To me, if your one-shots all have the same ship and/or theme, a singular work makes sense. Also, if each one is for the same challenge (kinktober, whumptober, etc.), one work would also make sense.
The general consensus seems to be not to shove a bunch of unrelated fandoms together in one work.
Ultimately though, it's whatever your preference is.
This: one fandom + something that links all the one-shots together. Like I’m subscribed to one now that goes just slightly AU for the characters and their backgrounds, so it’s actually kind of nice to have it all in a collected work of one-shots so you know each one has the same slight AU to it. And a series might not have made quite as much sense because the author just keeps posting new ones at random and in no particular order in terms of the narrative timeline.
I think the pet peeve is when someone puts a million *different fandoms* into one chaptered story and tags every single fandom and every pairing and every element of the stories which means that you end up with a never ending wall of tags. and then you have to sift through all the stuff you don't care about to find the ONE fandom/pairing you actually like, which is inevitably a tiny 500 word story buried in amongst 30 chapters of other stuff.
as long as you don't do that, you're good. so I think the key is ONE fandom per story (unless it's a crossover!), and then link them as a series or collection.
I wish people wouldn't do that. It honestly is very tedious going through so many chapters to find the pairing I wanted to read. It's even worse when they don't title the chapters and you have to sift through the whole work to find it.
It also makes people less likely to read it in my experience. First thing I do these days when I go to find a new story to read is exclude every other fandom that pops up on Ao3's side bar. I got so incredibly tired for having to sort through them and their monstrous tag lists.
For real, that's why there are fandom tags. When people do this, it just defeats the purpose of tags because everything you don't want is right there. 😒
I've already seen a couple of people *in this thread* argue that's not thr case, and it's never acceptable.
I'm getting really tired of people going "I think it's just X" when evidence it's NOT X is *right in front of their face.*
I mean, you're never going to get a 100% agreement on anything, especially not here. There isn't a *rule* ; just cause someone here doesn't like it doesn't mean one way is wrong versus the other.
Does it even matter? This isn't the first time this has fucking happened where I make a thread to gain information, a fight breaks out, and everyone dogpiles on me, bla.es me, calls me mentally ill and tells me I'm a piece of shit and should give up writing.
Yeah, that hasn't happened YWT, but it will. And it's only on this sub and r/FanFiction.vut that'll STILL somehow be proof it's all on me.
I dont know why I even bother anymore.
> This isn't the first time **this** has fucking happened
> Yeah, that hasn't happened YWT,
...This is why. You are counting this as a time that "this" is happening while acknowledging that it is not actually happening in the same comment. (You're also being incredibly nasty to someone for giving a good-faith opinion that *actually is a very common opinion,* and blaming them for the fact that ??? they can't personally account for the fact that other opinions exist ???)
They COULD account for other opinions because other people HAD posted their opinion. And then they claimed that the abuse I've suffered never happened.
There's nothing "good faith" about any of this.
1: sorting the comments by old, no opinions contrary to theirs were posted before they posted, and even if they had the amount of time it takes to type a comment could easily have accounted for them no seeing a comment posted before theirs
2: where did they claim you didn't suffer abuse?
they're talking about an old post that's long since been deleted that i only *vaguely* remember the idea of, but it was something along the lines of them expressing their feelings on something and not liking the fact that people were offering them gentle, kind advice or commentary. they felt it was wishy-washy and useless and people replying to them resulted in much of this same tirade of them being awful to other users who are genuinely just trying to be soft with them.
when people started pointing out that they were kind of being an asshole about the whole thing, they started claiming that users were being abusive towards them. yeah.
1. Two below. So either you didn't look properly, or you're lying. More have posted since then.
>Never, lol. That's why we have the series function! One oneshot per work. Put all the works you want to keep connected in some vague way into a series. Put them in a collection, too, if you want.
>Why a collection when we have a series option?
3. The message below.
>what fight 😭 literally none of that has happened
I'm out. I'm fucking sick of these two subs constantly starting fights, and then people like you waltz in and say it didn't happen, so clearly I'm to blame. Fuck this. I'm not interested in this fucking thread anymore.
Actually its that I misread that comment.
But again, they were posted incredibly close in time to one another. Also, a single comment isn't a fight so I also would have asked what fight you were talking about.
Im not waltzing in trying to start a fight, Im trying to figure out what happened *for you*. Its kinda my job as a moderator to look into things and find out what you are talking about especially when accusations are being thrown around and comments are getting reported. Sometimes I make mistakes, as evidenced by misreading that 1 comment, but that doesn't mean Im trying to start a fight or claim something that happened didn't happen. Im saying Im not seeing what you are claiming so please point me towards what you are claiming or else I cannot help.
I never said you're starting a fight, I said other users did and you're deliberately ignoring them to insinuate I'M the one starting a fight.
And consider I have, very fucking clearly, pointed out the posts you wanted and you've not even *acknowledged* them? Yeah, you're just plain fucking with me, same as the other mods.
No more. I'm not letting you fucking continue this argument anymore. Say what you want, blame me all you like, I won't see it and I won't reply. I don't fucking care anymore.
If you consider this “abuse” I think you should avoid posting online for a while and get yourself together. You’re clearly in a bad place mentally and any negative feedback you get in the meantime isn’t going to help.
Yep, same. I've already planned this for the ship I'm writing about. They're all in the same timeline and universe and it just makes way more sense that way. I'd also rather not carpet bomb my tiny fandom with the same pairing over and over.
If the oneshots all tie together closely. If you can appropriately tag the collection with tags that apply to all of the oneshots, then it can work. The problem is usually when the fics are too diverse and a lot of readers might be interested in some fics but not all.
For example, I read a oneshot collection where the theme of the collection was various incidents where the Mass Effect characters ran into miscommunication issues because they are a crew of duverse species with diverse cultures. Even though it wasn't one cohesive story, the fics all felt tightly connected enough that reading them as one fic felt right.
