Pony Size S, Machine Washable, Made in Equestria: Thoughts About Story Tags · 6:15am Nov 17th, 2015
I had a suggestion from BlazzingInferno to write about the new tags on the site. However, to talk about them I’d have to explain my overall theory on tagging, so I did that as well. Besides, I can’t actually remember which ones are the new ones and which ones have always been there.
So anyway, here’s how I break down the genre tags, along with my initial reaction to each one individually.
Objective content tags: These tags tell you nothing about the story, tropes, or emotions you might encounter. There are some common takes on them, and some associations people make based on those takes, but they really aren’t genres, and they’re objective. Does your story contain humans? Human tag. Is it in the EqG setting? Equestria Girls. Does it crossover with another universe? Etc.
Includes:
· 2nd Person - This story is really bad self-insert porn. Also it’s written in the 2nd person narrative voice.
· Human - This story contains humans with human anatomy.
· Anthro - This story is porn with boobs. Also, it contains humans who may or may not have hooves, tails, or pony ears.
· Crossover - This story probably involves a video game I know nothing about. Or it just crosses over with another fictional setting.
· Equestria Girls - This story is barely-legal porn, or it’s about Sunset Shimmer or the Dazzlings (and is probably barely-legal porn.) It takes place in the Equestria Girls setting.
Genre tags: This is the traditional way of sorting stories. If Fimfiction was a bookstore, these are the sections it would be sorted into. These are, for the most part, not things you aim for in your story, but things you decide on. It’s hard to write an Adventure story that fails to be an Adventure story. It might be a bad adventure story, but if characters are going on an adventure it belongs in the genre.
Includes:
· Adventure - The author is going to stop writing this after the second chapter. Also it contains characters going on an adventure, or being attacked by something.
· Alternate Universe - This story is about some twist on the standard setting, or the author was too lazy to follow canon.
· Horror - Vampires, zombies, or serial killers.
· Mystery - This story is about the characters trying to figure out the answer to a question via investigation.
· Random - This story was written by a high school or college student under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
· Romance - Characters kiss.
· Sci-Fi - This story involves advanced technology, or takes place in a space ship.
· Slice of Life - The author didn’t know what else to tag this story.
· Thriller - I have no idea. Spies or something?
· Tragedy - A story with a sad ending because most people don't know what Tragedy means.
Tone tags: These are trickier, and probably my least favorite tags. They’re much more subjective, because they’re talking about emotional tone that the author was trying to convey. At the extremes, or in the hands of better authors, they’re obvious and clearly going to be what it says on the tin. But they can all get murky very easily: is a story a comedy just because the characters frequently make jokes in an otherwise tense situation? Is a story Dark when it’s darker in tone than the show, or than real life? How Dark is real life, when it comes to it?
Includes:
· Comedy - The author thinks this story is funny.
· Dark - 2 Edgy 4 Me.
· Sad - Someone or thing dies. Or, with romance, whoever it is doesn't love Rainbow Dash.
Then there is Drama.
· Drama - Drama happens.
Drama is a question that’s come up a lot lately. I propose that the confusion over the tag comes from the two ways of viewing it.
Drama as a genre sits between Slice of Life and Adventure (though in a bookstore they’re all just Fiction.) It centers around events that are a more extreme yet still normal part of life: emotional turmoil, personal emergencies, deaths, relocating, etc.
Drama as an emotional tone sits between “normal” (no emotional tag) and Sad. The events are expected to elicit strong emotions, maybe including sadness, without Sad being the driving tone. Think: what we mean when we talk about a “drama” on TV.
Really, either of these can apply, and since no one knows which one the author was thinking, people who read “Drama” fics will be used to seeing both.
And then, obviously genres and tones can combine to form other genres: Comedy and Drama combine so often on TV that there’s a word for it: Dramady. When dealing with imaginative kids, Slice of Life and Adventure can go hand in hand. And those aren’t even counting more popular combos like Sci-Fi Horror or Romantic Comedy.
So, this brings us to the real question: How do we tag things, and what do people mean when they tag things?
Tagging fics has two purposes. On one side of things, it’s marketing. This is the reason Genres exist in bookstores, because there are certain broad groups of stories that can offer people a narrowed down selection of books they’re interested in. Tags on FimFiction do the same thing, and that’s important to consider.
