I often use tags to navigate people's journals...so, umm, here are some things I like (these may or may not apply to you):

1. If you have a multichaptered fanfic that doesn't always link it's parts together - have one tag for it so that I can call up all parts by tag.

2. If you tend to write in different genres or themes - like you right current fanfic, but you also really like writing pre-series - separate them by tags so that if I just want to read your pre-series stuff, I can find it all with one tag. If you make fanart - and you make manips, as well as original art, and sometimes you make videos...separate them by type in tags, again, so that if I just want to see your videos, or just want to see your original art, then I don't have to sort through all the other stuff.

Those are the main ways I use tags anyway. I find people usually either have too few or too many tags. I think at my own journal I probably have too few, as I tend to lump random things into "I don't have a tag for this", which is probably annoying to some people, but I like to think of it as a grab-bag of fun. :-P

Thanks for these suggestions. These are great. See, in my old main fandom I had way way too many tags. Now I think I have too few. So I'm trying to find some balance LOL

I do often use tags when I'm trying to find an older entry on people's LJs, yeah. The more specific the better, but sometimes it's annoying when people pretty much have a new tag for every post. ;)

Yes! I hate too many tags. A year or so ago, I revamped all my tags and lumped a lot of stuff together. But now I think I did too much and I should retag and reorganize.

I got nothin'...brain is gone today, lol!

*hugs you*

No problem :)

Yep, I use tags to search. Especially for fic or specific entries for shows.

Yeah. You know, back when SG-1 was my main fandom I felt like I did overkill with my tags. It's not so bad when you occasionally post about something, like I do with Farscape, for example, but when it's something that I have a lot of posts about, it's hard. So I shrunk down my tags, particularly SG-1, and now I think I trimmed too much!

I recently had to do that with my Supernatural entries, I sorted the tags by season, if there are spoilers if a show is not aired at the time of posting, if it's an episode review, etc.

I'm kinda an organisational freak on the computer. I don't tag any of my emo family stuff because I don't want to be looking for that stuff.

yeah some stuff I don't tag either. I don't have to worry about spoilers since I avoid them and if I do find one, I usually keep it to myself.

But organization is good!

My spoilers are so behind, I used to post the clips that the CW released, but this season I'm not feeling it really. I don't know, this season isn't up to par as the past.

Aw, that's too bad. I've been loving this season so far and I think it's great. But we all have our own opinions :)

I feel like the show is leading to its end, which is fine and dandy, but Kripke is going to do what others before him have done and make another season.

Yeah, it would be nice to end this year, but I know we'll have a S6. I'm done angsting about it now, though. None of this is in my control. And depending on the story, it might be nice. Kind of like, an after the end of the world wrap up.

Anyway, I'm keeping an open mind about it. When I stress and get all control freak, I tend to be unable to enjoy the show and that happened to me a few times last year and in S3. I shouldn't feel that way about my fave show, so I've been training myself to just go with the flow.

It's hard though!

My biggest gripe is the fact that Kripke does things to please the fans and then tries covering his ass by saying that it was this reason he did it. I felt he did that with Jo and then when he noticed that his original plan had a following, he tried making up for it.

That's not necessarily always a bad thing, but I do agree that Kripke does it too much. He's written out characters that plan didn't work. And I am grateful for that as a watcher so I don't have to suffer through it.

Honestly, I thought Jo was forced in her first few episodes. It wasn't until BUABS that she clicked for me as a character. I wish that she and Ellen could have been recurring characters throughout the series, especially by then, but before then she wasn't working very well and he wrote her out. it's a shame though because it seems like the writing staff tends to really get characters right as they are leaving. I was so happy to see Ellen and Jo back this year and really not amused at their pointless death. I just wish the characters had had a chance and would have stayed until the end.

Alas, not my show and not my writing. But I agree with that criticism to an extent :(

I loved Jo in the beginning, she was supposed to be the doe eyed girl who wanted to hunt. She and Dean always had great chemistry and I loved the way he always looked at her. I've spent way too much time watching the episodes she was in. I think one of my favourite things was that Dean was afraid of Ellen.

My main problem is mostly, it's the female characters and everyone knows that female characters are not generally accepted by the fans. And he can't keep one. I wouldn't care so much if it didn't keep happening. Pam's death was pointless last season and she wasn't even a romantic interest.

Most characters aren't safe on this show. But I view this entire situation differently than you so I'm going to leave it at that.

I think Bobby and Cas are mostly safe. Fans love them too much. Even if Jim Beaver loves being evil and hinting that they're killing Bobby off.

I use tags religiously -- it's one of my favorite LJ features, especially when browsing through huge fic communities or the LJ of an author who's posted tons of fics. I don't even want to think how long it would take to search some of those LJs otherwise to find what I'm looking for!

As for my own fics, some of the ways I've tagged them are:

1. By fandom. (e.g. 'sgfic' for Stargate fic, 'tos' for Tales of Symphonia, etc. -- so readers can pull up all fics for a specific fandom)

2. By pairing. (danandjan, daniel/vala, sheelos, gen, etc.)

3. Any fic that I wrote, I tag with 'my fic' (whereas if I'm recommending someone else's fic or talking about fic or fic writing in general, I usually tag it as 'fic').