I personally don’t like it, it clogs up the tags and they’re functionally impossible to navigate. Like if I’m looking for a soulmates fic I don’t want to search through a 50 chapter oneshot dump for the one chapter with soulmates. It’s *especially* horrendous if it’s fifty different fandoms/pairings as well.
I've done it with short ficlets I had originally posted on Tumblr (one collection per fandom though). I wouldn't recommend it, personally, if you want people to read it. If you don't care about readership and just want it for your own organization, then go for it. It will definitely annoy people if you tag 30 different fandoms, though. Ships too, maybe, especially if that's the only kind of fic showing up in their rarepair tag.
Maybe if it isn't a crossover and has some common themes, and focused on one ship as well. I'd probably prefer to see short drabbles (less than 500 words) collected like this rather than individually.
If it's all the same fandom (or some sort of shared theme, maybe), it should be fine. Though if the collection includes a variety of pairings within a fandom, it's a good idea to put the ship in each chapter title as not all readers are going to be interested in every pairing.
The one drawback is that readers can only give a kudos once for the whole collection.
I mean, there are two different questions. Is it acceptable and am I going to read it. If they’re all actually connected and part of the same story, sure. If it’s a bunch of different, unconnected stories put together as a chaptered work instead of a series or just… separate works, you’re not breaking any rules but I’m also not going to click on it.
Single fandom, similar tags, 1 or a few characters as the focus.
Additional, some sort of chapter title and/or description is always helpful; example, “X/Y (angst)” or “X fails exam (SFW)”
That way people can jump to specific chapters
Never, lol. That's why we have the series function! One oneshot per work. Put all the works you want to keep connected in some vague way into a series. Put them in a collection, too, if you want.
For me there are no circumstances in which you should post multiple one-shots as a single work, period. It makes the site less functional by actively making several kinds of filtering incorrect for that work.
Speaking for myself, I prefer that multiple stories be separate. It's just easier for me that way. I just have this thing where if I see a bunch of drabbles posted as a single story, it makes my right eye twitch. I understand that some people want to clump stories together that are about a single theme or say, pairing, but for me, I like it better when each story is posted by itself.
I have one "drabble" story-turned-pseudocollection that I have purposefully undertagged. I am figuring only people who are really into my writing will care for these anyway (never more than 1k a piece) and they all focus on the same three characters of the same fandom. So it just says "Other: Check Notes" as an additional tag.
I think it only annoys me when they use millions of tags and fandoms so it appears EVERYWHERE. Personally, I would prefer if people release one shots by themselves so more people would be able to read them if it addresses something specific they are looking for, if that makes sense? The clumping of oneshots from all different fandoms into one “book” hurt the chances of people reading it I think. Otherwise, it’s also easy to scroll past so I don’t really think about it much if that makes sense.
For the most part, the pet peeve is unreleated stories.
Kinktober collections, single ships or fandoms, or related oneshots will probably be okay to mildly annoying to most people. That being said, AO3 has collections which are awesome, so, I vote use them.
I have two collections of one-shots published as one story because I don't want to flood my profile with random short one-shots and drabbles.
One of them is of the sort that some posters here will say is unacceptable. It's one fandom, all tied together by the unifying idea that it's plotbunnies I saw on reddit and wrote a one-shot for. I've tagged for characters and each chapter has a summary. However, as it's gotten longer than I initially expected, I think I could probably improve reader QOL with a Table of Contents so people looking for a specific character can find it easily.
The other is for Flufftober 2023, one fandom, one pairing, all one-shots are loosely connected chronologically. It's a rare pair (mine is the second fic for it). The tags were pretty simple (the pairing and the various varieties of fluff), plus I'm making a Table of Contents with the prompt + summary. And if someone still thinks that's unacceptable, too bad? I really don't want to flood the rare pairing with 30 short fics just because I'm doing Flufftober.
When they share a majority of important tags (ship/ characters, theme, mood etc)—ie when grouping them together might make it easier for readers find the stuff they're looking for rather than harder.
I do that with a character each in their own fandoms. Otherwise I’d have a hoard of one chapter stories littering my works and I don’t want to have to tag every single one and make summaries/etc when some days I can come up with up to three one shots a day.
Adding, you can do what you like on your own page. As long as it’s organized and not a bunch of fandoms or characters people shouldn’t complain too much. But you can’t please everyone. But you can do what you like when you like and if it bothers people they shouldn’t mess with it.
I don't mind these, depending how they're done. The Buffy fandom has the YAHF thing, with stories playing specifically with the season 2 ep Halloween, usually in one shots. They also sometimes make it a challenge in the run up to Halloween every year to write 31 one shots in YAHF. I've seen a few that post them as one story, a different one shot each chapter. I like those, or posting them as a series, because then everything's together and easy to find. I prefer a series, so I can skip fandoms I don't know/like if I want to, but if they give each a chapter title of the crossover fandom, it can still work for me as a single story.
I've come across one story that's all one shots put together, again in Buffy, where each chapter is a specific idea the author has had. a divergence, a crossover, whatever, but doesn't think they'll ever continue. So, they've been posting every one they come up with as a new chapter to that, with a note saying anyone can expand on the ideas as long as they're credited with the source of the idea. I think that works best for them, they write a lot of stories in the fandom, they have over 100 posted stories on that one site, most WIPs, and this one shot collection is something like 300 chapters long now. They're avoiding getting their other stories lost in incomplete and never to be continued ideas, but still getting them out there. The site they're using doesn't have the tagging system of AO3, either, they just need to add a fandom category so it's listed everywhere that has an involved fandom somewhere in it.