The other side is in warning people. That’s a large part of the Sex and Gore tags, but there are also a lot of people who don’t want to read Romance (or don’t want to read Romance tagged with the wrong characters) or Human or AU or Crossovers. Some people might like Sad or Dark fics sometimes, but want to avoid them in certain moods. And the thing is, if those people don’t want to read those kinds of stories, you probably don’t want them reading your story if it involves those things. Maybe yours is awesome enough to change their minds, but more likely they will downvote, and they will have a negative opinion of you that could transfer to the next fic (which might be something they otherwise would like.)
So when tagging, there are a few things to focus on:
Is there a objective content tag you need? If your fic is humanized, you need a Human tag.
What does this story do really well/What does it have that people are looking for?
Is there anything in this story that you suspect people will want to avoid?
I know this sounds obvious to some folks, but if you think about it, it answers the Drama tag question. Is your story really dramatic? Is that something you think is a strength, and you want people looking for a Drama/dramatic story to find it? Do you want to warn people that this isn’t a light, fluffy story? Then put a drama tag on it. If you’re not sure, why advertise that part? It’s obviously not the strongest thing about it.
I think too many people look at tagging as filing, as if your story should be sorted in every way that’s relevant. I don’t think that’s productive, personally. Sure, you’ll appear on more genre lists, but at the expense of being clear about the story itself.
There are some other things to keep in mind, too:
· Tags actually affect your ranking in some searches, and more tags will put you lower in relevance. Don’t ask me for the details on this, the site algorithms are mysterious and arcane, but several people I know were able to move stories into the first page or two on test searches by deleting unimportant tags.
· I usually won’t even look at stories with “tag salad” (more than three or four tags,) because I assume the writer doesn’t know what his story is about and tagged everything in it.
· That being said, I do realize that some tags stack up quickly. (A humanized story is almost always going to have Humanized and AU as a bare minimum, before you even get to tone or other genre tags.)
· Tags are not the only way to give people information about your story. You also have the long description and the cover art. If you’re not sure if your story is dramatic enough for a Drama tag, but there are some dramatic parts in it, you can always make sure your long description reflects that.
· While we’re on the subject, I view rating tags like this:
Everyone: Nothing that wouldn’t fly in a Disney movie, with the exception of same sex pairings as long as the romance is the level of the romance in a Disney movie.
Teen: Nothing that wouldn’t fly on network TV.
Mature: HBO or porn (if you make a distinction between those.)
· Of course, in many cases, the above depends on how the scene is “shot.” In Moonshine there’s a sex scene, but I rated the fic teen because I purposely wrote the scene to not include graphic descriptions. (Okay, there’s one paragraph about breasts. But other than that…)
So those are all of my thoughts on tagging. I don’t know if they helped anyone, but honestly I don’t think it’s the most important thing about your story anyway.
Oh, and for the record, I didn’t forget about that poll about how people read fics of different lengths, and I will be posting about it soon, since I should have something relevant to talk about with it (I hope.)
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I'd like to say that the Alternate Universe tag is used for another purpose: Fics with literal alternate universes, other than Equestria Girls.
Hm, I'm not sure I agree with your negative look at every tag out there.
Actually, I don't agree with how the're presented.
Although you point about "tag salads" is accurate enough for most stories, but not all.
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Those are just the things I think when I see the tags. Not all of them are negative, because there are some tags I view favorably (or at least neutrally.) But, I think the point of that is that there are tags that I do have negative views of just based on the tag, and I suspect that most people have some set of tags they have that reaction to (probably different from mine.)
As to how they're presented, you'd need to be more specific.
While this certainly used to be true, I'm not sure that it is true anymore. It is true for sidebar-displayed stories, though.
What do you think about spoiling the ending with a Tragedy tag?
You forgot Tragedy...
You know, every fic where Rarity chips a nail/hoof
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First, I'm a traditionalist when it comes to Tragedy. Not every sad ending is a Tragedy, and not every Tragedy is sad.
That said... I don't mind the Tragedy tag as much as I mind the Sad tag. Tragedy is a specific genre with it's own tropes, while Sad is the real spoiler.
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Fixed!
I believe we need a Melodrama tag for all those Rarity stories.
