How to Post a Story to AO3

29Nov15

Someone left a comment on Archive of Our Own (AO3) asking me how to publish a story there. I wrote something out that’s long and detailed. So I’m sharing it here as well for anyone who wants help.

The first part of the process is writing your story–whether it’s a chapter of a multi-chaptered fic or a one-shot. After that is the proofreading your work. A lot of people choose to work with a beta, a second reader if you will. I currently don’t but I have in the past. It was a great experience and the person not only caught my mistakes but challenged me too, making my writing better. A second pair of eyes looking at your work cold is always beneficial but I believe the person has to feel comfortable being completely honest with you. That’s one of the reasons why I haven’t personally gotten a new beta. I had gotten really close to my last one on another forum so we were really honest with each other without worrying about offending the other. I haven’t had the time to build that up with someone else.

If you choose not to use a beta, I advise that you do not proofread once you finish writing. Wait at least a day, preferably more, before you go to edit. The space and time apart will do some good as you’ll have fresh eyes and not be so connected to your words.

Now, if your writing is divided into chapters, I’d advise taking the chapter you’re ready to edit and copy it into a new document. This allows you to focus on just that chapter alone without getting distracted by what came before and what may come after.

I suggest first rereading the document without making any changes. Then go back and do a line edit. This means reading your work line by line, focusing on them individually. Check your grammar and check your spelling. Did you use the right word? Did you use the right spelling? Does everything flow? Could you be more succinct in your wording–saying the same thing in less words? Could you use more description–conversely could you less? How is the characterization? Does this work? Could it be better?

When you’re happy with your work, there is one more step for posting on AO3. I advise going back through the document and coding it. When you copy and paste, your work into AO3, it does not preserve your bolded/italicized/underlined words. So if you code them ahead of time, it’ll make things easier.

Now it’s time to post. You click the post button and fill out the appropriate boxes–pick the fandom, the characters, etc. Then copy and paste your work into the big gray box. Hit preview and then “save without posting.” This will save a draft to AO3, which will stay up for a few days. I always make sure to do this just in case something happens when I’m editing.

After that, I go through and change the coding for breaks (<br>) to the coding for paragraphs (<p>). This will help with the spacing, which will make it easier to read. Preview to make sure it looks good and then hit post.

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Tags: AO3, posting