Dates matter (aka: Why Am I Making These Lists?)

[snowgall]

What's the deal with all these "year's best" lists I've been posting?

(see e.g. Best of 2012)

Note: a version of this essay has been uploaded to AO3: Dates Matter

Basically, it started with me being frustrated that I couldn't always tell when a work was first published (see long discussion of this problem under the cuts). Consequently, I began noting the original posting dates in the lists I kept of all the fics I'd read. As this sometimes involved a fair amount of sleuthing (see below), I thought it could be helpful to share this information publically. But the world really doesn't need a list of all the hundreds of fics I've read, some good, some not so good. And so instead I decided to create the series of "Best of Year X" lists I've been posting so far. It was really just a way for me to feel that this detective work I'd been doing had a point :)

So, why is it so difficult to determine when a fic was first published, and why should anyone care other than me? Well, I'm so glad you asked.

Why should fandom care when a fic was first published?

From time to time you might see someone claim that "fandom is dying" or somesuch nonsense. But how can you argue one way or another without verifiable facts? Just how many Drarry fics were written in 2007 vs. 2014 anyway? You can try searching an archive like AO3 for the answers, but they won't be accurate. AO3 didn't open for business unil 2008, and then only on a limited basis. Even though many authors have since uploaded their older works to AO3, the "date published" field defaults to the date the author uploaded the fic, not when the author actually first wrote the fic (authors can adjust this field, but many either don't know this or don't bother). So even if more Drarry fics were uploaded in 2014 than were uploaded in, say 2010, that doesn't necessarily mean that more fics were written in 2014, just that AO3 has gotten more popular and more authors are uploading their older works.

Furthermore, it's just more professional and disciplined to date one's work. Authors of fanfiction may work for free (and we love them for it) but that doesn't mean they aren't good at what they do. Most of them are extremely talented and they deserve to have their work treated with respect. And part of that is respecting their own work enough to leave an accurate verifiable record of it for posterity.

Why do I personally care when a fic was first published?

Well, first off, if a fic was published before July 2007, then I know not to expect DH canon compliancy. I didn't start reading HP fanfiction until well after the last book was published, so my default setting is to expect canon compliancy. I'll still read fics that aren't canon compliant, I just like to know what to expect in this regard before I start reading a fic.

Second, if I find a new-to-me author that I like, I want to know if they are still writing in the fandom. Yes, I could go check their LJ, but not every author has an updated LJ (even the active ones). Sometimes a fic will get posted to AO3 and I'll think "ooh! new fic!" and only realize later that while the posting is new, the fic is quite old. Again, this doesn't mean the fic won't be good, just that it may not be canon compliant, and there may not be more fics coming from this author.

Third, if an author has been writing for a long time, her style may have improved or changed in other ways over time. There are some authors who I've learned that I much prefer their later work to their earlier stuff. And surprisingly, there are even some authors for whom I prefer their early work! (There's one author I can think of who early on wrote several Hogwarts era and 8th year fics that I loved to bits, but who now avoids that era entirely, and seems to prefer writing older H/D. I still like her work, but I loved her early work even more).

And last, I like to rec fics, and I if I'm reccing a classic fic, I want to know I'm reccing a classic and not come off all like "hey I found this new fic you've got to read!" and have people think "duh, we all know that fic. It's been around forever, you idiot."

OK, but how hard is it to tell when something was posted? Isn't the date right there on the page?

No it's NOT, at least, not always. And sometimes even when there is a date to be found, the date is not accurate. You have no idea the frustration this brings me! There are four main types of problems when it comes to dating a fic:

Type 1: fics with no dates at all

Mostly this is a problem with earlier fanfic, say prior to 2009 or so. Take a frequently recced fic like amalin's Reparo. So far as I've been able to tell, this fic is only available at the original Big Bang Baby fest site. Which is fine, but did you click on that fic link? The page itself is beautiful with lovely readable formatting, but...where's the date it was posted? I can't find it anywhere, can you? Even on the fest's main index page I can find no indication of when this fest took place. When did it take place? Well thanks to fanlore we can see that this fest took place in 2005, 2007, and 2008. Since Reparo was posted in the third and final fest (inferred from the URL) we can surmise that it dates to 2008. Whew. That was a lot of effort to date just one fic!

Type 2: fics with hidden dates

Take another well-known classic fic like A Frayed and Threadbare Wish by libby_drew (aka sansa1970). Once again, there's no date on the fic page itself. Oh, but there's an alternate link here! And that's the author's LJ site, so surely the page will be dated. Unfortunately, the page linked to is f-locked. So unless you're on the author's friends list, you can't find out when the fic was writen. And I still don't know. Using the wayback machine I can see that the fic dates back to at least June 2009, but it is probably older than that. Frustration!

