Advice on posting Chaptered Fics to DW?

[haunted_cherries]

Heylo everyone, and happy Friday Eve!! I've been posting fic and screeching around on DW for a while now, so much so that I've made the decision to transfer most (if not all) of the fic I've posted on AO3 to here!!

The snag I've run into is that I DO have quite a few chaptered fics that I've written, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice on some ways that folks have posted chaptered fics to DW? I did a search and couldn't find much of anything for this specific scenario, so figured I'd ask here just in case! Thanks in advance!! ^ o^)/ 💕

EDIT 5/7/25: Thanks so much for all the input thus far, everyone!! abyssal_sylph shared this post from amiserablepileofwords , so I'm linking it here just in case it can help others who stumble upon this post!! Cheers! ^ __^)b

EDIT 7/16/25: Circling back to link another method from zavodilaterrarium for the curious!! Thanks so much for sharing all the resources, everyone!! ❤️

Comments

[abyssal_sylph]

IDK if you've already seen this, but this post by amiserablepileofwords might be an option.

[haunted_cherries]

OHMAHGAH this is PERFECT, actually!!! Thank you so so much!!! ^ o^)/ 💕 (Now I can stop procrastinating bringing my fic over b/c this was one of the main things halting my progress xD)

[abyssal_sylph]

No problem <3 ^_^

[soc_puppet]

I typically make each chapter a separate post; I'm not usually that focused these days, but if I were, I would probably think to add links between chapters to each post as well. (Suddenly remembering that I used to do that, several fandoms ago, when I was regularly writing a specific multichapter fic...)

[haunted_cherries]

VALID, I used to just write one shots but then tried my hand at multi chapter fic and found that I REALLY liked it!! That what I had planned to do was just making each one a separate post and linking em together, just been so used to how AO3 does it having it all in one thing xD It's been fun to explore how to tie chapter together in other places, though!!

[drinksglue]

I'm here late. All I can say is thank you for putting the link in your edit! I've been looking to crosspost my fic here from AO3 as an additional backup, but I've got one that's already 32 chapters long and will probably be somewhere over 50 by the time it's done. So I definitely feel your pain when it comes to posting multi-chapter fic to DW! I've been at a loss as far as organization goes, but I think that link's a great place to start.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm so happy to see more people crossposting their fiction to DW! With so many sites going down, becoming unreliable, locking everything to current members only, etc. it becomes more important to have the fic available on the site where you are reccing it and generally have it in multiple places hoping they don't ALL fail.

Re: Thank you!

[drinksglue]

It's definitely a good idea to have things backed up on multiple websites these days. Not only that, but I know some people have reading preferences! Some like AO3's format more, others prefer to stay on Dreamwidth.

I don't intend to lock my AO3 to members only, but you never know when something happens. Even if it's short term! What if someone wants to read my fics, hasn't downloaded them, and AO3 is down for maintenance? It would be convenient for them to have an alternative option to read them!

Re: Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I don't intend to lock my AO3 to members only, but you never know when something happens. <<

That used to be an option, but after the rules change last year, you have to be a current member to read things. I can't get in anymore. It's frustrating, because a lot of people wanted to use it as an archive where everyone could see their work.

>> Even if it's short term! What if someone wants to read my fics, hasn't downloaded them, and AO3 is down for maintenance? It would be convenient for them to have an alternative option to read them!<<

Exactly.

Re: Thank you!

[drinksglue]

>> That used to be an option, but after the rules change last year, you have to be a current member to read things. <<

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but what did AO3 itself change? I've been using it regularly and haven't noticed any differences in engagement by people posting comments on my fics as Guests and leaving anonymous kudos. I thought the main issue was that a lot of people were starting to manually lock their works due to the AI scraping issue, which unfortunately would have the same frustrating effect for a lot of people.

And while I entirely get why people are doing it, I don't know how much good it would do to lock your works when they've already been scraped, hence why I'm choosing not to punish my readers by locking mine. The main fandom I write for has too many people who read and kudos and comment without an account due to fear of backlash, so I'd hate to take it out on them.

Re: Thank you!

[haunted_cherries]

I DO know they had a weird influx of spammers comments randomly on peoples works to promote genAI writing tools, saying stuff like "you wrote this slop? [genAI tool] can do so much better" and they made it where it auto-locked comments to registered user only as a default option, but the author could go and turn it off manually if they so chose!!

The of course there's the whole AI scraping where, I can definitely see where you're coming from given your situation, though I can't say I blame folks for being uncomfortable with it considering how much work, time, and love we all put into our writing. That aside, I can definitely understand not wanting to punish your readers due to the acts of an outside party.

Re: Thank you!

[drinksglue]

The spam is definitely a huge problem. Not just "AI could do this better" but also fake accusations of "Grok detected, a shame this work was written with AI!" and since it's usually guest accounts, the best you can do is delete them when you get them.

