I really need a masterlist

[propinquitine]

So I wrote a little mcsmooch called Unlocked just yesterday, and thought that I should maybe post a link in my own journal, for track-keeping and informational purposes.

Then I remembered that sga_santa reveals happened back on the 1st, so that I should probably also let people know that I wrote Never Quite What You Expect for monanotlisa

And then I remembered that I never did post about my mcshep_match story The Ingenious Dr. Rodney McKay of Atlantis, which I wrote for Team Peace and which still needs some vital edits, dang.

And then I thought, "Wait, have I really only written three things since August?", and had to go look up the fact that, no, last mcsmooch time (October 09), I wrote No Contest, and also forgot to mention that.

So! This is not really a Fic Year in Review post, but it's a list of what I've done since August 2009, at least. I'm now quite convinced that I should a) create a masterlist of my fic, so that I don't lose track of what all I've written, and b) actually upload my stuff to my AO3 account and, in the process, do all the little edits I keep meaning to do, seriously.

If anyone has any advice on masterlists -- what you-as-a-writer have found helpful, what you-as-a-reader prefer, what you-as-a-librarian/archivist (ahem, winkingstar) would recommend -- please do let me know!

ETA: All the above-linked fic is John/Rodney, PG-ish rating at most, and replete with em-dashes. In some things, I am consistent!

Comments

[chkc.livejournal.com]

A masterlist would be great! Then I can make sure I don't miss any of your writing. :D It's probably easiest to find a story when grouped by series and pairing? A short 1-line summary might be useful too. But you probably thought of this already. :)

[propinquitine.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, series and pairing groupings are very useful for prolific authors; if I did that, it would be like 10 stories under the "SGA - John/Rodney" heading, and one lonesome one under the "SGA - Gen" heading (and that "gen" is totally pre-slash in my head, so.) -- variety is not my strong suit!

I will probably try to come up with good summaries, though, since I think I typically take the "use a line of dialogue from the story without really considering whether it's representative" approach (also known as the Lazy Woman's Summary). Thanks for the suggestions!

[winkingstar.livejournal.com]

Hee! Mine is just a condensed version of headers. So I've got them arranged by work type (fic or other; but my podfics are in a separate post) and fandom, then alphabetically by title. Then I have the pairing, rating, word count, and summary. Oh, and if it's posted elsewhere than my fic journal, like at mcsmooch, then I note that too. Just 'cause I like to let people know if they are leaving the site they are on. Probably someday I should move into the AO3, too, and then I will have those links, too. :)

[propinquitine.livejournal.com]

Mmm, yes, header information is a must! And I like the idea of making it clear where things are posted, especially since I think I've written, um, one story that wasn't for a prompt or challenge or something (so "Fest/Challenge" should probably make an appearance in the header, as well).

And now I'm debating alpha-order versus reverse-chrono: alphabetizing helps people find exactly what they're looking for, but reverse-chrono gives the random browser a sense of the year/season/fannish context of the story. Hmm hmm hmm.

[winkingstar.livejournal.com]

Hmm, yeah, I can see how the time context would be useful. But since the timestamp is attached to the post itself, I think it's less important to me. On the other hand, if you want the true library geek experience, a card catalog (or online catalog) would have all the info. Title, author, date (well, year), summary, keywords/subject headings, publisher. And then the entry would be filed under three (or more) categories: title, author, subject. And, well, I guess it would vary slightly by classification system, too. :P

[propinquitine.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, I will be putting a bunch of info for each entry (but not too much! Just the right amount! And in a pleasing visual arrangement. ::dreams big::)

So if I were to set up a card catalogue-esque system, I would basically have three masterlists with duplicate entries, but sorted according to different criteria. Hmm!

[fish-echo.livejournal.com]

I like having things arranged in reverse-chronological -- because that way I can most readily see what is new (and with lists longer than about five I have really bad luck finding the new titles. And marking 'new' isn't sufficient either because how do you know when I last came through!? Well 'I' in the generic sense.). If you really must do alphabetical, then pleasepleasplease put a 'posted on' date?


As with most things ficcish, I find having information useful. winkingstar said: Then I have the pairing, rating, word count, and summary.
Yeah, that is my minimum... I just re-did my master post the other day: http://fish-echo.dreamwidth.org/24830.html (well, by 'I' I mean, hl on DW actually did the coding and let me babble at her about what I was thinking) and currently I'm really happy with it.