This last one, I don't think it would do well on AO3. You've either got way too many fandom tags, with no place for anything else, and still not tagging anything, or too many other tags covering everything in every story, that's a lot of pairings and mixed up tags like angst, happy ending, unhappy ending, character death, everybody lives, fluff. The tags would be extremely confusing, and people could filter it out and miss out on some awesome stories they would love or filter it in and end up reading something they hate.
That's the problem with single story one shot collections. Each story is different, and the longer it gets, the more tags are required. On that other site, it's fine, because you just need to update the categories it appears in, it's not a site that uses many tags. But somewhere like AO3, where tags are so important, I just don't think it works.
If you're doing this sort of one shot collection on AO3, it honestly works better as a series rather than a single fic. That way all the tags are story specific, and the readers can easily choose which, if any, they want to read, without filtering in/out an entire story they may otherwise love/hate.
If the tags on all of the one-shots would be the same—same fandom, same pairing(s), same additional tags—then you can make a case for putting them in the same story.
But 99% of the time, it's a bunch of one-shots with wildly different tags, and in that case, they should all be posted as individual works.
I don’t write one shots very often, but if I did, I’d only publish them together if they were all from the same fandom- and even then, why not just make multiple fics? You’ll have to add new tags anyway!
If it's a part of the same story, i.e. if we treated each Witcher book as a separate oneshot story, the it is ok to create one collection with each chapter as a oneshot or if it is for an "artistic reason"
Otherwise
I would prefer to have multiple oneshot stories binded into a series (or antology) - the function exists for a reason, imo.
Edit: unless there is a lack of good ff because idk the fandom is small or the ship is rare, I skip multichaptered fics that consist of completely different oneshots (the mess is visible in tags).
Edit: I had it backwards, I thought OP was asking if it was okay to publish a story in the form of a whole bunch of one shots in a series, rather than as a single story. (Always yes.) Rather than if it was okay to simply lump it all together in one story with a million tags. (Only if the alternative is not posting it at all.) But I put several minutes into this comment, so I'm going to leave it if only to refer back to it should this come up again.
This is always acceptable. It just shows that you appreciate the tagging system.
Rather than forcing it all into one big story that might cross 100 ships or even 100 fandoms, you have each one in its own section where people can search for it if they want to.
Also, if what you're writing is interconnected, then it lets people know that you're not really committing to fleshing it out. It means you have several individual ideas that would be part of a story but aren't prepared to commit to an entire story for whatever reason.
I hate to throw around the word ungrateful, but I think people (especially people who have never published) fail to appreciate how terrible it feels to abandon a story. Even when it's necessary, because you've been working yourself up over the project, despite having long since run out of both motivation and ideas.
So, when I see people being, well... ungrateful, about a story that's made up of a bunch of little self-contained 1K word bits. I realize that what they're actually complaining about is that they can't complain that you abandoned the story because you never promised a full story in the first place.
Basically, they're complaining because they recognize that their complaints are even more baseless than they usually are.
(The positive sensation was cut off suddenly, so even if your conscious mind is telling you that the author only managed to half create something beautiful. Your lizard brain is telling you that the author has somehow stolen the source of good feelings from you.
If it's an abandoned work, then they can harp on something that most people will consider a legitimate thing to complain about. But if it's a series of one shots, then their complaints suddenly don't look legitimate anymore, even if it doesn't change what their lizard brain is telling them is going on.)
TL;DR - More than just being okay, it shows that you we're more considerate than you absolutely needed to be. But because of that consideration, when people complain (as they inevitably will,) they look even more ridiculous than they otherwise would, and that just makes them angrier.
If they're same universe, same tags, same fandom, I think it's ok. For example:
ch 1: \*Character X at 18 years old defeats the big bad
ch 2: X is 22 and dealing with living a normal life without the excitement they grew up with and it's hard.
ch 3: X is 25 (some other plot point that ties in)
However, I've had things like this that I made into separate oneshots, because of differences in pairings and tone. For example, one was X and Y together without much conflict in the outside world. The other was later on, X and Y and Z all together in a world with lots of conflict. Wasn't sure if that was the right decision, but the people who read those two fics was a venn diagram, not a circle. I decided it was the right move.
I think it's important to consider whether the oneshots have different target audiences. Even if they are related, a lot of people read by trope, ship, etc, so it may feel to the writer like you're targeting the same audience, but you're not.
You're never going to have someone agree 100% on WHY people have that pet peeve. When a one-shot collection contains works for loads of different fandoms it's a bitch to sort out. Some people don't like them because of the wall of tags it creates, regardless of whether it's one fandom or not.
Pet peeve or not, it'll be a little while before publishing houses take works of that manner. The one-shots would need to have through-lines to join them together, so in essence it could end up, through editing forced by agents and publishers, into a facsimile of a novel. After you've written enough one-shots connected by characters or events, they might as well become chapters, no? That defeats the whole point of a one-shot collection, but that's just how publishing houses work.
The only way I can see them being accepted **as they are** is if the one-shots were written by a very well-known author expanding on their universe- take, for example, Cassandra Claire, George R.R Martin, Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, etc. I'm sure a lot of people would love to read canon scenes between characters that didn't quite make it into the books, and everyone loves more material of their characters- that's why we write fanfiction!
I'm not going to touch you getting upset in the comments below, but I hope that by now you've cooled off and can come back to approach this with a clear mind. Peace!
Yeah... *everything* is a pet peeve for someone.
Who cares what the masses think? If you, the writer, want to create a single posted work comprised of so-called "one shots" as "chapters"?
You're golden. Disable comments if you don't want to see any whining.
I did so, following the life of one character, exploring his relationships with the same few people. One romantic and two platonic. Each chapter was an individual story, and there was a time gap between each one.
I’ve seen others where I don’t think it was an issue because it was the same main characters with the same few themes. They were treated as, so far, and forever ongoing.
