Quite a few readers on this site, myself included, tend to prefer completed stories to part completed serials, many of which will never be completed, so it would be good if there was an effective way of searching for Completed stories.
There are two methods by which an author may indicate a story is completed: the first by a tag at the end of the 'Publication' field (which I suspect few authors realise is there); the second by a tag at the very end of the story input page, rather confusingly marked as 'Ongoing'. The first shows a Completed tag at the front of the story teaser, whilst the later does the same at the end (but only if you have ticked the Ongoing box!).
As far as I know, there's no way of searching on the latter tag, but you can search on the former using the Category Browser. But when you do that search, you find only 11 pages of entries (which I think is probably about 400 stories), out of the tens of thousands of stories on this site.
So for those readers like myself who would like to browse the incredible library of completed stories on this site, there's very little way in which we can find them, except by wading through all stories looking for a completed tag which few authors use (probably because they don't know about it).
I do hesitate to put load on Erin and Sephrena, but could I suggest a very small change - that the Ongoing tag at the end was moved to the very beginning of the input page and marked: 'Story Completed - For serials, mark as completed when the final episode has been added', and that this tag was combined with the Publication Completed tag, which is searchable.
By bringing it to the front, it would mean many more writers are likely to see and use it. For us readers, it would mean a growing number of writers marking up their stories when complete.
Charlotte
Comments
Charlotte, what about the
ongoing serials like Bike, or those by a favorite author??
May Your Light Forever Shine
Ongoing serials...
...will never be marked as Complete, but if you're looking for a completed story, then by definition you're not looking for an ongoing serial.
There's no reason why you shouldn't do a Category search for Complete and stories by your favourite author, so you find all the completed stories they have written
You do recall Han Solo's brother?
...I've gone back over my stories and taken the serials and put them into novella/novelette form to help with those of us who do have preferences for completed stories. And each novelization is marked on the bottom as complete and solo, and appears occasionally under Random Solo (Han's maverick half-brother, who continues to pop in to visit in an entirely capricious manner).
Love, Andrea Lena
For us 'Completed' fanatics...
...the issue is about knowing that the story is complete, rather than the number of parts it comprises.
Personally, I find it quite convenient to read a completed story of many parts as it makes it easier to handle real life interventions.
Changing the tag to 'Complete' is a simple edit operation on each episode of the serial.
Ha!
No, that is not simple. Sorry but if you've ever tried to edit something that needs to be changed on every one of a series of posts, I don't think you would say it was simple.
If that's so simple, what's so hard about checking the last episode of each serial to see if it is a finale? Seriously, telling other people that a monumentally obtuse and complicated task that can literally take HOURS to do is simple is not going to persuade many people that you have a problem that is worth their effort trying to solve.
This is exactly why I have not got a solution for this already because it is NOT simple.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Front and back
If one tag at the front doesn't get used, I don't think a second one will. I'll do some more thinking on this when I can, it's been a problem for a long time.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
My point was...
...that you had to scroll right to the bottom of the Publication list to find the 'Complete' tag, and I suspected most authors did not know it was there.
If you were to take the box which is currently right at the end and confusingly says 'Ongoing' and move it so that it appears just beneath the Title box with the label as I suggest above, it would be pretty obvious to everyone.
Many thanks for taking the time to look at it, sometime - no sweat. I much appreciate the work you do.
Oops
I've edited this to reflect the fact that I long ago split the Ongoing flag into Ongoing/Completed and Series/SOLO flags.
I do need to do more thinking about this, and there is the essential difference between a searchable tag (Publication:Complete) and a sortable flag (Ongoing/Completed).
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
A fairly quick way to see...
...is to simply pull up any chapter of a story and look at the bottom of the list of chapters/parts. Most completed stories have "The End," or "Fin," or other clue to let you know, so two clicks and a control key combination will take one to the bottom of any story, whether the author knows how to mark a book as "completed" or not.
In fact, since authors are able to edit their own stories even after they're "finished," it's quite possible that a "finished" story may one day be revised and expanded, just as paper books can come out in a new edition. In that sense, there's no such thing as a "fnished" story, only one temporarily frozen in time.
Even in ancient Egypt, where stories were literally set in stone, later redactors sometimes chipped away the words and changed the stories, even though it was a lot more difficult to do than it is on BC.
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L'arte non è mai finita, solo abbandonata.
- Leonardo da Vinci
Art is never finished, only abandoned.
El arte nunca se termina... Solo se abandona.
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In some ways, this is something like saying that one doesn't want to be introduced to anyone until they're dead, since you wouldn't want to have an ongoing relationship interrupted by illness or catastrophe.
We have an example of the possibility of change on this site right this minute, by a writer who encountered a "block," but was persuaded to finish an incomplete story because of the ongoing conversation of those with a continuing interest in it. Patience is a virtue. Feedback is a virtue. Encouragement is even better.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
I've been thinking about this too
I too like to read completed works. As a reader, I tend to immerse myself in a book, suffer with the characters and come up from the ending with a happy glow at a tale well told. I have got sucked into a few serials and uncompleted works only to have myself ripped back into the real world because the next chapter has not been posted (or sometimes even written, gasp!) This normally results in me sitting blankly at my screen pressing 'refresh' wildly until the next chapter appears on the home screen. (That can't help the BCTS server load any, can it! - grin).
The answer, I've been thinking lies not in adding features to the current software, nor asking overworked (but much loved) admins to troll thru loads of old stories changing statuses.
