I know there are a lot of readers like me who only read completed stories, so I have always been surprised that so few authors of completed stories use the "Complete" tag, as it would make finding their stories simple - a valuable "selling point" in most authors' desire to get more readers.
Surprised, that is, until I finally got round to submitting my first story and tried to work out how to set the tag. It took me ages to find it - it's at the bottom of the "Publication" box, and you have to press CNTRL as you click on it so you mark the story length and Complete tags at the same time.
Two suggestions: Firstly to all authors of completed stories: please look for and use this tag - it really will attract more readers to your stories.
Secondly, to Erin: This really is a valuable tag - at least it would be if it was used. Hopefully authors reading this posting will start to use it, but the others still won't have a clue where it is. I know design of a such a page is always a compromise - trying to keep the page a manageable size, professional looking and easy to use is not easy, but you do an incredible job. But if this tag had a bit more visibility it might be used much more often, allowing both authors and readers to benefit.
Completely agree.
Lindale. I began doing this last year with my Hansel and Gretel story. I just write in
the size and complete in the "Other keywords." It's the same word over and over, so it does
not add to the proliferation of tags. At first I began marking multi-part stories as
'Completed story', and stand alones as Complete story. It seemed to make sense, but having
only the single 'Complete' tag seems better to me now, even though most searches for complete
will pick up the other tag.
Erin created the complete tags after I'd been doing this. She would have to tell us if
the tags on the checkboxes make searches very much more efficient for the server, but when
I've searched for the term, my stories seem to pop up.
One thing though. Several times, I've had to go back and add the tags. I assume that
when Erin posted the directions that the tag should only appear on the first part of a multi
story, that someone removed them. I think I know why she wants that, but given that many
people see one of the middle or end parts first, I've just always marked all the parts as
complete. I assume that this makes people who search for the term have to wade through all
of my stories, but it has the advantage of people who see them in the lists being able to
identify it as a story they would like.
Sarah Lynn Morgan
This gets worse
I have just clicked on the "Complete" tag and a list of stories is show with that same tag. But yours are not amongst them (the front page goes back to last June - I haven't looked beyond there).
As a relative newcomer, I'm still finding my way around the search functions. So how do I search for your sort of Complete tags?
There are many misused tags...
...such as the bad boy to good girl tag. There are too many tags that are redundant (ie romance) and one tag in particular is missing. There most definately should be a betrayal tag. If there is a betrayal tag it certainly isn't used to its fullest.