[Question] On Anthologies

[DevilDuck]

Given the success of (and uniformity of response to) my last question I thought I would go ahead and ask a more challenging one.

The Content Guidelines state that you cannot post an Author's Note as a chapter UNLESS they serve as a Table of Contents for "Twitfics, Drabbles, or One-Shot Collections". That 'unless' is important as I tend to favor the Anthology structure (especially when posting on another site) so I am very interested in what the conventions for anthologies are over here.

How strong of a connection between stories is required to class it as an anthology? Must they share characters? Setting? Theme?

If I chose to go back and write a follow up for one of the stories would I have the power to change the order they appear in the anthology?

Thank you for your time.

Bonus Off-Topic Question: I've looked around the forums some and I'm not sure where to go for help developing a story; I'm not looking for an editor, or a co-author, or someone to take over the story I'm just struggling to get from point C to E (I know there has to be a point D but I don't know what it should be). If you could point me in the write direction that would be nice.

[BronxWench]

Definitely a more challenging question!

If by anthology, you mean a collection of works that fall within a subdomain, and may or may not involve crossovers with other subdomains, may have different pairings, or different kinds of pairings, for example M/F or F/F, and/or may require differing tags per story, then yes, we would permit a Table of Contents in that case. We'd also ask that you tag each story at the top, and disclaim any crossover subdomains as needed in each story.

That was the good news. The bad news is that there is no way to reorder the stories here, since they are posted as chapters within the main story (anthology). In order to change the order, you would need to delete and repost the chapters in the correct order, and if you delete ALL the chapters, you lose the ratings, reviews and hit count data associated with the anthology.

And now for the Bonus Off-Topic Question: Right here in the Writers Corner, you'll see that people have posted all sorts of questions and conundrums. Admittedly, a great many of them seem to devolve into moans about the lack of reviews, but there are some truly useful discussions that crop up from time to time. We also have our Unofficial Guides which really has some gems in there. I suggest that you give us a précis of what you have for Point C and Point E, and see what others come up with as a logical way to bridge the gap. Even if no one hits on the exact Point D, you might find some inspiration in the brainstorming.

[DevilDuck]

Whoa a fast response and from a mod no less.

Okay let's see if I got this right: If I were start taking part in the monthly writing challenge I could create an anthology to house them all, have a table of content that list summaries, tags, and warnings for each 'response', but I would have to put that same warning at the top of each chapter.

If, after chapter seven goes up, I decide I want to switch chapter five and six around I would have to delete chapters five, six, and seven? I couldn't just use the edit feature to, I don't know, edit the contents/title of the chapters?

As for going off-topic I'll refrain from hijacking my own thread or even starting another for the time being but if anyone's interested I talked about the story in question elsewhere already.

[JayDee]

If, after chapter seven goes up, I decide I want to switch chapter five and six around I would have to delete chapters five, six, and seven? I couldn't just use the edit feature to, I don't know, edit the contents/title of the chapters?

I'm not a mod, obviously. Standards and what not. But, I can't think of any reason why editing both chapters to swap text wouldn't work, and you can always edit chapter titles too. I'm now curious if there is a reason why deletion/re-posting required, seems like an odd rule if it's a rule rather than a technical thing I'm missing!

Must remember to check back later!

[BronxWench]

Oh, you can edit the chapter titles and content, of course, to move things around, absolutely! It's not a rule to delete, at all. It's just a bit more painstaking to make sure you edit the chapters properly, but that's perfectly fine.

The reason I say it works better to put warnings at the top of chapters (as well as any secondary crossover disclaimers) is because readers aren't going to check the table of contents each time. I did a prompt series, but it was an ongoing story, with each prompt a new chapter. Because it was one story, I could tag in the summary, but readers tend to get vocal if they come across what they feel is untagged content.

We have a few people who do drabble collections, and I've seen them put a short note at the top of the chapter with additional warnings, pairings and/or crossovers. The summary has the basic tags that would apply across the board, but if a story has a kink, they cover it in the chapter. It seems to work, especially since we have the 240 character limit in the summary/tag field.

[DemonGoddess]

Whoa a fast response and from a mod no less.

Okay let's see if I got this right: If I were start taking part in the monthly writing challenge I could create an anthology to house them all, have a table of content that list summaries, tags, and warnings for each 'response', but I would have to put that same warning at the top of each chapter.

Having the tags and warnings in your ToC listed per chapter should be sufficient. (BronxWench will let you know definitely on that)

If, after chapter seven goes up, I decide I want to switch chapter five and six around I would have to delete chapters five, six, and seven? I couldn't just use the edit feature to, I don't know, edit the contents/title of the chapters?

As for going off-topic I'll refrain from hijacking my own thread or even starting another for the time being but if anyone's interested I talked about the story in question elsewhere already.

to alter the order, you have two options, both of which you mentioned. Has nothing to do with ToS or CG, but with databases and record numbers in a database, as to how they display in sequence.

There's no reason why you can't edit the contents and titles for the affected chapters, rather than deleting and re-adding in the sequence you want. Personally, I think delete/re-add will probably be easier. Providing there is a chapter remaining when deleting to re-add, you will maintain your hits, rates and reviews.