On the Use of Story Filters
I find the *Story Filters* feature to be invaluable as I work on reading and
reviewing. Almost always I first choose *Have Not Reviewed* under *Review
Status* so that I don’t have to look at the titles of stories I’ve already done
reviews for, after which I look at other criteria that will allow me to choose
the particular types of stories that best fit my mood and the amount of time I
have available to read and review.
I have to leave for work in an hour but would like to make a bit of a dent on my
Review Junkie goal? Then I will generally choose to read ficlets or drabbles,
both of which can be found under the *Length* choice. I have just read one
story by an author I’ve not read before and liked her work so well I want to
read more? I go to the *Author* choice, find the particular author’s name, and
look to see what other stories are available, and perhaps take a note of the
archive sites where I will find her work.
Maybe I’m in a mood to read Frodo in Gondor stories. One can do searches on
*Hobbits-Frodo Baggins* under *Characters* and *Gondor-Minas Tirith (Minas
Anor)* under *Settings* and come up with the titles of the four stories I’ve not
yet reviewed that meet that dual criteria. Or I wish to know how many stories
Grey Wonderer has competing this year that contain Frodo Baggins in them. I
search under *Author* for *grey_wonderer* and *Character* for *Hobbits-Frodo
Baggins* and find two entries. I’m in a mood to read angst involving Faramir?
Choose under *Characters* and *Genre*--I’ve found five stories so far that use
that dual criteria. I want to read a novel involving Legolas and Aragorn? That
can get a bit trickier--I’d choose *Novel-40,001 words or more* under *Length*
and *Men of the North-Aragorn II* under *Character* and find that there are
seven novels that involve Aragorn; a quick scan of the summaries show me two
also involve Legolas.
Once I learn what categories my stories are assigned to, I can learn what other
stories each will be competing against using the filters. I can revise draft
reviews up to the end of voting season; to make certain I finish my draft
reviews and change their status to final I can filter on that status. I may
decide I want to read a story I’d previously marked *Skip* after all, so I can
search through all the stories I’d marked *Skip* to find it. Or I decide I’m
feeling generous and want to make certain every single author gets at least one
review--I can search on that criteria and find those stories that haven’t
received a review as yet.
The *Story Filters* feature can quickly become invaluable to you as you search
for the particular types of stories you wish to read. Experiment with them
freely, and use them to read this year’s offerings more enjoyably and
expediently.
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large
"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." LOTR
"Don't go where I can't follow."