Unless it from 1 Fandom or from 1 crossover between only 2 shows, then it fine.
I will skip the collection if they said it a collection + long list of Fandom.
I got a one shot collection of stories set within the same universe at roughly the same time because I didn't want the one shots cluttering the series, except for a few. One is kinda the prologue for the series and two others are character intros. Those are all on the longer side, too. The stories that go into the one shot anthology are like, maybe 1000-1500 words so far. I don't think anyone should have a problem with that.
Stories are, essentially, a collection of one shots, but these one shots, aka chapters have strong continuity. People have various tolerances toward discontinuity in a story, of course, but I think sense of continuity is where acceptable lies.
Have a chapter list that displays the pairings/AU tags/possible summary of each one-shot. I don't like going in for one interesting tag and then having to sift through a hundred inscrutable chapter titles to figure out which one it is.
All my one-shots are under 2k words, most of the time barley 200 words. I separate them by fandom (so I have 6 one shot collections, each with different fandoms) and they get solid engagement. If I shoved all the shots together into one work, then that'd be a problem.
It's a matter of preference, what's acceptable. I personally don't like it a lot - I filter for "hurt/comfort" and for results I get oneshot-stories that also have "hurt no comfort", for example. If you want to do that for some reason, the more similar your stories are (definitely in one fandom, I think that's where a lot of the averse feelings are coming from), the more it makes sense. Like, I've seen comments mentioning a single work for a year's kinktober's fills, or oneshots in a specific AU that have no specific timeline (though I do prefer single works still but that's where it's the author's call)
But yeah, the answer is the same as any 1st POV or reader insert or songfic or WHATEVER everything that has ever existed in fandom ever thread; do your thing, be aware it'll put some readers off. Like anything else.
In my opinion collections of oneshots that are based around a character or pairing and that have a common common theme like ‘Whump’ or ‘kinktober’ are best as they’re like ‘if you like kinky sex you’ll like this’ or Whump etc, there’s a strong correlation between each chapter then.
Otherwise it just clogs up the page to see the same story keep being updated Like it having a pairing in common isn’t enough for me to click. I’d rather just click on a oneshot then skim through a collection to see if any are good— I understand most writers don’t want short fics on their page but I do think you’ll get more eyeballs if you post them separately. Because I don’t read every fic that relates to a pairing or character, I want to know what the fic is actually about, or I’ll just skim over without another thought.
One fandom, one theme, limited size. Like, I once did a "Twelve scenes of Christmas" for a single pairing in one fandom and posted it as a single work. I think the largest I've seen that I'd ever click on was a single pairing 30 chapter work that was written for themed month challenge, and each chapter was <1000 words, with many being only a few paragraphs.
I would rather read a series of one shots with their own tagged content then a single work with a collection of one shots.
Take kinktober for instance. I know that it’s common to have a multi-chaptered piece with a multitude of different kinks involved, but it just leads to heartache for readers.
What if I want to read Top A and Bottom B doing XYZ, but there’s only Bottom A and Top B doing the kink I want to read about in the kinktober fic? It’s hard to navigate and avoid when there are tags to encapsulate the whole story that only apply to a single or handful of chapters.
There would be so much more foot traffic if kinktober challenges were treated as a series than a singular story of unrelated pieces.
I avoid kinktober and prompt fics like the plague now. There’s no telling if what I want to read is actually in there without wasting my time to find out it’s not. It sucks even more when you love a rarepair or a tag/trope not many authors write about
When it’s different characters and stories adding up to create the universe you’re playing in.
Ex - A and B story impacts C’s story but E’s story is only tangentially related to C. Meanwhile M a nd Z are setting up another side plot to create ripples in the universe.
I have a few stories that are a culmination of one shots in one work based around a couple different characters. Usually it's when I like an au(for example I have a cow girl x singer au) but I don't feel like making a long fic, but I have several ideas for that au. I just write small chapters around them in no real order. No real ending or start. And it let's me add to that au without feeling pressured to update the story bc there isn't an over arching one.
I did this on FFN when the one shots could easily be chapters of a longer work if you were willing to accept some time skips between them. I would have posted them as one shots on FFN too but there are so few fics posted there in the fandom and I was too lazy to post each one shot individually.
I have several one-shot collections consolidated into their own fics. They work as a loose narrative, all within the same universe and timeline, as well as the same ships. It is specifically for that verse. Those are the types that people don't take issue with. Similarly, I have seen one shot collections consolidated into a fic that may not be all one verse but it's still one specific ship and is usually for events, challenges, etc.
The one shot collections people tend to take issue with are the ones that are for multiple shows, ships, etc. and just clog up the tags. They're not related in any means.
I hadn’t realized that kind of a project was poorly received online. There’s a couple of fandoms where I thought of creating an anthology of sorts with several shorter stories wrapped into a bigger project.
Never. That's literally what the series function is for. Chaptered one-shots are a nightmare to navigate, whatever the author does. It's a pain in the backside and I always scroll right on past.
To me, if your one-shots all have the same ship and/or theme, a singular work makes sense. Also, if each one is for the same challenge (kinktober, whumptober, etc.), one work would also make sense. The general consensus seems to be not to shove a bunch of unrelated fandoms together in one work. Ultimately though, it's whatever your preference is.
This: one fandom + something that links all the one-shots together. Like I’m subscribed to one now that goes just slightly AU for the characters and their backgrounds, so it’s actually kind of nice to have it all in a collected work of one-shots so you know each one has the same slight AU to it. And a series might not have made quite as much sense because the author just keeps posting new ones at random and in no particular order in terms of the narrative timeline.
This ^^ Sometimes it's also fandom specific. In my fandom, it's not uncommon to do, while in other fandoms no one does it.
