A bit of advice for authors

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Go through your story list, and make sure all of your one-shot, solo stories are marked as such!

When the update that allowed stories to be set as either series or solo was put on the site, the default setting is series. If you want your solo stories to be able to be grabbed by the "Five Random 5olos" feature (which is pretty awesome), then go through all your solo stories real quickly and make certain that that ARE marked as solos!

Comments

good advice, Edeyn

laika's picture

There's a lot of great stories here not listed in the RANDOM 5OLOS thingy because they're not marked as solos.
I wouldn't have found the tag, because I was looking in the EDIT program, til someone explained that it's outside all this stuff,
accessed from the version where you're just reading the story, down beneath the story and above the comments.

I put seven more of my stories in the SOLOS just by changing the tag, not all of mine, not the ditties, drabbles & brain farts,
just the ones I'm most proud of or find most amusing. I did some rewriting and clean-up on these, got 'em nice and shiny.
And two stories that were somehow listed as solo I REMOVED from the field, because there's something about them
I dislike (that o.t.t forced-fem parody, and one other turkey...) Nice to have such control over this.
In just a few days the one's I've 5OLOed are getting read, and voted for and even commmented on.
Not like a new, front-page post would but definitely more than a few months ago :)
~~~hugs, Laika

.
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.

Mentioned this before, too :)

erin's picture

At midnight, I scan all the days stories and mark the solos and about once a week, I spend an hour or so scanning old stories to mark the ones that should be solo. It's a big job. Any help will be appreciated.

About one story in 100 or so is marked solo that shouldn't be and I fix those, too.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

I hit what I can, too

but if authors go through their lists and mark their own, it'd get done way faster!

As far as I can see, there's

As far as I can see, there's no actual solo tag, and a story is marked solo by the absence of a serial tag?

Click the Serial tag...

erin's picture

...to change it to Solo. And vice versa.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

But I have no serial tag on

But I have no serial tag on my stories. They're all standalone stories. But neither is there a solo tag that I can select to mark them as such.

Read the original note above to find the tag

erin's picture

It's at the bottom after you post the story. It isn't in one of the pulldowns. And the default for this is Serial, so if you haven't marked them Solo, they are marked Serial.

It's down to the right of the "add comment" and "read more" links at the BOTTOM of the posted story or teaser.

I did not include it as a pulldown because then I would have had to OPEN EVERY SINGLE STANDALONE STORY AND EDIT IT to mark it solo. And there's already the "Complete" tag that is in the pulldown categories and NO ONE USES IT CONSISTENTLY. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Ah, the bottom! Good to

Ah, the bottom! Good to know, though the note above doesn't mention that. I was looking with all the other tags. Found it, now, thanks.

The other reason is that the

KristineRead's picture

The other reason is that the tag is able to be edited by anyone, so if it is mistagged, anyone can fix it.

I suppose that is open to abuse, but I would hope that people that come to this site are fair on that.

Someone asked about whether stories that are part of a group of stories are solo or series, my understanding, and Erin please correct me if I'm wrong, is that if the story is a complete story in itself and does not require you to read other stories in that universe it should be solo. For example my Mirror stories, I would think are solo, because they are independent.

If that is not the case, please let me know because they should be fixed.

Hugs,

Kristy

And what about stories?

An example: Kerry and The Home That Love Built, by Theide
Or many SRU stories.

Basically, a standalone story in a shared universe. It may not necessarily be connected to other stories more than by a few common details. Will it be a solo?

Faraway

On rights of free advertisement:
Big Closet Top Shelf

Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!

Faraway


On rights of free advertisement:
Big Closet Top Shelf

Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!

Yeah

erin's picture

What about those? :)

A standalone story is a stand alone story; if it requires that you have read other stories to understand it, it isn't stand alone. There are going to be gray areas. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Alone Again Or

laika's picture

If a story from some created universe like Spells R Us requires you read other stories to understand it, it isn't a very good SRU story...
A person writing in these subgenres should write each one as if it's the readers first exposure to this universe.
It's not like they're numbered and there's no requirement to read the others. I'd call them stand alone.
~~~hugs, Laika

.
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.

My stories not to be shown, please

Someone is really pushing me to go back and redo them. I still have to decide what to do. Most of them would at least double in size if I fixed them.

Gwen Brown

Set them to Series

I am not really fond of one of my stories. Therefore, I set it to be series so that it does not show up.

Please define a solo story as opposed to a series story..

Does a story count as a series story because it is one of a group of related stories, sometimes even by different authors?

Or does it have to be part of a serial, where no one part can stand alone?

Holly

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

Holly

My Thoughts

If the protagonist(s) of a story, upon whom the story focuses, are the same as another story then it is not a stand alone story. Therefore, a universe where the mechanism is in place (MAU or even the Wizard), but the characters whose story is told is different, could be a stand alone story.