Updated: Tagging Advice (Tags in Ao3)

So I’ve been meaning to write something like this since I finished importing everything from Dreamwidth to Ao3. I imported a lot, so I used a lot of tags, and since a lot of people keep saying “I don’t know how to do this”, I thought I’d give some tips I learned.

!!Note: I am not a Tag Wrangler. I have done some research, but do keep that in mind. I’d recommend also looking up the advice Tag Wranglers share using a search engine, because yes, you can absolutely find it. If they correct anything in the comments, follow their advice, not mine. Except for the tag search. Use it. That’s just a good resource I’ll be talking about at the end.

*If you use a comma, it adds the tag. So you might find it easier to do that in a separate document first and copy-paste it in (I did, especially when I was doing a lot). For example:

Alternate Universe, Action, Angst, Supernatural Elements

or whatever. And then you just copy-paste that into the Additional Tags field. It’s much easier to change the order this way if you decide you want certain tags to be at the beginning and end (because that’s the most likely places a skimming reader will look). Otherwise, if you want to change it later, you’re going to a) if you want it at the very end, that’s fairly simple, just delete and reword it slightly, or or b) delete all your tags (copy probably by hand into a separate document first with the commas, then delete, or you’ll probably forget something), save, then re-put in the tags in the correct order.

*Original capitalization/etc from the first person who used the tag sticks around. If you add a tag and notice it’s taken away or added different capitalization, including all-caps, this is probably the cause. If you don’t like it, be prepared to reword it. (Mostly I just kind of found it funny.)

*Don’t use minor relationships in the Relationships field; put them in the Additional Tags field (or leave them out). The reason why this is the case is you might otherwise get people mad about false advertising if they’re specifically looking for that and it’s just a small part of the fic.

*Similarly, you might want to consider putting characters who barely appear in the Additional Tags field.

*You could try to do the same copy-paste thing with characters, but character names require full names and, occasionally, middle-names or the like, so I found that easier to do time by time to make sure it was doing that accurately.

*ESPECIALLY IN THE CHARACTER NAME FIELD but also in other areas: use the character’s full name. Help the Tag Wranglers. Their job is rough.

*On Ao3, relationships are strictly alphabetical. This is probably for the sake of the Tag Wranglers’ sanity. Please be nice to the tag wranglers.

*Also, and this is a good note: & is any type of relationship, / is strictly romantic. You can have both in the same fic if you’re focusing on a pairing as friends and romantically related, but it’d be a completely different fic if you’re using / for siblings and there actually is no intended incest to the story...

*Genre is important unless it’s already kind of obvious. I usually don’t bother if it’s in keeping with the original source material. Like, if it’s Bourne stuff, spy or action genres, that’s to be expected. Or Ryu Ga Gotoku/Yakuza, and it’s fighting or drama. Most people suggest you do it every time. Part of it probably depends on how long your usual list of tags is and how sparse you like to have it (or if you already feel you have an essay of tags on your hands).

*Warnings. Do not skimp on warnings. I’m a fan of tagging all the warnings, even if they might be spoilers. You could probably communicate some of this by using “Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings”, because I take that as a “proceed with caution”, but. Mostly, you’re writing this for fun, not to bring pain to another human being, ideally, and even if it’s a brilliantly painful piece, sometimes people need to get in the right headspace before they can read it.

*Feel free to use your other fics as a cheat sheet and copy/paste as needed. I didn’t do it probably quite as much as I should, but it’s easier and more uniform in getting your message across.

*Add “conversational” tags as desired, depending on your style. I like using these, though it varies by fic. An example would be “This fic is a mood” or “Inspired by Ghost in the Shell”. I use these to communicate extra stuff I feel like it’s important the reader knows that didn’t get covered by my other tags and to give a feel of my writing style/set the mood/etc, and as it’s harder to do that on Dreamwidth because you have a maximum number of tags you can use across your entire journal, I kind of keep it to a minimum over there, so took the chance when importing to just run wild. You don’t have to do that, though. If you want to keep it to a bare minimum, do so. Do not go overboard and make a tag wall, as this will make most people scroll past your fic. This is another reason why I suggest doing it in a separate document rather than in Ao3: it’s a lot easier to evaluate once you’re done, and decide whether the length is okay. Only you know what this means for you: it’s a reflection of you, your style as an author, and it’s advertising for the kind of reader you want to get. I tend to ramble, so figure the people who just scrolled past my tags were people who probably wouldn’t like my writing in the first place, so it helps both of us. There is such a thing, though, as too much even then, and if you’re like me and you decide you’ve hit the limit, you’re free to cut them out and stick them in an author’s note near the beginning of your story.

*You are not locked in! If you forgot something or want to delete a tag later, you can. Because yes, you will probably publish a work with typos, or whatever. Sure, it’s annoying to fix it, but only unreasonable readers will hold that against you. Feel free to treat tags similarly; they can be a work in progress if you want them to be, or you can just move on. (Although to be a good writer-citizen, if someone lets you know that you should have had a content warning, please consider adding one even if you don’t want to change anything else.)

And two steps to make it a lot easier on you:

*They suggest learning from other writers is the best practice, and tags are no exception. Check out your chosen fandom(s) and see what the conventions are. Some tags might inspire you to go “Oh yeah, that totally describes my fic, I should use that!” For example, in Jojo’s, there’s the PTSDio, or PTSD caused by DIO tag. You can also see whether the trend is toward more or less tags and get a feel of the community. I’d say it’s bad form to steal “conversational” tags, though that really depends; the PTSDio tag was genius and probably pseudo-“conversational”, but I didn’t feel like I was “stealing it”, rather “using a fanon-ly defined resource”, because of my second and possibly more important tip here.

*Tag search!!! Tag search is incredible and you should be using it if you upload. (Or if you’re just curious.) Under the logo on the left-hand side, navigate to search>tags. From there, say you’re trying to figure out what tags have been used for Yosuke, or for flirting. Under tag name, you put Yosuke or flirting. If you want to narrow it down even more, put in the fandom (in this case, Persona 4). I usually leave it as any, but if you want to figure out how to write a relationship so a Tag Wrangler won’t have to correct it later, or whatever, you can do that too. Canonical means there’s been enough uses that it’s been labeled as such by the Wranglers (I think?), while Non-canonical are the ones that have been used a little less. If you want to find the most commonly used ones, you can sort by Uses, Descending. From there, you can decide that you want the tag Accidental Flirting, or Awkward Flirting, or what have you. This is an extremely valuable resource and it probably would have taken me a lot, lot longer to import if I didn’t have it. I’d probably say anything under 10-20 uses, particularly if it’s longer (i.e. “conversational”) I’d think twice about using as long as it’s non-canonical (i.e. not bolded), but let it inspire you for sure. (Obviously, there are exceptions. Yosuke has a dungeon, for example. That’s more of just a description and not the author flavoring their tags. Use your own common sense here.) You can also click on the tag and it’ll show you which works use that tag. If you’re not sure what the tag means, for example, seeing it in context might help you understand and decide if it belongs in your fic, or if you’d rather use another one/reword it. Some places to start could be themes (LGBTQ Themes), incidents (Love Confessions), Inspired by [fill in the blank] (usually for Aus), setting (for holiday fics), and the like.

Hopefully, this was helpful. If potentially only for the tag search. Use the tag search. It’s your friend.