Objection: I was a drunk mid twentysomething, not a drunk college student.
i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee222/merc_the_jerk/truth2_zpsbcxl6bu3.jpg
As an almost exclusive AU writer, I can agree with this. Carry on. Though you forgot that the crossover tag is also used religiously by people that want to use Spider-Man as a self-insert proxy to impregnate half the cast.
And, coincidentally, it was totally the best paragraph in the story.
At first I was going to take issue with your assessment of the Equestria Girls tag. I was glad to see that: I was able to take down "Human" and "AU" off my EG stories, because they're not really AU and I think you could argue that they aren't really human. Then I realized that actually you're right about the barely-legal porn thing. Of course, while most of it's Sunset Shimmer and the Dazzlings, some of it is simply the author's second person self-insert, getting through the cast, tiresomely, one at a time. Bonus points (removed?) for including tacos or for using EG to weasel around the M rating.
Guess you just saved Bronycon 2016 an hour of panel space.
Hey, Cold in Gardez did write that actually good Second Person changeling fic for the first Most Dangerous Game, so there's at least one that isn't bad self insert porn. Might be the only one, though.
FINALLY, someone explains to me how the Drama tag works!
Thank you, bookplayer! You have definitely helped at least one person become better through this blog!
I use the Random tag for story compilations, given the inconsistent tone of the collection when taken as a whole. Also my more bizarre premises, but the only drugs influencing me with those were prescribed.
I'm very happy to see someone else doesn't know what to make of the Thriller tag. Until someone tells me otherwise, I'm assuming it's reserved for "zombie Michael Jackson in Equestria."
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I prefer the term "Marshmelodrama" when it's Rarity-specific.
Thriller: The combination of Horror and Action. Much like RomCom is a Romantic Comedy.
Slice of Life: The story could be converted into an episode format, faithfully. -- This is me being defensive, not correcting you.
The rest were spot-on. Distressingly so. In the spirit of the thing, I'd like to add one of my own:
Addendum to AU: "Or the author started writing the story in Season 2 and was Jossed"
It's only porn if it isn't well written, when well written it's erotica.
So, yeah, most of that stuff on this site is porn... .
And you don't need an "Anthro" tag to have boobs, ponies have them as well! Just in a different location and only when with foal.
I'm hapoy we now have a "Horror" tag, and kinda went on a bit of a reading bring on horror tagged stories recently. Sadly though I don't remember any that delt with what you had listed.
It doesn't really fit ponies too well but I much prefer horror stories about that 'real monsters', as in the seeming normal everyday people that you walk past on your way to the grocer.
Based on what we have seen on the show wouldnt any space ship be considered "advanced technology"? Even if that tech is arcano-tech. You mase the two sound mutually exclusive from one another.
For me a "Thriller" story would be anything that, well, brings a thrill. It'd probably, but not necessarily, also be an "Adventure" story as well. Spies are not required.
I just looked up the traditional meaning of "Tragedy" and was amused to find that it meant "schadenfreude as a driving force of the narrative" and not "the story has an inevitable outcome everyone can see coming, does not want to happen, will try to stop it from happening but will fail at stopping the unwanted thing from happening" like I thought it meant.
My problem with the "Comedy" tag is that humor is subjective and what one person finds funny another might not. The same holds true for the "Sad" tag, though sadness, in my opinion, is a bit more universal than what one might consider funny.
But if enough people agree on either or both then you might be onto something.
For me the "Dark" tag doesn't have to be 'edgy', it can just mean a sense of persistent permeating peril or a malaise about what is going on. Though I guess some could consider both of those things 'edgy'.
3547561 Though bookplayer's description of 2nd person really recontextualizes the ending to For Whom We Are Hungry
Dammit! Nothing gets past you! D:
With the new tags up and the lack of overlap between them, the six tag limit is ridiculous.
If anyone has Knighty's ear, for buck's sake, tell him to increase the tag limit. Or at the very least, essential tags like EqG and warning tags like Dark shouldn't count against the limit.
EDIT: read your opinion on tags; not sure I totally agree, but you have a good point about less being more. The problem is that stories that legitimately need a whopping ton of tags actually exist.
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Correction: this story is porn with boobs in the wrong place.