There was talk of looking towards the next iteration of BCTS software. Can we have a place where we can throw ideas of what features we might want (as authors/readers/admins etc).
Then the suggestion might go such: An Author would create a 'solo' item of one page, or a 'book' which would have no content other than its child pages. Pages/Chapters could be added to the 'book' but tags and 'completed/ongoing' and any other tags would be flagged at the book level. This would prevent the common occurrence of chapter one then having the other chapters as its children. It might also save authors time having to tag each chapter.
Another idea: How about rating stories with 5 stars like amazon and others, this helps readers find the exceptional amongst the good. To provide better feedback to the authors should we readers award scores for such as 'creativity/technical/emotional/etc' that add up to a star rating (There are some stories I'd give 6/5 to. Can we vote on a merit award?) There are times when I'm truly in awe of a story I've just finished reading. I want to respond more than just clicking a good-story button, but don't want to inflict my lame comments on such wonderful story telling, so I think about what I would do.
In Conclusion: (at last, they sigh)
I'm sure there are lots of other ideas from readers and authors about what we like and what we would improve if we are to change/upgrade the underlying software. Is the forum or a google docs the place to compile such thoughts?
To come back to Charlotte's idea, If we readers seek out and make a list of incorrectly marked completed stories (or title-pages that contain the first chapter or serial chapters out of order etc etc) Is there a group of trusted sub-admins that can be responsible for such house-keeping without adding to the workload of the existing and much loved admin staff. (or could such a group be formed/trained? Such little things will help with any future migration too).
BCTS is a great place. We do appreciate the work that goes on behind the scenes and don't want to make more work for anyone, but making suggestions is one way we can help.
Cheers, Kiwi,
(Sorry Charlotte if I've hijacked your post.)
Couple of things
Authors are perfectly free to create Title Pages for their books or Series of books in their body of work. Most don't. Nearly all of the title pages out there were created in the past by me, just as more than half of all the Author Pages were created by Sephrena and at least half of the rest were created by me or one of the other admins.
As more and more stories are posted, it became a needed simplification to not have to make a title page because 1) It couldn't be done and didn't need to be done until a second chapter appeared; 2) Some times stories don't fit easily into sequences, necessitating multiple attempts at getting Title pages right; 3) Who writes the copy on the title page? It used to be me and frankly, I just don't have the time anymore; 4) Going back to 1, outlining under an admin created title page, along with creating the title page is a big jolt of work all at once, may not seem like it but it is.
Outlining under the first chapter is way easier on admins because only a double handful of authors do their own outlining--AND, there are sometimes database problems with outlining that require me or Piper to solve them, so it's almost just as well that authors don't get themselves into that quandary very often.
A corollary to that point is that posting on BC puts a bigger load on authors than at any other site. To encourage posting, I try not to complicate the process too much. And if people aren't using the tools that are already there because of complexity, like ongoing and complete and title pages and author pages and outlining--well, any change should make things simpler, not more complex.
On your other idea: "How about rating stories with 5 stars like amazon and others, this helps readers find the exceptional amongst the good."
We tried that, it led to the deliberate lo-balling of sub-genres and authors that people did not like. That's why Kudos which is a simple, I Like button and only positive and only one magnitude. But Kudos is now a problem since we will have to either convert to another voting device or update the Kudos code ourselves when next we upgrade because the old programmer who created Kudos has lost interest and is not going to update it.
Last idea, a place to make suggestions. Hmm. Do I really want to do something formal? :) Maybe, I'll think about it.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
What I will do...
If I notice, and I don't read every story, as it's almost impossible to keep up these days because of the torrent of new stories, I'll make a very simple author and first title page if the author lacks this added feature. If I don't notice, you'll have to ask in a PM.
If you haven't bothered to put a formal title and author name in the body of the text, I'll take whatever appears in the housekeeping information and I won't revisit it, since the author can always edit the simple pages and make any corrections he or she chooses to make. Likewise, the author can inspect the simple title page and copy it for new stories, making whatever changes he or she prefers.
In short, I'll set anyone who asks on the road to sophisticated fluency in creating stories, as long as it doesn't consume every waking moment.
I won't carry anyone forever, even if I really, really like the story or the author. I have a real life, and real responsibilities, but I do like to encourage writers of every sort.
If you look at the FAQs, there are many useful suggestions for new writers. I offer a few more in my blog, and I'm a professional writer and editor, so they may — or may not — be useful and appropriate for you. Feel free to ignore anything you don't like. I have a small selection of articles outlining my more-or-less opinionated suggestions on usage and formatting on offer, but no one is obligated to pay the slightest bit of attention. Such a deal!
Sample Author Page:
Sample Title Page:
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Extremely Generous
Offer, Puddintane! You are taking on a lot of work, I hope people show you proper appreciation for your efforts.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Thanks, Puddin'
Sephrena is doing some of this, most especially the author pages but someone to help her out would be greatly appreciated.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I had an idea about this . . ..
I had an idea about this a while back but had not posted it yet.
On the authors page there could be a column added that would indicate; Solo, Completed, ongoing, incomplete(for the ones that will never be finished). This column would be editable by the author and site admins. It could also be set up to work as a search flag.
Or something similar to the above.
Variants: Stand alone, Finished book, In progress, Part of a set, ???, what ever.
There are probably also a few that might need a special flag "solo_that-turned-into-a-series" :p something less wordy tho!
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Maybe two columns Completed/work-inprogress & Stand-alone/Series/interelated