AO3 – d_s_t_e's Blog

Ratings on AO3

I don’t claim to have it all figured out yet, but I’m here to share what I know about ratings on AO3 and how to use them to help your target audience find your fanfic.

You might have noticed AO3 has little four-square grids next to every fanfic. Here’s an example from the original version of Getting Out of Fuchsia.

The upper right corner is for the content rating: G for general audiences, T for teens, M for mature, and E for explicit. This seems pretty straightforward, as I think most people have an idea of what wouldn’t be suitable for children, what would only be suitable for adults, and I certainly hope people know what explicit means. I will say that I appreciate the distinction between mature and explicit because there are some people who will read one but not the other, and the fact that Wattpad doesn’t differentiate has always been a bit of an issue there.

The upper right corner is to show what kind of romantic/sexual relationships are in the fanfic. Most of these are pretty self-explanatory as well, but I will point out that the Gen category is important to be aware of if you’re a person like me. “Gen” is the category for a fanfic that doesn’t have any romantic relationships or where the only ones aren’t the focus of the story, and it’s represented by a green circle with a dot in the middle. I’m probably not the right person to ask about the “other relationships” category, but my best guess is that it’s for relationships involving a person/people who is/are non-binary.

In the lower left corner you have marks to show whether there are any content warnings that apply to the story. This might include warnings for graphic violence, death of important characters, rape/non-consensual acts, or underage sex. I find it a little odd that these are the only warnings, but you can put anything you want to warn about in tags. So trigger warnings, language warnings, and so on could find a home there.

Finally, the lower right corner is to show if a work is complete or ongoing. Easy enough to spot. A green check mark for complete and a red circle with a line through it for incomplete.

The last thing I’ll note is that all of these can be blank, and that means different things depending on which box. If the content rating is blank, that means it could have anything in it, so proceed with caution. Personally, I’m not going to be reading anything unrated unless I have a really good idea of what the fanfic is before I click on it, so I wouldn’t recommend leaving things unrated if you’re looking for readers like myself. On the other hand, if you’re ok with people only clicking on it if they’re fine with taking a risk and you want to surprise them, feel free.

It’s a similar story with the relationships and completion status boxes, although it’s probably not a big deal to most people if there’s a surprise romantic relationship as opposed to a surprise that’s a bit more graphic (as with the lack of content ratings). So people probably won’t be bothered if you don’t mark what kind of relationships are in the fic, although the only reason I can think of for not doing so is the surprise factor. You’ll just miss out on having readers come to the fic because they were searching for a particular type of romance. And not marking if your story is ongoing or finished? Well that just seems annoying.

The content warnings box is different because a blank box here means that none of the standard warnings apply. In other words, this isn’t a sign that the author is trying to surprise you, it’s the author telling you that certain types of potentially objectionable content are guaranteed to not be present. If the author is trying to surprise you about any of these, there will be a completely different marking to show it.

Personally, I like making use of all the boxes, although I do maintain the element of surprise a bit by adding warnings for content that might pop up but isn’t guaranteed. Will any of the main characters die? Well, you’d better be prepared for the possibility! I prefer to over-warn as opposed to under-warn.

My advice to you? Be aware of what the boxes mean and make your decisions wisely. It’s not going to help you or your readers if you mark something incorrectly, but a smart choice can draw in the readers and make the fanfic experience more enjoyable for everyone.

How to Add Graphics to your AO3 Fic

AO3 doesn’t make it as easy as Wattpad does to add graphics to your fanfic, but it is still possible to achieve a look like this!

What you’ll need to do first is get a Flickr account. AO3 says they support other sites as well, but Flickr is the only one that’s recommended. Luckily, you can get one for free, and I found it pretty easy to set up. Just be sure to set your settings properly so that the graphics you upload as public (the only way to let AO3 access them) can’t be randomly taken by other people on Flickr. I set mine like this:

After you have a Flickr account with graphics uploaded to it, you’ll need to go to your photostream, click on the graphic you want, and then click the little arrow that says “Share Photo”.

After that, you’ll want to go to the part that says “Embed”.

Copy the code and go to the chapter where you want to add the graphic. Switch to the HTML view if you’re not already on it and paste the code right in.

By default, this code will link back to Flickr if anyone clicks on it. If you don’t want that (I didn’t), just delete all the code except for the parts that look like this:

To align the graphic in the center, simply add this code around it:

You can also change the width and height, but be careful to change them both the same way so your graphics don’t get distorted. For example, if I wanted my graphic to be twice as small, I would divide both the width and height by 2 and change the numbers to 360 and 127 or 128. I also recommend making graphics smaller rather than larger because increasing the size of graphics can make them blurry.

So, this works great for chapter banners, but any former Wattpaders out there might be wondering if there’s anything to be done about the fact that AO3 doesn’t have book covers. What can you do with this beautiful piece of art that you made/asked someone else to make just for your book?

Well, it’s not a perfect solution because AO3 also doesn’t allow the kind of coding I would need to make it look really nice, but you can achieve a look like this relatively easily.

How can you do this? Well, as it turns out, AO3 allows limited code in the summary field even though it doesn’t have a toggle between Rich Text and HTML there. This does mean that you’ll have to rely on previewing your first chapter in order to test it out, but if you copy this code exactly and replace my link, image sizing, book title, and description text with yours, it should turn out just like mine.

<img src=”https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48445529792_f34d96b42f_b.jpg” width=”218″ height=”341″ alt=”Pokemon Rewritten” align=”left” />What if the Pokémon anime had been written differently? [and so on with the rest of your description]

For a master technique, use photo editing software to add some blank space on the right side of your cover. This will actually put some space between your cover and the text (sadly the only way I could find to do that). So it is a bit of extra work, but if you do it right, the payoff is something that looks like this!

Pokemon Rewritten Cover Sample with Padding and Credits

Also notice that I credited the artists who created my beautiful graphics here. I believe it’s extremely important for artists to get proper credit for their work. I also believe it’s extremely important not to steal fanart without permission. In this case, the images used are official ones from the anime, otherwise I would credit the artist or photographer of the original image as well and note that they were used with permission. You can also do this in a separate chapter, but I think it’s nice to have it in a place that readers will definitely see.

As you might be able to tell from that last screen shot, AO3 also lets you create links so that when readers click on the artist’s name it directs them right to the artist’s profile or graphics book no matter what site they come from. You can do this by using the following code:

<a href=”[insert link here]”>[Insert artist name here]</a>

Putting all of this together, you should be able to create a beautiful new AO3 fic. Best of luck and happy graphics adding!

How to Start an AO3 Account

So, if you go to the Archive of Our Own website and try to create an account, you might notice that you need an invitation to join.

According to their FAQ:

We’re using the invitation code system so that the Archive can grow in a controlled manner. We need to add new users gradually so that our account numbers don’t grow beyond what our hardware, bandwidth, and support team can cope with. This helps us ensure that everyone using the Archive gets the best possible experience.
https://archiveofourown.org/faq/invitations?language_id=en

I think this is actually a blessing in disguise because it should prevent the kinds of sitewide crashes that we Wattpad users know all too well. The downside, of course, is that you might have to wait a few days before you get invited to join the site if you’re looking to create a new account.

You could go to https://archiveofourown.org/invite_requests, enter your email address, and wait a few days. Or, if you happen to be one of my friends from Wattpad, you can ask me to give you an invitation. Since I’m already on the website, I have nine of them to use, and I think you’ll be able to join right away if you get an invitation directly from me.

Want one of those invitations? PM me on Wattpad (just so I know for sure who you are) with your email address, and I’ll get right on it!