Drabbles and posting to AO3: how should we do it?

[snowgall]

slythindor100's Last Drabble Writer Standing competition is nearly over, and all this voting on drabbles has made me think Deep Thoughts (TM) about the ideal way to post such things to AO3 (because I think it's great when authors post their works to AO3, and I hope all the LDWS authors will do so after the competition ends!)

There seem to be three schools of thought when it comes to posting LDWS drabbles to AO3, and each has their merits and drawbacks:

1. All drabbles together in one chapter of one story

Examples:
unbroken_halo's 2013 drabbles
shadowofrazia's 2014 drabbles

pros:
--simplest format for short fics
--doesn't clutter up add as many fics to an author's list of works on AO3

cons:
--all the drabbles have the same URL (harder for linking/reccing)
--someone searching for your work by title at AO3 may not find it. "LDWS drabbles" is not a very memorable title
--readers can only leave kudos once and comments in one place
--ratings and tags can only be added to the work as a whole, and what works for for one drabble will not necessarily be applicable to all, and may be unnecessarily confusing (thanks to torino10154 for pointing this out)

2. All the drabbles in one story, but with each drabble in a separate chapter

Examples:
megyal's 2010 drabbles
leela_cat's 2011 drabbles

pros:
--each drabble has a unique URL for reccing etc.
--doesn't clutter up add as many fics to an author's list of works on AO3
--readers can leave comments on each chapter separately

cons:
--someone searching for your work by title at AO3 may not find it. "LDWS drabbles" is not a very memorable title
--you can only leave kudos on the whole story, not each drabble
--ratings and tags can only be added to the work as a whole, and what works for for one drabble will not necessarily be applicable to all, and may be unnecessarily confusing (thanks to torino10154 for pointing this out)

3. Each drabble in a separate story, but connected in a series

Examples:
uniquepov's 2011 drabbles
teprometo's 2011 drabbles
lamerezouille's 2012 drabbles
kedavranox's 2013 drabbles
icmezzo's 2014 drabbles

pros:
--each drabble has a unique URL for reccing etc.
--each drabble can be titled in a memorable way for easy searching/finding
--each drabble can get its own rating and applicable tags
--readers can leave separate kudos on each drabble

cons:
--a lot of story entries which will clutter up add more fics to an author's list of works

This is the sort of thing I spend way too much time thinking about!

Clearly the third option is the most popular one, and there are good reasons why that would be. However, I can see a strong argument for using the second format instead, as it will lead to far less clutter a more compact listing of fics in your list of works, especially considering that you might not consider drabbles to be of equal importance to novel-length fics.

But of course, it's up to each author to do what they think best. I'm curious if anyone else cares about these things, and what your preferred method would be!

(thanks to capitu for brainstorming some of the pros and cons with me!)

Comments

[torino10154]

Yes, this very much. Unless they are a related series, it just doesn't make much sense to group them. I've done it in the past but looking back on it now, I actually don't think it makes sense.

I am editing to add a link to the things I have grouped in a series. So for example now the whole set has the warning for non-con or character death or underage when it most likely applies to just one. If you don't want to read one of those, how has grouping them helped anything? They couldn't be more different than each other. That can even be true of a single pairing though. I do fluffy H/D and non-con H/D. If you just skip from one chapter to the next, you're in for a surprise.

[sdkshelly.livejournal.com]

At least with a series, you can look at each work individually and see the different pairings and warnings/enticements/genre tags, etc. But like, if you'd put those series into one multi-chaptered fic (a la, example 2 in the post above) then yes--there's no way to indicate that chapter 4 has non-con or chapter 6 is fluffy mpreg, etc. Because originally I was thinking, well at least with LDWS there's only one pairing (H/D) but I didn't even think about the rest of the tags.

[torino10154]

Well, and a series are all still listed separately anyway so it doesn't help reduce "clutter". They just become part of the series.

And yeah, I'd never ever make chapters of unrelated things. To me that's reserved exclusively for sequential, related drabbles/ficlets, with a beginning and (eventual) end.

[sdkshelly.livejournal.com]

It seriously makes me sad to think of my drabbles referred to as "clutter", to be very honest. Like they're bits of paper in a junk drawer that need to be cleaned out.

[torino10154]

Considering "drabble" is my most used tag at AO3 save "slash", I hear you.

[snowgall]

I am very sorry if I made you feel that way. It wasn't my intent, truly! It was a poor choice of words on my part. I like drabbles, and I like *your* drabbles, and I don't think of them as clutter. I was thinking more in terms of the way AO3 limits listing and grouping abilities.

[sdkshelly.livejournal.com]

Honestly, you aren't the first person to refer to drabbles as clutter, and it's a bit of a sore point with me because it does sound as if they aren't worth the space they take up, if that makes sense. I appreciate the apology! And I do agree that more flexibility in how you show your masterlist of works on AO3 can only be a good thing!

[snowgall]

I have edited the post now to include this point.

[snowgall]

Your point about the tags needing to be different for each work, which isn't possible for chapters, is absolutely right, and I should have included it in my list of "pros".

I really was just noticing the different choices people make and thinking about why they may have made them.

[snowgall]

I think you're right about this. I like it when authors group actual sequels and such in a series. It's much easier to find them that way if an author is very prolific. But for unrelated works, it doesn't necessarily make as much sense. But it's also up to each author to do what they prefer. I wasn't trying to issue any demands, just spark a discussion, which it seems I did :/