The Tags

You might think tags are useful but irrelevant, but they do play a part. Although I don't pay too much attention to tags, certain tags have caused me to raise an eyebrow and question what the author was thinking when they entered those tags.

The Wrong Way to Do It

Tagging:

• Every single idol and group that shows up, no matter how big of a role they play in the fic.
• Every single member within a group, even when some of them don't actually do much.
• Idols who don't show up. People do this to lure in unsuspecting readers; that's dishonest. Don't do it.
• Things that aren't idol groups, idols, or genres.
• Random things like "steak" or "touch."
• Words that would give away important things about the story. If your story is a tragedy and you don't want people to know that it's going to end badly, don't tag the fic with "tragedy."

The Right Way to Do It

• Only tag only the main idols who show up. If Kyuhyun shows up all of twice in your story as a side character, don't tag him. If you have cameo appearances, don't tag those idols.
• If an idol group is the main group of your story and all of the members show up pretty much equally, tag the group but not each and every one of the members. People who search member tags are expecting to find fics that focus more on those particular members than the others.
• If an idol group is not the main group of a story and less than half of the members show up, only tag the members who show up and play a significant part in the story. For example, if your fic focuses on Infinite, but L.Joe and Ricky from Teen Top are supporting characters who appear several times, tag Infinite, L.Joe, and Ricky, but not Teen Top.
• Tag the genre of the fic, whether it's romance, , fantasy, angst, comedy, etc.

Some of the characters you leave out of the tags can go in the character box, but again, don't overdo it. I suggest listing them in order by importance, which is what I do. If a certain subset of an idol group gets pretty much equal "screen time" in the fic, I list the members of that subset in age order.

Note: I'm not giving the character box a separate section because it's not really important enough. In fact, I forgot to include it at first. Basically, the character box is a bit redundant because of the tags and character profiles that people use.

Presentation

People love to think that content is what matters and should be the only thing that matters, but unfortunately, presentation also matters. Because reading for people who are not blind is very much a visual process, and people prefer that things look nice, you're going to have to put in effort to get your fic into a presentable fashion.

Text Formatting

The Wrong Way to Do It

Avoid:

• Huge font sizes. This is just a personal preference of mine (that a lot of people share) that stems from the standards and conventions of the publishing industry. Super large text is basically only seen in children’s books or large print books. I find super large font sizes to be annoying. Most of us who use the Internet are not visually impaired to the point of requiring large print text. Those who do need it or prefer to read larger font probably just change the zoom to accommodate that.
• Tiny font sizes. Same issue: readability and conventions. I don't come across this nearly as often, but still.
• Comic Sans font. DO NOT USE COMIC SANS, PEOPLE. For the seasoned netizen, using that font is equivalent to a flashing neon sign above your head saying, “EPICTASTIC N00BFACE OBAH HEA.” No joke. It is the Justin Bieber of font types (no offense to him, just making an analogy). People will not take you seriously. Avoid fancy fonts. Those are hard to read.
• Crazy font colors. Same as the above. Don’t do it. Don't alternate font colors. Perhaps you could get away with changing the color once within your description/foreword only and for something like two emphasized words, but seriously, don't do it. Also, don't make all of your text in colors like lime green, hot pink, pastel purple, etc.
• Centered alignment of the text. You could get away with it in the description, but absolutely do not do it in your actual fic.

The Right Way to Do It

• Black.
• Size 12 or 14 font. It can vary depending on what font type you use, but generally 12 or 14 is a nice size. Not too large, not too small.
• Any font type besides Comic Sans, honestly, if you're only considering the options AFF gives you. You might be tempted to put in some coding to make your font all fancy, but stick to something standard and easy on the eyes. Remember that your readers might be spending a few hours on your fic, and if your fic hurts their eyes, they are not going to thank you.
• Text should be left-aligned.

Posters and Images

Posters honestly have very little bearing on my opinion of a fic. They are usually not done by the authors themselves, therefore they don't tell me anything about the author. Even if they are by the author, my interest is in their writing ability, not their graphics skills. If anything, I might judge the creator's artistic ability or the author's ability to tell what's visually appealing and isn't (i.e. question their judgment in using a poster that I think is poorly done), but that's ultimately not relevant. With published books, the covers can draw me in because they're literally the first thing I see, but with fics, the first thing I see is the title, so they don't have the same effect as book covers. Also, a pretty book cover doesn't guarantee that I will like the book.

However, I will say that you as a writer should definitely worry about your writing rather than your poster. If your first thought after you start a fic is getting someone to make you a poster, you need to sort out your priorities (feel free to imagine that in Emma Watson's voice).

If you have a poster, consider making it appear only in the foreword. If your poster is extremely large and/or colorful, it will be a distraction if it's at the top of every chapter of your fic.

Any other images are pretty much extraneous and should be included sparingly, if at all. I will admit that I did put images within my story twice, but I have since changed that.

You don't need pictures of the original characters because you're supposed to be describing them in your story and letting the reader imagine what they look like. Some people prefer to be shown outright what they look like, but for many, it's more fun to exercise the mind. Also, unless you based your OCs' physical characteristics off of a particular person or photograph, any picture you provide that's not a photo or drawing of those people will simply be pictures you looked up on the Internet that you think are pretty or handsome (ulzzangs, essentially), and so they won't represent your characters very well at all. As for the idols, if these people are reading your fic, they almost definitely know what the main idols look like already, and any other idols they can simply look up. Pictures simply take up space in the description and foreword and don't really add anything meaningful to the story.

Images within the fic itself are slightly different, but follow the same general idea. You are responsible, as a writer, for using words to paint a picture of things for your readers. It's true that some books have illustrations, but those are there for bonus fun, and not because the author can't be bothered or doesn't know how to describe something or someone properly. That's the difference.

Also, putting in images is a literal interruption to your story. Your readers have to scroll past them to continue reading, breaking their train of thought.

What's baffling to me is that people will put in pictures for very random things that aren't important to the story at all. My suggestion is that reference pictures should be restricted to only very important things, and that you either include the link in an author's note at the end of the chapter or embed the link in the text. In the embedded case, pick a keyword or phrase; if you want to provide a picture of "the ornate mirror on the wall" then you might link the picture to the word "mirror" or "the ornate mirror." Do not overdo this. In the interest of professionalism, you really should not do this at all, but people might forgive you if you do it once.

Note: Inserting a picture does NOT give you a free pass to get out of describing whatever it is. You still need to describe it. Any pictures you use are a bonus/extra thing, not a substitute for your writing.

Author's Notes

• Do not put them in the middle of the chapter.
• Make it clear where they start and end so you don't confuse the poor readers.
• Place them at either the beginning or the end, but not both. They are distracting enough on their own without doubling them.
• Keep them relevant to the story itself if at all possible, but don't give away anything important.
• If your author's notes have nothing to do with the actual content of the fic, go back and delete them later on because they become irrelevant.
• Keep them short, sweet, and to the point. Readers are here to read your story not your personal diary/rant.
• You may encourage people to leave feedback, but avoid begging or demanding that people comment. Do not demand comments in exchange for updates, and do not threaten to quit writing from lack of comments because it makes you look like an extremely immature attention-seeker.