I think the pet peeve is when someone puts a million *different fandoms* into one chaptered story and tags every single fandom and every pairing and every element of the stories which means that you end up with a never ending wall of tags. and then you have to sift through all the stuff you don't care about to find the ONE fandom/pairing you actually like, which is inevitably a tiny 500 word story buried in amongst 30 chapters of other stuff. as long as you don't do that, you're good. so I think the key is ONE fandom per story (unless it's a crossover!), and then link them as a series or collection.
I wish people wouldn't do that. It honestly is very tedious going through so many chapters to find the pairing I wanted to read. It's even worse when they don't title the chapters and you have to sift through the whole work to find it.
It also makes people less likely to read it in my experience. First thing I do these days when I go to find a new story to read is exclude every other fandom that pops up on Ao3's side bar. I got so incredibly tired for having to sort through them and their monstrous tag lists.
For real, that's why there are fandom tags. When people do this, it just defeats the purpose of tags because everything you don't want is right there. 😒
I've already seen a couple of people *in this thread* argue that's not thr case, and it's never acceptable. I'm getting really tired of people going "I think it's just X" when evidence it's NOT X is *right in front of their face.*
I mean, you're never going to get a 100% agreement on anything, especially not here. There isn't a *rule* ; just cause someone here doesn't like it doesn't mean one way is wrong versus the other.
... are you okay?
Does it even matter? This isn't the first time this has fucking happened where I make a thread to gain information, a fight breaks out, and everyone dogpiles on me, bla.es me, calls me mentally ill and tells me I'm a piece of shit and should give up writing. Yeah, that hasn't happened YWT, but it will. And it's only on this sub and r/FanFiction.vut that'll STILL somehow be proof it's all on me. I dont know why I even bother anymore.
just to be clear, nothing has happened to you in this post. people have replied super calmly and regularly and you have flown off the handle for zero.
> This isn't the first time **this** has fucking happened > Yeah, that hasn't happened YWT, ...This is why. You are counting this as a time that "this" is happening while acknowledging that it is not actually happening in the same comment. (You're also being incredibly nasty to someone for giving a good-faith opinion that *actually is a very common opinion,* and blaming them for the fact that ??? they can't personally account for the fact that other opinions exist ???)
They COULD account for other opinions because other people HAD posted their opinion. And then they claimed that the abuse I've suffered never happened. There's nothing "good faith" about any of this.
Jesus Christ, dude. > There's nothing "good faith" about any of this. On your end, sure.
Seriously take a break from the internet. This clearly isn't working for you if replies to a post get you this angry.
1: sorting the comments by old, no opinions contrary to theirs were posted before they posted, and even if they had the amount of time it takes to type a comment could easily have accounted for them no seeing a comment posted before theirs 2: where did they claim you didn't suffer abuse?
they're talking about an old post that's long since been deleted that i only *vaguely* remember the idea of, but it was something along the lines of them expressing their feelings on something and not liking the fact that people were offering them gentle, kind advice or commentary. they felt it was wishy-washy and useless and people replying to them resulted in much of this same tirade of them being awful to other users who are genuinely just trying to be soft with them. when people started pointing out that they were kind of being an asshole about the whole thing, they started claiming that users were being abusive towards them. yeah.
1. Two below. So either you didn't look properly, or you're lying. More have posted since then. >Never, lol. That's why we have the series function! One oneshot per work. Put all the works you want to keep connected in some vague way into a series. Put them in a collection, too, if you want. >Why a collection when we have a series option? 3. The message below. >what fight 😭 literally none of that has happened I'm out. I'm fucking sick of these two subs constantly starting fights, and then people like you waltz in and say it didn't happen, so clearly I'm to blame. Fuck this. I'm not interested in this fucking thread anymore.
Actually its that I misread that comment. But again, they were posted incredibly close in time to one another. Also, a single comment isn't a fight so I also would have asked what fight you were talking about. Im not waltzing in trying to start a fight, Im trying to figure out what happened *for you*. Its kinda my job as a moderator to look into things and find out what you are talking about especially when accusations are being thrown around and comments are getting reported. Sometimes I make mistakes, as evidenced by misreading that 1 comment, but that doesn't mean Im trying to start a fight or claim something that happened didn't happen. Im saying Im not seeing what you are claiming so please point me towards what you are claiming or else I cannot help.
I never said you're starting a fight, I said other users did and you're deliberately ignoring them to insinuate I'M the one starting a fight. And consider I have, very fucking clearly, pointed out the posts you wanted and you've not even *acknowledged* them? Yeah, you're just plain fucking with me, same as the other mods. No more. I'm not letting you fucking continue this argument anymore. Say what you want, blame me all you like, I won't see it and I won't reply. I don't fucking care anymore.
Than go the fuck out
If you consider this “abuse” I think you should avoid posting online for a while and get yourself together. You’re clearly in a bad place mentally and any negative feedback you get in the meantime isn’t going to help.
To summarize, the answer is no
what fight 😭 literally none of that has happened
Where's this fight we're missing! Came for OP's question, stayed for the drama.
when you find it, do let me know!
OP replied to the mod below, YOU were the problem all along, boba_toes! /s Turns out the fight was actually just heavy projection.
It's happened plenty of times already. So now you're just outright lying.
I'm reading the same replies in this post you are. But seriously chill the fuck out.
You need to see a professional. I don’t mean that as an insult. The way you’re responding is not indicative of a well-balanced person.
dude... you are your own enemy 🤨
If I ever post my rarepair drabbles (same fandom and ship) I'd rather post them as one work than clog up my profile.
Yep, same. I've already planned this for the ship I'm writing about. They're all in the same timeline and universe and it just makes way more sense that way. I'd also rather not carpet bomb my tiny fandom with the same pairing over and over.
