the same chapter or one shot) and using the author’s note doesn’t include your rambling as part of the word count. Which is nice as it doesn’t artificially inflate the numbers.
On site skins:
You can combine existing skins by creating you own skin scroll to the bottom under ADVANCED and then Parent Skins. Example, i use AO3s Reversi and then XParrots Shortening Long Tag Field
Also, you can exclude stories in this area too! I got this from another tumblr post so i can’t take credit for it, nor do i know how to expand it to other things like tags or pairing or author.
.blurb#work_430075 { display: none; }
Just replace the numbers with the work you dont want to see anymore.
Just a few points to add that I hadn’t seen listed above:
-In addition to beginning and ending author’s notes for the overall story, there are also beginning and ending author’s notes for each chapter of a multipart story. When you first create the story, before you add additional chapters, it will treat your author’s notes as overall story notes – meaning your “so that’s chapter 1!” note will be kicked to the end of every subsequent chapter unless you move it to chapter 1 specifically.
-There is, in fact, a character limit in the author’s notes. I’ve run up against it a few times.