My whole thing is that my works have probably already been scraped. I hate that. But locking them isn't going to un-scrape them. Some people might have a different outlook and decide that locking is the right choice for them and I get it. I wish something would be done about it.

Re: Thank you!

[haunted_cherries]

OH GOD YEAH, I'd seen a few folks get that and with already having knowledge of how much work they put into their writing, it felt like the equivalent of spitting in someone's favorite drink xD

And agreed, it sucks b/c it's not much that can be done after it's been scraped, and I honestly wish something could've been done about out it sooner. orz My only silver lining is that the AI that scraped all that fic get short circuited by all the crazier works xD

Re: Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> OH GOD YEAH, I'd seen a few folks get that and with already having knowledge of how much work they put into their writing, it felt like the equivalent of spitting in someone's favorite drink xD <<

I agree, that's cruel. But it's really just a minor variation of previous iterations in which people who can't write get their thrills by picking on people who have written, or bigots bashing all the gay romance novels where the queers don't die at the end. Haters gonna hate, just ignore them.

>> And agreed, it sucks b/c it's not much that can be done after it's been scraped, and I honestly wish something could've been done about out it sooner.<<

Locking your work does make it marginally harder to scrape in the future, but realistically, nothing electronic is ever secure. It is only easier or harder to access.

>> orz My only silver lining is that the AI that scraped all that fic get short circuited by all the crazier works xD <<

Imagine you're trying to write a research paper for Psychology about alpha personalities, and the chatbot spews out 10 pages of ABO pr0n with sniffing, biting, gallons of cum, knotting, and assbabies.

... that would make a hilarious story.

This is why my blanket statement includes an admonition not to use my work to train AI, a warning that I fry technology, and a declaration that if anyone uses my work and it causes problems then that is entirely their responsibility.

Re: Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but what did AO3 itself change? <<

They changed the rules in the user agreement, then demanded that everyone sign the new one. Since then, if I try to look at the site, all I see is that demand notice, not any content. The same has happened to other people. I've seen others say that you can read content without being a logged in current member, but then some of those have later clarified, "Well, you do have to sign the form once." Which means being a current member. It may be that some other people are still able to see content without being a current member, but if so, that number is smaller than it used to be. Because of those effects, I wouldn't call it as accessible an archive as it used to be.

This is separate from authors having the option to lock their work to members only, which they always had; but if what an author wants is to reach as many people as possible, that's much less feasible now.

>>I don't know how much good it would do to lock your works when they've already been scraped<<

It would make it harder to steal things again in the future. But realistically, nothing online is secure. It is merely harder or easier to access.

Re: Thank you!

[drinksglue]

Ah, I see. I guess that's all the encouragement I need to continue crossposting on my Neocities too, and not just Dreamwidth. Might also do SquidgeWorld Archive as an additional backup, since I haven't heard anyone having any issues with accessibility there. Thanks for the heads up.

Re: Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

You're welcome, and thank you so much for spreading your work around.

I've been in fandom long enough to have seen many, many losses of work in massive swathes every time a popular platform collapses or locks to members only. :(

Re: Thank you!

[haunted_cherries]

SUPER AGREED on this, with sites going belly up left and right, it's good to have a little bit of everything EVERYWHERE xD

[haunted_cherries]

OH OF COURSE, you're so welcome!! :D It was one of the main reasons I was procrastinating bringing my stuff over, but with this it doesn't feel nearly as bad xD Good luck with crossposting your fic!! ^ o^)/

[zavodilaterrarium]

Don’t know how welcome of a suggestion this is, but you’d ever wanna have multiple chapters in a singular post (most likely if you’re uploading something that’s already completed), you could try something like I did here https://zavodilaterrarium.dreamwidth.org/3491.html, or more simply like here https://zavodilaterrarium.dreamwidth.org/3011.html? It makes it feel like multiple pages instead of one, and is compatible with mobile (at least from what I can tell).

(If someone reading this wants a basic explanation)

You can look at the page source code for more detail, but it starts from creating a div box that hides anything that doesn’t fit into its size limit. Using <a name=“whatever-name-you-want”> link address markers and a matching <a href=“#whatever-name-you-want”></a> within the div will jump to a different part of the post, changing what shows. Adding a separate div inside to actually hold the content but adding “overflow: auto” instead of “overflow: hidden” to the style attribute will let you scroll and see the rest of the “auto” section, but not everything under the “hidden” section.

[haunted_cherries]

OH MY GOD THIS IS INCREDIBLY WELCOME!!!! 👀 I never even knew something like this was possible, so THANK YOU for showing me!! ; u;

Also I tested it and it still looked and worked great on mobile from what I saw!! :D

[zavodilaterrarium]

I didn’t know about it either until I saw zoomieyo’s posts! I’ve been having a lot of fun playing around with it :D