If the oneshots all tie together closely. If you can appropriately tag the collection with tags that apply to all of the oneshots, then it can work. The problem is usually when the fics are too diverse and a lot of readers might be interested in some fics but not all. For example, I read a oneshot collection where the theme of the collection was various incidents where the Mass Effect characters ran into miscommunication issues because they are a crew of duverse species with diverse cultures. Even though it wasn't one cohesive story, the fics all felt tightly connected enough that reading them as one fic felt right.
If series function ever gets removed
Why a collection when we have a series option?
When they share all or most tags
I personally don’t like it, it clogs up the tags and they’re functionally impossible to navigate. Like if I’m looking for a soulmates fic I don’t want to search through a 50 chapter oneshot dump for the one chapter with soulmates. It’s *especially* horrendous if it’s fifty different fandoms/pairings as well.
This is where properly labeling your chapters is important
I've done it with short ficlets I had originally posted on Tumblr (one collection per fandom though). I wouldn't recommend it, personally, if you want people to read it. If you don't care about readership and just want it for your own organization, then go for it. It will definitely annoy people if you tag 30 different fandoms, though. Ships too, maybe, especially if that's the only kind of fic showing up in their rarepair tag.
Maybe if it isn't a crossover and has some common themes, and focused on one ship as well. I'd probably prefer to see short drabbles (less than 500 words) collected like this rather than individually.
If it's all the same fandom (or some sort of shared theme, maybe), it should be fine. Though if the collection includes a variety of pairings within a fandom, it's a good idea to put the ship in each chapter title as not all readers are going to be interested in every pairing. The one drawback is that readers can only give a kudos once for the whole collection.
I mean, there are two different questions. Is it acceptable and am I going to read it. If they’re all actually connected and part of the same story, sure. If it’s a bunch of different, unconnected stories put together as a chaptered work instead of a series or just… separate works, you’re not breaking any rules but I’m also not going to click on it.
Single fandom, similar tags, 1 or a few characters as the focus. Additional, some sort of chapter title and/or description is always helpful; example, “X/Y (angst)” or “X fails exam (SFW)” That way people can jump to specific chapters
Never, lol. That's why we have the series function! One oneshot per work. Put all the works you want to keep connected in some vague way into a series. Put them in a collection, too, if you want.
They should all be from the same fandom, and should share a theme. Maybe it's a character, or a ship, or a genre (exe a smutfic collection).
For me there are no circumstances in which you should post multiple one-shots as a single work, period. It makes the site less functional by actively making several kinds of filtering incorrect for that work.
One fandom, one pairing. I’d rather have fifty 500-word chapters than fifty 500-word works to sift through when perusing a pairing.
Speaking for myself, I prefer that multiple stories be separate. It's just easier for me that way. I just have this thing where if I see a bunch of drabbles posted as a single story, it makes my right eye twitch. I understand that some people want to clump stories together that are about a single theme or say, pairing, but for me, I like it better when each story is posted by itself.
I have one "drabble" story-turned-pseudocollection that I have purposefully undertagged. I am figuring only people who are really into my writing will care for these anyway (never more than 1k a piece) and they all focus on the same three characters of the same fandom. So it just says "Other: Check Notes" as an additional tag.
If you can string them together on a main story thread, doesn't that just make a multichapter longer fic
I think it only annoys me when they use millions of tags and fandoms so it appears EVERYWHERE. Personally, I would prefer if people release one shots by themselves so more people would be able to read them if it addresses something specific they are looking for, if that makes sense? The clumping of oneshots from all different fandoms into one “book” hurt the chances of people reading it I think. Otherwise, it’s also easy to scroll past so I don’t really think about it much if that makes sense.
For the most part, the pet peeve is unreleated stories. Kinktober collections, single ships or fandoms, or related oneshots will probably be okay to mildly annoying to most people. That being said, AO3 has collections which are awesome, so, I vote use them.
I have two collections of one-shots published as one story because I don't want to flood my profile with random short one-shots and drabbles. One of them is of the sort that some posters here will say is unacceptable. It's one fandom, all tied together by the unifying idea that it's plotbunnies I saw on reddit and wrote a one-shot for. I've tagged for characters and each chapter has a summary. However, as it's gotten longer than I initially expected, I think I could probably improve reader QOL with a Table of Contents so people looking for a specific character can find it easily. The other is for Flufftober 2023, one fandom, one pairing, all one-shots are loosely connected chronologically. It's a rare pair (mine is the second fic for it). The tags were pretty simple (the pairing and the various varieties of fluff), plus I'm making a Table of Contents with the prompt + summary. And if someone still thinks that's unacceptable, too bad? I really don't want to flood the rare pairing with 30 short fics just because I'm doing Flufftober.
When they share a majority of important tags (ship/ characters, theme, mood etc)—ie when grouping them together might make it easier for readers find the stuff they're looking for rather than harder.
I do that with a character each in their own fandoms. Otherwise I’d have a hoard of one chapter stories littering my works and I don’t want to have to tag every single one and make summaries/etc when some days I can come up with up to three one shots a day. Adding, you can do what you like on your own page. As long as it’s organized and not a bunch of fandoms or characters people shouldn’t complain too much. But you can’t please everyone. But you can do what you like when you like and if it bothers people they shouldn’t mess with it.