[propinquitine.livejournal.com]

Oooh, such a good point about the reverse-chrono ordering! I do tend to like to know the season/fannish context for fic I'm reading -- sometimes a story makes much more sense if you know you're reading an AU that's working with S2 Sheppard characterization, versus post-series characterization.

But if it's alpha-order, then it's all nice and neat! Drat! What I think I really want is a spreadsheet that allows people to sort things by whatever category they want. So if they're looking for shorter works, sort by the word count, or date posted, or rating (all the way from G to PG!), or fest/challenge. There's got to be some website or plugin or HTML trickery that would let me have something like that, right?

[winkingstar.livejournal.com]

There's got to be some website or plugin or HTML trickery that would let me have something like that, right?

Oh, sweet, naive propinquitine! ;) Short answer: not for free. Sortable things require access to a database and LJ ain't gonna let you do that.

The closest free sort-of equivalent would be creating a delicious account and using the tags for various types of sorting. My own delicious account (which is not for my own fic, though) has tags for fandom, author, pairing, genre, length, and a couple misc ones. So then I can find fics by any of those categories.

[fish-echo.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I hadn't even thought of delicious.... But yeah, that would allow for user-preferenced sorting and wouldn't require personal webspace and personal coding. But I think a delicious tagging thing shouldn't completely replace a standard LJ masterpost listing, just because the LJ format is familiar. But if you use your favourite LJ masterlist format and then also have a link to delicious that would work well, I think! (I might try and do that for me at some point. If, um, I ever pretend that I actually do have a delicious account. I set one up ages ago and then have proceeded to ignore it's existence.)

[winkingstar.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I totally agree it should be a complementary sort of thing! Like, a link at the top to offer other sorting choices. And it could be reverse-chrono, too, so long as you tag your pre-existing fics in that order.

[propinquitine.livejournal.com]

Shoot, y'all got ahead of me in the conversation! I'm typing as fast as I can, really!

Yes, if I were very organized, delicious might be a good idea. I'll probably stick with just a bare-bones HTML masterlist on LJ for now, especially since, with an oeuvre of about 12 works, it's not exactly going to be a long masterlist. (I'm kind of digging the idea of having one post with three cut-tags, and each cut goes to a different "Fics Sorted By" section -- card catalogues, how are you so awesome at presenting multiple ways to find information? It's like you're the product of decades (centuries?) of careful thought and planning!)

[fish-echo.livejournal.com]

Clearly you do not care as much about this as winkingstar and I do! :P

You could easily do the three cut tag thing! And then that would make everyone happy! And it would let you experiment with seeing the different formats for your fic and then if/when you decide to only go to one format you could just keep the one you like best.

[propinquitine.livejournal.com]

I care! And I don't mean to stifle debate! I just have to pack at some point tonight (going north to get admitted to the bar, whoo), and also I know that if I make this into too big a project, I will never ever finish it. :D

But please: continue to discuss the relative merits of various organizational methods!

[fish-echo.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I got distracted by food. Nomnomnom, food!

YAY FOR BEING ADMITTED INTO THE BAR! Not so much yay for having to pack, bleck.

Hm, I think I have said most of what I have thoughts of, for this. Oh, that's a lie, I have one more thought! I always find it convenient when the master posts have a 'last updated' date. Because then even if you only update it sporadically, the reader has a sense of are there no more fics because you haven't written them or because you just haven't updated the list and they should really go trolling your 'my fic' tag.

[propinquitine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I would fall into the habit of not maintaining the delicious account, or getting too granular with the tagging so that it's not very useful. But it is an idea to ponder!

[fish-echo.livejournal.com]

Yes, the maintaining it part is tricky!

And I know what you mean by 'granular', but I must admit my first thought was of little tiny spit-balls of fic, sitting neatly in a box. :)

[propinquitine.livejournal.com]

Yes, but you don't get things sorted in order in del.icio.us (I liked the old URL! TLD puns, FTW!), you just get them lumped by tag and, what, in reverse-chronological of when they got bookmarked? That's useful, certainly, but then you get things like "ficlength:1000-5000" in hodge-podge order, rather than ranged from the 1,100 word fic to the 4,980 word fic. (Unless there are features I'm not aware of!)

You are aware of all of the above, I know! I'm just think-typing out loud, here. (And quietly shaking my fist at LJ for not allowing me to sneak in some fancy "refer to this database" code, boo!)

[(Anonymous)]

Eeeeeeeee!

*zips off to read, who cares about work!*

*skipping merrily*