Down the Chimney Authors
I discussed this with vysila, and she agreed that it would be a good idea to post publicly.
Due to the internal mechanics of AO3, many of this year’s Down the Chimney stories aren’t being seen. The problem is this: most the Down the Chimney stories were submitted sometime between mid-November and mid-December. When Down the Chimney “went live” on Christmas, though, AO3 used the submission date as the posting date. That means, for example, if you submitted your story on December 1st, it ended up several pages back on the story list with other stories posted around December 1st, instead of being at the top of the story list with stories that were posted around December 25th.
If an author wants to fix this glitch, it’s pretty easy. All you need to do is (1) find your story on the AO3 story list and click “edit,” (2) find a natural break in your story, (3) copy the part of your story after the break and then delete it, (3) update & post the original chapter, (4) click “add chapter,” and paste your deleted material into a new chapter and post it. Your story will then repost with the current date, just as though you’d added a chapter to a multi-chapter story, so it will be at the top of the story list.
I hope I didn’t make that sound complicated because it’s really quite easy, and it should work with any story except a super short one, like a drabble.
I hope everyone with a “buried” story will be able to do this. There are some wonderful stories that aren’t being seen.