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They aren't mutually exclusive, but I do see them as two different things. One is focused on the technology, and in the other technology is just setting flavor. It's the difference between Tron or The Matrix and Firefly or Star Wars. Sci-Fi can be about the introduction of perfect AI to Equestria, or it can just be where the next Magic of Friendship Power Up gives the mane six a space ship and they travel to other planets solving friendship problems.
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I totally agree with your points about objective tags like Equestria Girls clunking things up (like I pointed out in the blog, the AU and Human duo can clunk up a humanized fic before you even start really tagging.) That being said, that's my point about marketing vs. filing. I don't think you need to tag for everything that happens in your story-- Adventures are allowed to have Sad, Dark, and Comedy parts without needing Sad or Dark or Comedy tags. I think it's only necessary if it covers a major subplot, or if there's enough of that that you want to market to people who enjoy those things. You can also promise those things in the long description if you really want to make sure people know they're there.
I can't think of a story that legitimately needs more than six tags to advertise/warn for all the best parts, especially if those objective tags like EqG, Human, and Crossover were free.
I got some laughs out of the tag definitions.
Thanks!
Hey now, sometimes it's TV shows you haven't watched.
Come on, this is MLP fiction we're talking about. Horror's either going to mean a shoddy Cupcakes/Rainbow Factory knockoff, a Slenderman story with the Crossover tag missing, or Horse Voice writing about buying pasta at the store.
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Us older bronies take drugs too!
(Also, like 3547580, I use Random for anthologies, because an Anthology tag will be added around the 12th of Never.)
True when there were only like three tags on the site, and true now.
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boo(bs)
I do hope that the site posts clearer guidelines about tag definitions. "Adventure" can mean it has a quest plotline, or that the plot encompasses large, world-changing events. "Slice of Life" can mean that it feels like an episode from the show, or that the plot encompasses small, day to day problems. "Dark," as you put it so well, can mean either darker than the show or darker than real life.
"Drama" in particular is one tag for which I want to see the official guidelines. Personally, I almost feel as if every story should be "dramatic," that emotional drama is a huge part of what storytelling is all about, and feel that it's best used as an umbrella tag for stories that don't fit well in any other category. For example, I tagged my story Prodigy comedy/tragedy because those were the least-bad tags the site had available at the time. Now I'm seriously considering changing it to drama, or perhaps drama/comedy.
As for thrillers, I've always assumed that to mean fast-paced stories with high, continually escalating tension. The movie Predator would probably be a sci-fi thriller, for instance. The story Hard Reset 2: Reset Harder would probably be a sci-fi thriller as well... except, you know. With magic instead of science. Biblical Monsters would fit pretty nicely into the psychological thriller subgenre, I think, as well as the movies Memento and Secret Window.
...Clearly there needs to be official guidelines on this tag in particular, because I've been seeing a lot of stories that don't feel thrilling at all sporting the tag, and just as many that are thrilling even without it.
Anyway. Good post, as always. I think "Anthro" may be the only tag on the website that I've literally never read... I'm not sure that a good, non-porn variation even exists. ~ Sable
P.S. Still wish there was a better way to delineate actual stories with graphic violence and sexual content from pure porn. A story like Fallout: Equestria, for instance, has graphic sexual language that alone would easily earn it the "Sex" tag many times over if it were rated teen, but it doesn't have the sex tag at all as a mature story, since it doesn't have any actually graphic sex scenes and because the author presumably doesn't want it lumped together in people's searches with all the clopfics. Seems like a wonky system.
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Huh … you're the second person to say that HR2 should have a Thriller tag.
… actually, wait, they were both you.
But I'm still definitely considering it.
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"If you can't convince a second person to share your views, just be twice as loud."
~ from How to Internet, by Sable Tails
Guilty as charged
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But... but... we already have one!
It is the "Rarity" character tag.
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Here, I'll second that motion. HR 2 is a classic thriller in my book.
I regret nothing!
I'm still mulling over the drama tag, but I do think I'm going to drop Slice of Life from a few of my stories.
I still hate the 'Human and 'Anthro' tags.
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, I've added the Thriller tag.
Alright, alright … Seeing as how Sable provided me such a cleverly disguised "update your thing!" link
Now to clear some of the editing off my plate so I can get back to updating the darn thing again!