Stories from Chaos

Ever since I started my website I’ve been fighting with the best way to organize the various stories, novels, snippits, poems, etc. that I’ve collected over the years. What I have right now isn’t working, at least not when I try to use it to find things myself, so it’s time for an overhaul.

After bumbling about on the internet looking for other archives with better solutions to the problem I’ve hashed out something I think will work…

Step 1 is… ???

I have four main groupings to my online library: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Other (Horror, Romance, Gen, etc.), and the Saturday Story Prompts.

Then within each of the genres I have established universes and unaffiliated stories. And within in the established universes I also have separate casts that follow their own.

So do I ask readers to pick a genre (Urban Fantasy) and then pick a universe (Baron’verse) and then pick a cast (Silverwitch), and then pick a story/snippit… or just dump them the whole mess on one page so they can scroll down?

Right now I’m leaning towards the ‘scroll baby, scroll!’ methodology.

Pages vs. Posts vs. Categories vs. Tags

Stories are posts and tags.
Story Tables of Contents are pages.
Universes are pages and tags.
Types of Stories are categories.
Genres are tags.

Arg.

Okay, take forty-seven.

For a Silverwitch-related post I need to know:

• What story is it part of : Silverwitch
• What series is it part of: Silverwitch (I need to stop naming my series after the first story in them. *sighs*)
• What universe is it part of: Baron’verse
• What genre is it part of: Urban Fantasy
• What type of story/post is it: Serial Story
• What is the status of the story: Unfinished/Rough Draft/Work in Progress

For a standalone story I need to know:

• What story is it part of : Mr. Magnifico vs. Miss’Terious!
• What genre is it part of: Urban Fantasy/Superhero
• What type of story/post is it: Single Post
• What is the status of the story: Finished Work

Defining the Variables

So, assuming I need the information above, what’s the logical way to arrange things? *plays around with index cards and colored markers*

New Tags

• Story Name
• Series Name
• Universe Name
• Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Other
• Genre Modifiers: Dark/Horror, Urban/Near-Future, High/Second-world, Comedic
• Story/Post Type: Serial Story, Single Post, Worldbuilding, Storybuilding, Wikifictive
• Type Modifiers: Poetry/Song, Script/Play, Drabble (100 words), Flash Fiction (<2k), Short Story (2k-7.5k), Novelette (7.5k-17.5k), Novella (17.5k-40k), Novel (>40k)
• Story Status: Snippit, Work in Progress, Finished

New Categories

• Saturday Story Prompts (same)
• Daily Snippits (same)
• Stories (Serial Story + Works In Progress)

New Pages

• Online Stories/Novels (big list)
• Stories (Table of Contents)

And Suddenly!

So that means there’s a bit of rebuilding to do and more than a bit of cover design to work out. *pokes stories without icons*

July is my month to ‘work on the website’, so expect a bit of construction going forward. If all goes well by the time August Camp NaNoWriMo kicks in my website will be a little more reader-friendly.

Hopefully. *puts on hardhat and gets to work*