Type 3: fics with incorrect dates

I love it when authors upload their classic fics to AO3. In 2013-14 annafugazzi uploaded Bond--one of my all-time favorites--which had previously only been availble on ff.net (which is not nearly as reader-friendly). She also very helpfully included an author's note explaining that Bond was conceived and written prior to the publication of HBP. However, because the fic was only recently uploaded to AO3, the "published" field on that site gives the date as April 2013, not the true date of July 2005 (which you can find on the ff.net page). If it weren't for her author's note, new readers would have no idea when the fic was first published. But not all authors add notes! Also, as I mentioned previously it is possible for an author to provide an earlier date for the "published" field on AO3, but not all authors do that, or know that you can.

Type 4: deleted originals

OK, I'm not talking about authors who purge all of their stuff from the internet forever (grr!). Here I'm just talking about works which are newly available on sites like AO3, but where the orginal postings are gone. So take another fic (which I've seen recced but haven't gotten around to reading) such as ab epistulis by cornmouse. Once again we have a work on AO3 which gives the date it was published as 2013, but which the author's note says was actually first published on skyehawke prior to OoTP. So for most people that would be enough, but because I'm crazy, I really want to know exactly when. Ok, no problem, just go look up the original skyehawke page (which I had to hunt around old recs to find!) and see what it says. Well you can't, because the fic is no longer there.

Turns out, if you know the URL from an archive like skyehawke or hexfiles or AO3, then you have the information you need to infer the posting date to that archive (if you're super crazy and OCD like me). The skyehawke URL for ab epistulis ends with the numerical string "4603". This means it was posted after whatever fic is numbered "4601" (4602 has been purged too) and before whatever fic is numbered "4604". Those dates are Nov 5, 2004 and Nov 6, 2004 respectively. So I can confidently say that ab epistulis was first published to skyehawke in early November 2004.

That was entirely too much work to date one single fic, but at least it was possible because the original post, although deleted, had been to an archive. But if the orginal post was to an author's LJ page, and that page is gone, well, there's no hope for it. You can't even use the wayback machine on most LJ pages.

TL; DR

In sum, accurately dating fics is good practice, and is useful to both individual fans and the fandom as a whole. Yet finding accurate publication dates for many fics is nearly impossible: some fics don't have dates at all, some fics have hidden or lost dates, and others are incorrectly dated when they are re-posted to a new archive.

A plea to authors

Please, please, please make sure your fics can be dated. If possible, provide a link to the original posting in your masterlists. If the original work is no longer available, at least give a date. And if you add older works to AO3, please add an author's note explaining where and when the work was first published, and adjust the "published" field to show that date if you can.

Comments

[create-serenity.livejournal.com]

I'm randomly prowling around your LJ now and came across this. I have been meaning to post some old fics to AO3 for a while and even though it's easy to find the original date on my LJ I'll definitely add it to my author's notes on AO3 when I post.

[snowgall]

Thank you so much! Sometimes I feel like such a crazy person for going on and on about dates when I know most people probably don't care, and it's like I'm the only one who thinks it's important :)

But I also know how important it is for authors to have their work come up as "new" on AO3 when they first upload it so that it can get the best possible exposure. So adding the info to your author's notes (as you said) is probably the best option, rather than adjusting the publication date right away (though you could adjust the pub date field sometime later on if you wanted).

This is actually an issue I have with AO3 - I feel like they should distinguish better between "classic fic newly posted to AO3" and "brand new fic posted to AO3" but still sort both of these types as "new" fics in searches.

But until AO3 gets its act together, I really do appreciate it when authors add publication info to their A/N's.

Thanks again! ♥♥♥

[amorette.livejournal.com]

This is so incredibly fascinating to me. I love your brain.

[snowgall]

♥♥♥

You've made me very happy

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you! I was looking for a story for so many time, but i could never grasp it because it's so tricky to get the right keywords for finding one. There are TONS of fics out there, and like every drarry obsessed I like to read good written ones. Finally came across your lj and it was like christmas for me. I've been reading your "all time favourites" for three days in a row and they are fantastic. Love them. Good written, well plotted, argh wonderful. I would put much more in this comment but I'm not very good writing in English as you can read, so please excuse my poor grammar and spelling... I've got no problems at reading though ;)

Thank you again!
PS. The story I was looking for is "on you're knees" (kept searching for knees/draco/outcast/harry/healer. Until I saw the word JANITOR somewhere and voilà! found the story, found your blog, happy times)

Re: You've made me very happy

[snowgall]

Thank you so much, what a lovely comment to get! I'm so glad that you have enjoyed the fics I've recced here. That makes it all worth it!

[highsmith (from livejournal.com)]

Your brain is my brain—for which I am sorry, because no one should have my brain. However, I am beyond ecstatic that someone else out there cares for the minutiae of fanlore and fan fiction to the same degree as me.

[snowgall]

:D

Well you've made me very happy to know I'm not alone! I'm so glad that there are more of us, and thank you so much for leaving such a nice comment ♥

[oakstone730.livejournal.com]

The librarian in me is standing on the sofa, jumping and waving my hands with joy. YOUR CAUSE IS A VERY WORTHY ONE! Yes, it is so hard to figure out when a fic was posted for the first time. That you are doing research and digging for the dates is wonderful. I have visions of doctorate thesees being written on the Harry Potter Fan Fiction Phenomena and such a resource would be a huge aid.

