A Chapter system

[disasterifickaz]

Title
A Chapter system

Short, concise description of the idea
Fan Fiction authors are in desperate need of a system capable of linking chapters in the same story.

Full description of the ideaHopefully you're aware of the number of writers and Fan Fiction writers in particular who make use of your site. It would be exceptionally helpful if you would

Comments

[disasterifickaz]

I would love to see a system that allows us to connect chapters in a single system. Something along the lines of: when we create a post or edit a post, we have the option to 'add new entry/chapter'. LJ would then, upon publishing, link the entries together allowing a reader to read through a multi-chapter story/entry without having to resort to a master list (which I'm using now and is a serious pain in the butt) or searching back through twenty pages of journal entries to find the next chapter/entry in the series.

So basically, the site would allow us to group together a series of chapters for ease of reading. A drop down menu for the readers would be the most ideal, allowing them to easily choose which chapter they're reading. A collection of hyper links at the top or bottom of the work would also work. A little more cumbersome but still allowing the reader to easily navigate multi-chapter entries.

I've only uploaded about a quarter of my work here so far. It's just so time consuming! XD I groan every time I start adding a new story because I have to add a chapter, go to my master list, edit and link it there, add the next chapter, edit and add a link to the master list, go back to the last chapter, edit and add a link to the next....it's a serious headache and a massive number of steps that could be done away with the advent of a chapter system.

The best way to get a feel for what I mean is to have a look at FanFiction.net. I'm not saying LJ should go to the same system but something similar would be immensely helpful!

To that end: This is one of my multi-chapter stories on ffnet: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8348471/1/Where_the_Weeping_Willow_waits

As you can see, at the top and bottom right of each page is a drop down menu allowing easy navigation between chapters. Likewise our profile pages offer a list of stories, like the master list I'm using here on LJ, so readers can easily see what we have to offer.

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/3471025/Disasteriffic_Kaz

I would have no problem maintaining my own master list, as it's easily stickied at the top of my journal, if we could just have a chapter/series system that helped us organize. :D

thank you SO much for reading my suggestion and taking the time to respond! I sincerely appreciate it!
~Kaz

[pauamma]

Wouldn't tags work for that?

[trixieleitz]

From a reader's point of view, tag navigation isn't always ideal, especially if there are tens of chapters. If you click the tag link, you end up at the last page of chapters and have to fiddle around to get back to somewhere you can start reading.

Yes, a reader could maybe create a style that reversed the entry order and configure it to display all of the tagged entries on one page (unless there is some upper limit I'm not aware of), and that would get you a chronological list of chapters, but that's still non-intuitive and fiddling around.

[azurelunatic]

Tags do not allow navigation to previous-in-tag or next-in-tag. So no.

[charliemc]

Exactly.