How To Tag Fic
Since I've been encountering this problem a lot on my recent fic forays...
Why Tagging Fic Is Important
Because everybody has preferences about how to navigate a journal. The easier you make it for readers to find your fic, and the more accessible you make your fic, the more people are likely to stick around and read more of your stuff if they liked the fic they originally came for.
What To Do Also
Ideally, you provide your readers with all common ways of browsing your fic: This includes the existence of a fic list, a link to that fic list that is easily available on either every page or, if that fails, your front page (many LJ styles allow for customized links to be placed in the navigation bar), and at least either the tags or the memories. It helps to use a style that shows or links to your tags / memories on the front page. Make it always as easy as possible for people to find your fic, if you want a big happy audience. If you don't want a big happy audience, don't tag.
On top of that, you might also want to make it easier for people to find your fic on Google (but maybe you don't. In that case, you should avoid doing any of the following. Then again, I believe you can customize your LJ options so that the Google bots aren't allowed on your LJ in the first place). Google will be more likely to rank your fic high in the search results if you use proper HTML for all your fic (most importantly, use H-tags for your titles), good tags, and a fic sticky (because it links to your fic). Also, using "read the next part" links. Also, posting your fic in only one place and crossposting with links to your LJ all over the place leads to a higher Google ranking than posting your fic once in each relevant community. Though, the best way to rank high on Google is to write awesome fic that gets recced a lot. Google really likes recs.
Take Your Readers' Point Of View
Your readers might categorize your fic in a different way from you. The things they search for might be different from the things you consider the most obvious search terms. Fortunately, you are a reader also and therefore you'll have a good idea of the things people look for if they look for fic.
Things people look for when looking for fic:
One more thing to tag:
Tagging for warnings, or for "chose not to use warnings in this fic." Tags make you find things, not filter them out. People who have to heed warnings will have no use for the tag, and people with a special interest in the gory are probably covered by the genre and kink tags. These things clutter up your tag list, making it harder for readers to find the tag they're looking for.
Don't tag for every last crap. I decide whether to point out pairings or characters in headers and tags like this: If I think a Sarah Walker fan would enjoy reading about Sarah's appearance, I add the character. If it's just Sarah walking up to Casey and asking for the time in an otherwise Sarah-free 5000 words fic, I don't add the character. Make it so that a reader who clicks on a tag ends up finding what she'd been expecting to find.
Keep your tags short. In case of the journal styles that use tag clouds, long tags will be hard to read because there's generally no comma to divide the tags.
One Last Thing To Do
Keep it consistent. If there's a tag for Gaeta/Helo, people will expect you to have labeled all the Gaeta/Helo fic with that tag. Don't use different tags for the same thing (Gaeta/Helo and Helo/Gaeta and Karl/Felix). If you have a tag for one pairing, people will expect you to have tags for all the pairings you write - if they see that there's no tag, they'll assume you don't write the pairing.
Now. That felt good. Though - how do I make it so that this post will be read by the authors whose tagging has annoyed me in the first place? That problem I cannot solve with tags. :-/
Why Tagging Fic Is Important
Because everybody has preferences about how to navigate a journal. The easier you make it for readers to find your fic, and the more accessible you make your fic, the more people are likely to stick around and read more of your stuff if they liked the fic they originally came for.
What To Do Also
Ideally, you provide your readers with all common ways of browsing your fic: This includes the existence of a fic list, a link to that fic list that is easily available on either every page or, if that fails, your front page (many LJ styles allow for customized links to be placed in the navigation bar), and at least either the tags or the memories. It helps to use a style that shows or links to your tags / memories on the front page. Make it always as easy as possible for people to find your fic, if you want a big happy audience. If you don't want a big happy audience, don't tag.
On top of that, you might also want to make it easier for people to find your fic on Google (but maybe you don't. In that case, you should avoid doing any of the following. Then again, I believe you can customize your LJ options so that the Google bots aren't allowed on your LJ in the first place). Google will be more likely to rank your fic high in the search results if you use proper HTML for all your fic (most importantly, use H-tags for your titles), good tags, and a fic sticky (because it links to your fic). Also, using "read the next part" links. Also, posting your fic in only one place and crossposting with links to your LJ all over the place leads to a higher Google ranking than posting your fic once in each relevant community. Though, the best way to rank high on Google is to write awesome fic that gets recced a lot. Google really likes recs.
Take Your Readers' Point Of View
Your readers might categorize your fic in a different way from you. The things they search for might be different from the things you consider the most obvious search terms. Fortunately, you are a reader also and therefore you'll have a good idea of the things people look for if they look for fic.
Things people look for when looking for fic:
- Fandoms
- Pairings
- Characters (you might only read Kara/Lee, but other people might read every last crap as long as there's Kara in it in any permutation whatsoever)
- Kinks
- Genres
- Ratings
One more thing to tag:
- Fic 'verse - if there are multiple parts or multiple stories set in one universe, make it easier for people to read absolutely every last of them
- What ficathon or bingo round the fic was written for
- Length (I personally use a drabble tag, because I really have days when I only want to read drabbles, but mostly I don't see the relevance for distinctions such as "ficlet," "more than 5000 words," "one shot," "multipart" and so on - the meaning of the length differs from author to author, anyway)
- Any such tag as "reposted," "imported from LJ" and so forth. Nobody care, not even you, because you already know.
- What year the fic was written in
Tagging for warnings, or for "chose not to use warnings in this fic." Tags make you find things, not filter them out. People who have to heed warnings will have no use for the tag, and people with a special interest in the gory are probably covered by the genre and kink tags. These things clutter up your tag list, making it harder for readers to find the tag they're looking for.
Don't tag for every last crap. I decide whether to point out pairings or characters in headers and tags like this: If I think a Sarah Walker fan would enjoy reading about Sarah's appearance, I add the character. If it's just Sarah walking up to Casey and asking for the time in an otherwise Sarah-free 5000 words fic, I don't add the character. Make it so that a reader who clicks on a tag ends up finding what she'd been expecting to find.
Keep your tags short. In case of the journal styles that use tag clouds, long tags will be hard to read because there's generally no comma to divide the tags.
One Last Thing To Do
Keep it consistent. If there's a tag for Gaeta/Helo, people will expect you to have labeled all the Gaeta/Helo fic with that tag. Don't use different tags for the same thing (Gaeta/Helo and Helo/Gaeta and Karl/Felix). If you have a tag for one pairing, people will expect you to have tags for all the pairings you write - if they see that there's no tag, they'll assume you don't write the pairing.
Now. That felt good. Though - how do I make it so that this post will be read by the authors whose tagging has annoyed me in the first place? That problem I cannot solve with tags. :-/