doranwen: reading one book is like eating one potato chip (Reading One Book)
Doranwen ([personal profile] doranwen) wrote in [community profile] fictional_fans2022-02-26 09:31 pm
Entry tags:

Recs organization

I realized I had a question about how to organize recs and thought "where can I ask it?" Of course, the answer was "at fictional_fans". :)

If you're looking through a recs list for a fandom, one which is more than just a tiny handful of fics, how do you want to see the fics ordered? By the main ship(s)? By where it occurs in canon? Does it depend on what the canon is? (For instance, I could imagine fic recs for a TV show might be more useful organized by where each appears in the show, compared to those for a film.) Do you like to see both ways, depending on what you're looking for? (e.g. anything that features your favorite ship vs. fics set within the first season only because you've not seen the rest yet) (I presumed that within those two categorization methods, one would organize the fics by author and then title.)

See, I'd set up my master recs post by fandom, and the posts for each fandom large enough to get its own post (or more than one), I organized by ship. The biggest one (which required four separate posts to get them all in) being a series of movies where at least half the fics are shippy for a single pairing, I figured that made the most sense. But my fic database *does* let me tag fics for their position in canon (and I do that for each fic), so it's quite possible for me to set up posts organized by "times" such as "pre-film 1", "post-film 1", "during film 2", "AU", "distant past", "future", "multi", "indeterminate", etc. Whether I *should* do so or not was the question I could not answer, because I don't know whether people would want to browse fics that way.

Note that for a post organized by time in canon, all fics would also be marked with which major ships were present, they just wouldn't be *grouped* together by ship. The reverse would not be true, however - at least, I haven't marked times for individual fics in any post yet. I *could*, though. (Possibly relevant - of the other four fandoms which got their own posts, two are TV shows, one's a film, and one's a film and book combo where the two mediums were similar enough that I combined them into one post.)

So I welcome your input. (If you never read recs posts at all, I'd also be curious to know why.)
beatrice_otter: Jedi fighting against a blue background (blue Jedi)

[personal profile] beatrice_otter 2022-02-27 07:38 am (UTC)(link)
I think it really depends on the fandom. Because lots of fandoms divide themselves up in different ways. Pairing is the most common, but also other things like specific tropes and when it happens in canon. Like, if I were doing a Star Wars rec list, I'd have one of the categories be "time travel fixit" and a few other tropes that are really common, but for fics that don't fit into those tropes I'd organize them by pairing.
vriddy: Cute dragon hatching from an egg (Default)

[personal profile] vriddy 2022-02-27 09:10 am (UTC)(link)
Recs! I love rec posts.

I think recs organised by episode/movie for fandoms with multiple canons would make the fans who find these lists so happy!! I know that more than once, I've desperately wanted to start consuming fic before finishing canon, but stepping on AO3 means encountering spoilers whether you want to or not so it's a tough decision. (Last time I did that I saw the "Character X Lives" tag and left sobbing 😂)

I like ship-based recs list but I'm also a heavy multi-shipper so I'd be just as happy to see a recs list by episode/theme/timeline as long as there's a ship indicator where relevant on the rec itself, too. Good luck with your project!!
vriddy: White cat reading a book (reading cat)

[personal profile] vriddy 2022-02-28 07:25 pm (UTC)(link)
I deliberately went to both ff.n and AO3 and sorted by fic update date - and then carefully only looked at/read fics up to the date the next episode aired as I slowly watched through the show.

That is dedication 😂 And probably the only safe way to do it, without a rec list by episode or clear tags to navigate a fandom!!
princessofgeeks: (Default)

[personal profile] princessofgeeks 2022-02-27 12:27 pm (UTC)(link)
I love recs posts and wish there were more of them!

I like them organized by pairing and by length. Also by author. It's nice to have the time in canon in the summary.
shadaras: A phoenix with wings fully outspread, holidng a rose and an arrow in its talons. (Default)

[personal profile] shadaras 2022-02-27 12:49 pm (UTC)(link)
For a multi-fandom rec post (or for a fandom with multiple installments, like Star Wars), I'd want it first sorted by fandom/installment. Then, after that, I find length (shortest to longest) most helpful.

I like notes about tropes or themes (like, angsty vs fluffy vs mysteries/casefic vs smut-focused). The point in canon a fic occurs rarely matters to me beyond pre-canon/during canon/post-canon; most fics that care more specifically than that call it out their chronological relationship to canon in the tags/summary, anyway.
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beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)

[personal profile] beatrice_otter 2022-02-28 01:21 am (UTC)(link)
I like pinboard, for bookmarking. You can tag everything in a lot of different ways, and make things public so share.
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mommy: Wanda Maximoff; Scarlet Witch (Default)

[personal profile] mommy 2022-02-27 06:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Sorting by fandom first is generally a given, but after that I prefer sorting recs by author or by theme (time travel, fork in the road AU, crack taken seriously, etc.) more than by pairing since I lean away from having specific OTPs. If I like the writing in one story, then there's a decent chance that I'll like other stories by the same author. Details about pairings and story length tend to be included in the rec itself.
china_shop: Close-up of Zhao Yunlan grinning (Default)

[personal profile] china_shop 2022-02-27 09:22 pm (UTC)(link)
At various times I've wanted a catalogue of fanworks organised by their place in canon for my fandoms, but that's more a comprehensive "what works exist for this episode?" rather than a recs list. For recs, I'm more interested in pairing, length and what you liked about it. /my 2 cents

Yay recs! :-)
kalloway: (Arc R Tosh 1)

[personal profile] kalloway 2022-02-28 02:40 am (UTC)(link)
Hmm. I don't think I've seen a rec post for any fandom I'm active in at any point in the last decade+ though I do sometimes look at people's recs after exchanges reveals. Those are generally sorted by fandom only.

Even thinking of longer canons, I think things like place-in-canon would be easily conveyed in notes - I'd probably just sort by featured characters or pairings, then have 'post-canon' or 'x-arc' in the notes, along with any content warnings.

A lot of recs I see just use the AO3 tags as well.
yourlibrarian: Tony appearing within an outline of Loki (AVEN-LokiTonyShadows-Zugma.PNG)

[personal profile] yourlibrarian 2022-02-28 07:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I scan rec posts regularly and after organizing by fandom, I find length and pairing to be most important. This is because I am actually not into pairings in most fandoms and prefer gen so depending on the pairing I may give it a go or definitely decide to skip it. While I do have favorite tropes, those won't overcome an unknown fandom or a pairing I have no interest in.
yourlibrarian: Jenny Soul (BUF-JennySoul-elizalavelle)

[personal profile] yourlibrarian 2022-03-01 03:10 pm (UTC)(link)
See for me author is irrelevant because in many cases I don't know their names and in an equal number I don't remember their names even if I've read stuff of theirs several times. I agree that just having the word count is the most important thing though.

My thought about length is that I've sometimes seen rec posts that focused on that such as "long reads" or "quick bites" or that sort of thing. So if there was an easy way to sort them by length then it would be easier to assemble "themed" posts focusing on that.
yourlibrarian: Merlin Reading (MERL-MerlinReading - sallymn)

[personal profile] yourlibrarian 2022-03-01 03:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Haha, yes, what counts as a long read definitely varies by person! I'd say 20,000 is a fair benchmark. I am happy to read 100k works but those are relatively few, and to me a short read is anything under 5k.

I agree that within a rec post on, say, some other theme or for a single fandom, I can easily scan for the word count and I wouldn't consider organizing by that important unless it was a very long list.