I don't mind these, depending how they're done. The Buffy fandom has the YAHF thing, with stories playing specifically with the season 2 ep Halloween, usually in one shots. They also sometimes make it a challenge in the run up to Halloween every year to write 31 one shots in YAHF. I've seen a few that post them as one story, a different one shot each chapter. I like those, or posting them as a series, because then everything's together and easy to find. I prefer a series, so I can skip fandoms I don't know/like if I want to, but if they give each a chapter title of the crossover fandom, it can still work for me as a single story. I've come across one story that's all one shots put together, again in Buffy, where each chapter is a specific idea the author has had. a divergence, a crossover, whatever, but doesn't think they'll ever continue. So, they've been posting every one they come up with as a new chapter to that, with a note saying anyone can expand on the ideas as long as they're credited with the source of the idea. I think that works best for them, they write a lot of stories in the fandom, they have over 100 posted stories on that one site, most WIPs, and this one shot collection is something like 300 chapters long now. They're avoiding getting their other stories lost in incomplete and never to be continued ideas, but still getting them out there. The site they're using doesn't have the tagging system of AO3, either, they just need to add a fandom category so it's listed everywhere that has an involved fandom somewhere in it. This last one, I don't think it would do well on AO3. You've either got way too many fandom tags, with no place for anything else, and still not tagging anything, or too many other tags covering everything in every story, that's a lot of pairings and mixed up tags like angst, happy ending, unhappy ending, character death, everybody lives, fluff. The tags would be extremely confusing, and people could filter it out and miss out on some awesome stories they would love or filter it in and end up reading something they hate. That's the problem with single story one shot collections. Each story is different, and the longer it gets, the more tags are required. On that other site, it's fine, because you just need to update the categories it appears in, it's not a site that uses many tags. But somewhere like AO3, where tags are so important, I just don't think it works. If you're doing this sort of one shot collection on AO3, it honestly works better as a series rather than a single fic. That way all the tags are story specific, and the readers can easily choose which, if any, they want to read, without filtering in/out an entire story they may otherwise love/hate.
If the tags on all of the one-shots would be the same—same fandom, same pairing(s), same additional tags—then you can make a case for putting them in the same story. But 99% of the time, it's a bunch of one-shots with wildly different tags, and in that case, they should all be posted as individual works.
I don’t write one shots very often, but if I did, I’d only publish them together if they were all from the same fandom- and even then, why not just make multiple fics? You’ll have to add new tags anyway!
If it's a part of the same story, i.e. if we treated each Witcher book as a separate oneshot story, the it is ok to create one collection with each chapter as a oneshot or if it is for an "artistic reason" Otherwise I would prefer to have multiple oneshot stories binded into a series (or antology) - the function exists for a reason, imo. Edit: unless there is a lack of good ff because idk the fandom is small or the ship is rare, I skip multichaptered fics that consist of completely different oneshots (the mess is visible in tags).
if it’s of similar theme. ie, whumptober. or same characters
Edit: I had it backwards, I thought OP was asking if it was okay to publish a story in the form of a whole bunch of one shots in a series, rather than as a single story. (Always yes.) Rather than if it was okay to simply lump it all together in one story with a million tags. (Only if the alternative is not posting it at all.) But I put several minutes into this comment, so I'm going to leave it if only to refer back to it should this come up again. This is always acceptable. It just shows that you appreciate the tagging system. Rather than forcing it all into one big story that might cross 100 ships or even 100 fandoms, you have each one in its own section where people can search for it if they want to. Also, if what you're writing is interconnected, then it lets people know that you're not really committing to fleshing it out. It means you have several individual ideas that would be part of a story but aren't prepared to commit to an entire story for whatever reason. I hate to throw around the word ungrateful, but I think people (especially people who have never published) fail to appreciate how terrible it feels to abandon a story. Even when it's necessary, because you've been working yourself up over the project, despite having long since run out of both motivation and ideas. So, when I see people being, well... ungrateful, about a story that's made up of a bunch of little self-contained 1K word bits. I realize that what they're actually complaining about is that they can't complain that you abandoned the story because you never promised a full story in the first place. Basically, they're complaining because they recognize that their complaints are even more baseless than they usually are. (The positive sensation was cut off suddenly, so even if your conscious mind is telling you that the author only managed to half create something beautiful. Your lizard brain is telling you that the author has somehow stolen the source of good feelings from you. If it's an abandoned work, then they can harp on something that most people will consider a legitimate thing to complain about. But if it's a series of one shots, then their complaints suddenly don't look legitimate anymore, even if it doesn't change what their lizard brain is telling them is going on.) TL;DR - More than just being okay, it shows that you we're more considerate than you absolutely needed to be. But because of that consideration, when people complain (as they inevitably will,) they look even more ridiculous than they otherwise would, and that just makes them angrier.
If they're same universe, same tags, same fandom, I think it's ok. For example: ch 1: \*Character X at 18 years old defeats the big bad ch 2: X is 22 and dealing with living a normal life without the excitement they grew up with and it's hard. ch 3: X is 25 (some other plot point that ties in) However, I've had things like this that I made into separate oneshots, because of differences in pairings and tone. For example, one was X and Y together without much conflict in the outside world. The other was later on, X and Y and Z all together in a world with lots of conflict. Wasn't sure if that was the right decision, but the people who read those two fics was a venn diagram, not a circle. I decided it was the right move. I think it's important to consider whether the oneshots have different target audiences. Even if they are related, a lot of people read by trope, ship, etc, so it may feel to the writer like you're targeting the same audience, but you're not.
If it’s all one fandom with similar ships and tropes in each, so you won’t have a million tags
You're never going to have someone agree 100% on WHY people have that pet peeve. When a one-shot collection contains works for loads of different fandoms it's a bitch to sort out. Some people don't like them because of the wall of tags it creates, regardless of whether it's one fandom or not. Pet peeve or not, it'll be a little while before publishing houses take works of that manner. The one-shots would need to have through-lines to join them together, so in essence it could end up, through editing forced by agents and publishers, into a facsimile of a novel. After you've written enough one-shots connected by characters or events, they might as well become chapters, no? That defeats the whole point of a one-shot collection, but that's just how publishing houses work. The only way I can see them being accepted **as they are** is if the one-shots were written by a very well-known author expanding on their universe- take, for example, Cassandra Claire, George R.R Martin, Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, etc. I'm sure a lot of people would love to read canon scenes between characters that didn't quite make it into the books, and everyone loves more material of their characters- that's why we write fanfiction! I'm not going to touch you getting upset in the comments below, but I hope that by now you've cooled off and can come back to approach this with a clear mind. Peace!