4. I tend to create Table of Contents posts for longer, multi-part stories -- a single entry that links to all the parts of the story. These then get tagged 'toc' (for table of contents) so I can pull up my main stories at once without having all of the story posts in the way of finding the one I'm looking for.

5. If I'm posting a multi-part story/series, I'll either use the full name of the story ('frozen flame' or 'no regrets') or I'll assign it an abbreviation so I can pull up the entire story at once ('ff2' for "Frozen Flame" (Book 2), 'mh' for "Mental Holiday," 'wwb' for the "Whatever Will Be" series...etc).

I've also seen some authors tag based on rating, but I don't see as much value in that one unless you're trying to sort adult fic from non-adult fic.

Yes, I'm an organizing freak, all those tags are probably overkill to the nth degree, and chances are you don't need half of them. But when I posted my old, ridiculously long fics to LJ as a backup, I needed to be able to find what I wanted amongst the 200+ posts, and these tags helped me do so. *shrugs* Just a few ideas. :)

Hey stranger ;)

Hmm. I like many of these suggestions as to what you do. I already have master posts for multichapters fics - that is so much more convenient, if you ask me, and I used to have tags for every pairing. I had to stop doing that since in SG-1 I wrote an insane about of pairings, so that is when I went into a trim down phase. Now I'm thinking I trimmed too much ;)

Yes. I use tags. It helps save time when I'm looking for all the chapters of a fic and the author didn't provide a memories link. It also helped me find fics regarding specific characters so I end up reading more fics of that author.

Side question, do you accept bunnies? I enjoyed your wingfic so much a bunny started hopping in my brain.

Hmm. I'll have to keep the characters thing in mind. I did that once for an old fandom of mine - SG-1 - and I had way way too many tags since I wrote about everything you could imagine. So I had to trim. I just think I'e trimmed too much and it's making stuff like art and fic and episodes posts too hard to find for my fandoms in general. I already do master posts and I think they are awesome. I love it when writers do that.

Side question, do you accept bunnies? I enjoyed your wingfic so much a bunny started hopping in my brain.

Not many people ever ask, so it's not usually an issue. What was your plot bunny? I can't guarantee anything and it might take a while to write, but I'd certainly try. :)

I hear you. But I'm glad to hear that you'll at least look at it. I'm new to the Dark Angel fandom so I don't know where to find fics and authors other than in fanfic.net.

Anyhoo, below is the bunny:
Everyone thinks that Alec is your average X5. What if some rogue scientist added a few "enhancements" to Alec, when he was cloned from Ben, without telling anyone in Manticore? Wing!fic. At one point Mole jokingly says that even as a nomalie Alec is still disgustingly pretty.

Huh. This just amuses me beyond belief. (Not you.)

I told you I don't usually get requests in the form of a person giving me a plot bunnies. The only fandom it's ever really happened in is Dark Angel fandom. And I've only ever written a handful of fics for that show.

And then it took me a minute to realize you're the same person who gave me a plot bunny for Alec/Rachel on ff.net *headdesk* Wow, am I slow or what?

You're not the only one in that fandom who has asked me before, either. I recall someone asking for me to write like a long plotty series. Short on time, and my interest more in SPN, I had to put that request on the backburner for now. Maybe it's because Dark Angel is old.

So if you're the same jane's membrane from ff.net, I'm plotting the Alec/Rachel one you requested. Then I'll see if there is anything I can do with this. I'm not sure I can do it, but I will think on it and see what happens.

Edited at 2009-12-30 04:21 pm (UTC)

Ohh man I did? I have got to keep track of people I write to. Ugh signs of old age.

I remember writing someone on another one of my bunnies, I just didn't realize it was you. Well I guess it's because I liked your writing very much.

Thanks again for looking at this.

As for your reply on tags, I agree that the by-character tagging may be too much if you've written about a lot of characters. But by fandom would work too. As I've said before, I usually end up reading more fics of an author by looking at their tags and checking out what other fics they have on a particular fandom or character.

Yeah, I'm trying to find a balance on my tagging. I think for moderate-sized fandoms, I'll have some individual tags and on small fandoms I'll just have one tag or two tags. I'll figure it out.

No problem on the bunnies. Like I said, I'm working out the Rachel/Alec one now, and I'll see what I can do with the wing one. The wing one sounds like it would be longer and more plotty, so I have to think about the direction a little longer.

As for Dark Angel fic, I belong to a couple of comms on LJ. I've found a few good fics there, but they have a tendency to be crazy type fics. Most of them are Alec/Max or Alec/Logan, though. I don't ship them, but if you like them you could try those. many are "heat" fics or other Dark Angel tropes. I'm not the best source on this. I only started watching DA and posting fic a year or so ago.

Comms:

http://community.livejournal.com/darkangelfic/profile

http://community.livejournal.com/da_halloween/profile

(Despite this saying Halloween, it's actually full of a lot of different crack!fic throughout the year.)

If you are seeking more romantic or plot-heavy fic that isn't insanely cracky, I'm not really sure where you can go :(