I kind of sort of have a recipe now on how I am building lists! Generally I go for a combo of five types of fic now
Reccing old fics where the authors are not active in fandom. This is actually more fun than I expected. Because you have maximum flexibility about what you want to rec/how you want to rec it. I go really experimental on these recs.
Reccing fics from new authors. Because you really make a difference to their confidence. Which means you get more fics to read! Everybody wins.
Reccing fics from favorite authors. Because you want them to write more about your fav characters/pairings/just write more anything!!
Reccing fics which are dirty/bad/hot/wrong. Because fandom needs more of this!
Reccing in the range of 30-100 kudos. There is a lot of great stuff outside the Sort By Kudos filter on AO3.
Also some principles. Because maximum cringe Saturday here.
Rec for yourself. It's just like writing for yourself and anything fandom related in general honestly. I am generally reccing for the type of reader like me. Because I wanted rec lists. Also sort by kudos/other stats wasn't working for me. So my recs are about my taste/what I like.
Ask! This is a big one. A lot of times I like fics which are too complicated to rec. But generally asking the author works out great to get references/key themes. Took me forever to start asking.
Say no. You don't have to read everything. You don't have to rec everything. Stuff like that. It's a huge fandom! I suck at saying no. But a lot of times folks can get upset/sad for valid reason if they feel their work should be recced. Anyway the answer is more rec lists by more people.
Nope out. I mean. This sounds really weird. But sometimes people can get upset about the quality of your rec about their fic and things like that. Because I want to feel good about reccing I generally nope out when somebody feels I didn't do a good job reccing their fic. A lot of fandom experience is about curation.
Trust your taste! If you are reccing it's definitely easier to trust your own taste instead of staying on top of the latest fic/pairing/trope which went big. Of course my taste isn't the best or anything like that. But it's super useful to have some focus
Also bonus stuff.
You get to learn things about your favorite authors when you start reading fics for reccing. Like their favorite kinks. Like their common typos. Like their repeating themes. It's pretty cool honestly. It's like learning something about a person through their works. I should totally call out PI on that glove kink. Maybe not. Maybe yes. Definitely yes.
You get better at reading/analysis in general. I rec some really weird/brilliant fics sometimes which can be pretty out there. But that stuff has been good for my critical thinking skills.
You get lots of impact! I mean I sound like I am selling a job. But recs make a huge difference sometimes to motivate/encourage folks. Also it can sometimes connect people. Which is a bonus because we get to build fandom community garden.