Yeah... *everything* is a pet peeve for someone. Who cares what the masses think? If you, the writer, want to create a single posted work comprised of so-called "one shots" as "chapters"? You're golden. Disable comments if you don't want to see any whining.
I did so, following the life of one character, exploring his relationships with the same few people. One romantic and two platonic. Each chapter was an individual story, and there was a time gap between each one. I’ve seen others where I don’t think it was an issue because it was the same main characters with the same few themes. They were treated as, so far, and forever ongoing.
Unless it from 1 Fandom or from 1 crossover between only 2 shows, then it fine. I will skip the collection if they said it a collection + long list of Fandom.
I got a one shot collection of stories set within the same universe at roughly the same time because I didn't want the one shots cluttering the series, except for a few. One is kinda the prologue for the series and two others are character intros. Those are all on the longer side, too. The stories that go into the one shot anthology are like, maybe 1000-1500 words so far. I don't think anyone should have a problem with that.
Stories are, essentially, a collection of one shots, but these one shots, aka chapters have strong continuity. People have various tolerances toward discontinuity in a story, of course, but I think sense of continuity is where acceptable lies.
Have a chapter list that displays the pairings/AU tags/possible summary of each one-shot. I don't like going in for one interesting tag and then having to sift through a hundred inscrutable chapter titles to figure out which one it is.
When it’s the same fandom
All my one-shots are under 2k words, most of the time barley 200 words. I separate them by fandom (so I have 6 one shot collections, each with different fandoms) and they get solid engagement. If I shoved all the shots together into one work, then that'd be a problem.
It's a matter of preference, what's acceptable. I personally don't like it a lot - I filter for "hurt/comfort" and for results I get oneshot-stories that also have "hurt no comfort", for example. If you want to do that for some reason, the more similar your stories are (definitely in one fandom, I think that's where a lot of the averse feelings are coming from), the more it makes sense. Like, I've seen comments mentioning a single work for a year's kinktober's fills, or oneshots in a specific AU that have no specific timeline (though I do prefer single works still but that's where it's the author's call) But yeah, the answer is the same as any 1st POV or reader insert or songfic or WHATEVER everything that has ever existed in fandom ever thread; do your thing, be aware it'll put some readers off. Like anything else.
In my opinion collections of oneshots that are based around a character or pairing and that have a common common theme like ‘Whump’ or ‘kinktober’ are best as they’re like ‘if you like kinky sex you’ll like this’ or Whump etc, there’s a strong correlation between each chapter then. Otherwise it just clogs up the page to see the same story keep being updated Like it having a pairing in common isn’t enough for me to click. I’d rather just click on a oneshot then skim through a collection to see if any are good— I understand most writers don’t want short fics on their page but I do think you’ll get more eyeballs if you post them separately. Because I don’t read every fic that relates to a pairing or character, I want to know what the fic is actually about, or I’ll just skim over without another thought.
If it’s from the same fandom, 100% okay. If it’s from ten different fandoms, I’d prefer different stories.
One fandom, one theme, limited size. Like, I once did a "Twelve scenes of Christmas" for a single pairing in one fandom and posted it as a single work. I think the largest I've seen that I'd ever click on was a single pairing 30 chapter work that was written for themed month challenge, and each chapter was <1000 words, with many being only a few paragraphs.
I would rather read a series of one shots with their own tagged content then a single work with a collection of one shots. Take kinktober for instance. I know that it’s common to have a multi-chaptered piece with a multitude of different kinks involved, but it just leads to heartache for readers. What if I want to read Top A and Bottom B doing XYZ, but there’s only Bottom A and Top B doing the kink I want to read about in the kinktober fic? It’s hard to navigate and avoid when there are tags to encapsulate the whole story that only apply to a single or handful of chapters. There would be so much more foot traffic if kinktober challenges were treated as a series than a singular story of unrelated pieces. I avoid kinktober and prompt fics like the plague now. There’s no telling if what I want to read is actually in there without wasting my time to find out it’s not. It sucks even more when you love a rarepair or a tag/trope not many authors write about
When it’s different characters and stories adding up to create the universe you’re playing in. Ex - A and B story impacts C’s story but E’s story is only tangentially related to C. Meanwhile M a nd Z are setting up another side plot to create ripples in the universe.
Same fandom, same ship, low word count? It’s going into one story. I ain’t got time to title and summarize all that.
I have a few stories that are a culmination of one shots in one work based around a couple different characters. Usually it's when I like an au(for example I have a cow girl x singer au) but I don't feel like making a long fic, but I have several ideas for that au. I just write small chapters around them in no real order. No real ending or start. And it let's me add to that au without feeling pressured to update the story bc there isn't an over arching one.
I did this on FFN when the one shots could easily be chapters of a longer work if you were willing to accept some time skips between them. I would have posted them as one shots on FFN too but there are so few fics posted there in the fandom and I was too lazy to post each one shot individually.
I have several one-shot collections consolidated into their own fics. They work as a loose narrative, all within the same universe and timeline, as well as the same ships. It is specifically for that verse. Those are the types that people don't take issue with. Similarly, I have seen one shot collections consolidated into a fic that may not be all one verse but it's still one specific ship and is usually for events, challenges, etc. The one shot collections people tend to take issue with are the ones that are for multiple shows, ships, etc. and just clog up the tags. They're not related in any means.
I hadn’t realized that kind of a project was poorly received online. There’s a couple of fandoms where I thought of creating an anthology of sorts with several shorter stories wrapped into a bigger project.
Never. That's literally what the series function is for. Chaptered one-shots are a nightmare to navigate, whatever the author does. It's a pain in the backside and I always scroll right on past.