I originally started posting on FF.net in 2012 (when I started writing). I discovered AO3 sometime later and finagled an invitation and started cross-posting there, probably beginning in 2014. When I thought of it on FF (when I was posting Twist as it was being written), I would include the posting date for each chapter in the a/n - but those were probably lost when I purged most of the a/ns (because I was a very chatty, nervous Nellie Writer, LOL).

[snowgall]

You're so sweet! From your lips to my advisor's ears then :) Someone *should* write a doctoral thesis on HP fan fiction!

And so interesting that you mentioned "Twist of Fate" - I've been wanting to discuss this one for reasons of dating!

(Full disclosure - I haven't yet read "Twist of Fate", and I feel so ashamed about that! I very much want to, and it's mortifying to admit that I keep putting it off because of length. I'm ridiculous I know, especially considering the number of words of fanfiction I've read over the years. I love your writing, and I know I will enjoy it when I finally do read it! Please don't hate me!)

But back to the issue of dating. As I have this interest in assigning publication dates to works of fanfiction, what should be the classification for a fic like yours which had its first installments posted to ff.net in Oct 2011 but wasn't completed until Jun 2012? Is this a 2011 fic or a 2012 fic? (I know I'm splitting hairs here as it doesn't really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things, but I like to be consistent. And since you're a librarian - yay! - and it's your fic, you're the perfect one to ask!)

It makes me wonder how librarians would classify literary works that were published serially, like Dickens' novels. If early chapters came out in one year and the later chapters in another year, what is considered to be the date of publication of the whole novel?

I've really pondered this for some time! Fortunately for me so far, my general propensity to read shorter fics has meant that this issue has not yet arisen with my lists. All of the fics I've put on my "year" lists were started and finished in the same calendar year. But I know that won't always be the case!

[oakstone730.livejournal.com]

Oh Jesus, it was 2011 when I started Twist. 2012 is a year that is locked in my head for *reasons* and I associate it with Twist for those reasons [I'll send you a DM to explain]. Interesting you reference Dickens because Twist, like Dickens' serial stories, was posted in real time as I was writing it. Yes, this was a very crazy time in my life - if you ever read Twist (no pressure!) it has crazy long chapters. 310K in 29 chapters? Yup, crazy long, and I was whipping them out every other week or so.

Some Twist and Oakstone History: In July, 2011 I wrote my first fanfiction - but I didn't know *what* fanfiction was, I'd re-read Deathly Hallows in preparation for the last film coming out and was vexed at the non-ending. So, to save myself from reading and re-reading the end of the bloody book to try and discern something MORE, I wrote my own ending. 20K worth of an ending [The Day After: Deathly Hallows Continued]. I wrote it in July and in a state of embarrassment mentioned it to a friend and she said "Oh you wrote a fanfic." and I said "oh." and immediately went home and googled fanfiction. And discovered THE BLACK HOLE OF AMAZINGNESS THAT IS FANFICTION.

Yeah. So, Day After was written in July/August and I [checking fanfiction] posted it August 30 2011. Somehow in September I discovered Harry/Draco. And immediately my mind started to ponder what it would be like for a 13-14 year old Harry to come to the realization, on top of everything else, that he was gay. So I wrote the scene that is now chapter *two* of Twist. It is the scene where Cedric and Harry talk at the World Cup - because I wanted Harry to have a friend to talk to, to help him through the journey. So it was just intended to be a one-shot, but someone posted how they wanted *more* (as is want to happen on FF) and I started thinking, and thinking. And I made furious notes whilst my son was playing on the playground and I realized I could turn that one scene into a canon-true H/D story. So I did.

The first chapter (talking to Cedric at the World Cup) became the second chapter when I realized that the whole thing was coming together as a very fluffy bit of flangst and I *knew* what was coming and wanted to give the readers warning so I wrote a prologue and posted it as Chapter One sometime in November - I basically prewrote a pivotal scene in what would become chapter 16 to give everyone fair warning.

And that is basically how Twist came to be, I don't think I could write it today - you can *literally* see my writing improving as the story progresses. You can *see* the day that I read that epithets are a bad, bad thing and I stopped using them. You can also see that I was without a beta for virtually the entire story. Words were flying from my mind to the page to being posted. The amount of SPaG is incredible, but to be honest, i don't care. It was a stream of consciousness fic that *had* to be written. If I had stopped to think and ponder I don't think I would have finished it. There is a lot of raw emotion in the story, and it comes through, I think.

SO WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON ABOUT OAKSTONE? Yes, we were talking about dating fics, weren't we? [I've had a smidge too much wine, can you tell?] I would date Twist from the end date, because until a work is finished it isn't complete. The final post is the publish date. June 27, 2012.

Sigh, I shall go off to bed now. But *wait* remember how long those chapters are in Twist? 10-20K? I had to start posting them on Friday nights because I had too many students who were reading it that were saying they had to go into school the next day, so I waited and posted just on Fridays or Saturdays figuring that globally, it wouldn't mess up too many students school-week :)