Do we need summaries for the fanfiction here? (Read 1,162 times)

[slyn11]

Reading the summary that Jwsel posted in the Romance vs Adventure thread for her story Collateral Damage got me thinking that it would be nice if we had summaries of the stories posted here so readers can get an idea of what a story is about before they start reading.

What do you guys think? Is that something that would be helpful/useful?

[MrsM]

I think that is a great idea Slyn. Maybe we can incorporate it into the fanfic index?

[fluffysmom]

The fan fic index lists the characters in each story but there's not a summary of the actual storyline.

[MrsM]

Maybe start an index of summaries? I am just trying to figure out the best way to do it without having to create a bazillion threads. Lol.

[fluffysmom]

I think it would work as a single thread. If that's too long then maybe give the authors with multiple fics their own threads.

[MrsM]

That could work.

[sportsgirl]

I agree!!

[slyn11]

I always thought it would be a part of the fanfiction index...every time I look at that thing I always miraculously expect summaries to appear.

[jwsel]

Here is a thought about how a workable index could be done on this board. I would suggest reordering the fanfic index by title and create a separate post for each letter (or even broken down in alphabetically within a letter, such as "CA-CH" and "CI-CZ"). The posts would then be set up so that they could be edited by anyone, so that any authors who want to add a summary could insert their own summaries next to the titles of their stories simply by modifying the existing post with the appropriate letter.

In other words, the "D" post might look like this at first (all of these are made up titles and authors, so any resemblance to any actual story or poster is purely coincidental):

---------------

Day in the Life of Phloe (by PhloeLover):

Days Gone By (by Madame X):

Days of Wine and Yellow Roses (by KaylaLovesSteve): Torn apart for 16 years, Steve and Kayla find themselves together again in Salem. But can they rediscover their lost romance? Or will time and some ghosts from their pasts ruin their change at happiness?

Dreaming of You (by DaysFan):

---------------

The major advantage of that approach is that the stories would always be listed in alphabetical order by title, so a potential reader trying to find a summary for a story won't have to hunt through a lot of posts in search of a title that could appear anywhere. If the posts are set up with only stories beginning with a single letter in a single post (and in some cases only part of a letter), that would leave room to add future stories where they can be found alphabetically by title, rather than just being tacked on at the end.

Allowing anyone to edit the thread would make it very convenient. One possible way of doing that is for the mods to create a "summary" login with a publicly available password that any author could use temporarily for the purpose of updating story summaries. As far as I can tell, there is no time limit on modifying posts, so if all the posts in the summary thread were posted by "summary," anyone would be able to log in under that username and edit the posts in the thread to add or modify the summaries for their stories. And that could be done for as long as the board exists.

If that were not possible, the board could just designate one person as the summary archivist. That person could receive summaries via PM and insert them into the appropriate post. The only difficulty is what happens if that person gets sick or stops posting. Nobody would be able to modify the existing posts to add a new story summary or modify an old one.

[slyn11]

I like the alphabetical order idea...though prolific writers would need their own section, sort of like it is now.

I like your idea of an archivist as well. It would be cool if that archivist could also tweet/promote updates (I know a lot of work) but it could help bring eyeballs to the stories and the board in general.

ALSO - I like the idea of a section for completed fics that way they won't get lost in the shuffle with the ongoing ones.

[fluffysmom]

The fan fiction index gives the status of each story....ongoing, complete or incomplete.

[slyn11]

Nov 8, 2012 21:42:48 GMT -5 fluffysmom said:

The fan fiction index gives the status of each story....ongoing, complete or incomplete.

If you are referring to what I said...I was talking about promoting when a story gets a new chapter posted...kind of like the red light that comes on at Krispy Kremes down south when the donuts are hot from the oven.

[fluffysmom]

I just meant that if someone is perusing the index for a story to read they would be able to tell the status of a particular story.

[Kpatch]

Great suggestions everyone, thank you!

Mrs M is the fanfic section moderator, and she and I are discussing some practical approaches to posting story summaries. We will let you know our solution soon. Thanks again!