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Tagging Guide

Tags are great, but so is chocolate, and you wouldn't want to eat so much chocolate that you vomit, or mainline some into your arteries. Like chocolate, it's possible to have too many tags or to use them in the wrong way.

General Guidelines

  1. If it's important to the story, then tag it!
  2. Consider your cast, and drop each of them into three piles: main characters, supporting characters, and background characters. Definitely tag your main characters, sometimes tag one or more supporting characters, and never tag your background characters,
  3. Consider the usefulness of each tag: If someone who was searching with that tag would like to see your story, or if somebody who had excluded that tag would not like to see your story, then add that tag.
  4. Smut fics should tag for the smutty stuff, especially if you think that somebody would be really into (or not into) something in particular.
  5. Include content warnings, or if you don't want to do that, set the fic for Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings. Unless you select that option, the reader should be able to determine from the warnings and the tags why you chose the rating that you did.
  6. Don't say, “I don't know how to tag.” Don't say, “This is my first fic.” Readers can't smell your fear but they can sure as fuck read it, and nothing gets me to drop a fic faster than a sign that the author doesn't believe in their story. I know that you have doubts. I have doubts, too! But don't admit it right there in the open before the reader has even gotten a first impression.

I enjoy tagging as an art form, but it's easy to overdo things. Your tags should never detract from or overshadow the story itself. If you have any doubts, I suggest passing your proposed tags by a couple of people and seeing what they think. Kill your darlings like you're Michael Myers and it's your favorite day of the year.

If you are looking for a tag but aren't sure what its most common form is, then you can click this link and search for tags, find out how many fics use each tag, etc.

If you are curious about whether to use a particular tag, or what it may mean, Fanlore has a collection of articles on Tropes & Genres, which are commonly used as tags.

AO3 also has an FAQ for tags, and “Tags for Beginners,” by ao3commentoftheday, goes into further depth in a general way.

Guide to Specific Tags

When you're ready to post your fic, check the preview to make sure that your tags are showing the way that you intended them to appear. AO3 will sometimes alter a tag if it thinks that your tag is related to another tag, and if you placed a character tag in the Additional Tags section then it may appear as “Freeform — [Character name].”

Relationship tags:

  1. The forward slash ( / ) denotes romantic or sexual relationships. The ampersand (&) denotes platonic relationships. The heart (♥) denotes flushed relationships. The spade (♠) denotes caliginous… Wait, wrong fandom.
  2. Treat relationships like characters: there are main relationships, supporting relationships, and background relationships, and you should tag accordingly.
  3. Most, if not all, fics will have at least one main character, but not every fic will have a main relationship, let alone several.
  4. The relevance of a character isn't necessarily equal to the relevance of their relationship(s). If Harry is dating Ginny, but Ginny doesn't show up and his relationship with her is mentioned only in passing, then at least consider not tagging it Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley.
  5. Background X/Y has usually been wrangled to be identical to X/Y, and will show up / be excluded from searches accordingly. However, if you tag Background X/Y or Minor X/Y in the Additional Tags section, then you'll be able to mention a relationship without getting it wrangled with the main relationship tag.
  6. In the “Additional Tags” section, you might add tags to elaborate on the relationship, e.g. Enemies to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Long Distance Relationship, Strangers to Enemies.

If you have multiple relationships which break off or evolve as the story goes on, and you aren't sure in which order to list them, then ask yourself, “Which relationships will the story end with, and which relationships are most important to the story?” For example, if Alice and Bob are dating at the beginning of the story, but they're going to break up and Alice will get married to Charlie by the end, then you should list Alice/Charlie first and Alice/Bob last (in fact, if Alice and Bob break up very early on, then you should consider leaving Alice/Bob out of the relationship tags and just mentioning the breakup in the Additional Tags).

If there are multiple “endgame” relationships, then try to list them in order of importance (for example, the relationships of your main characters) and then, wherever there are multiple equally-important relationships, in whatever order fits your fancy (I usually list them in order of appearance or in alphabetical order).

Setting tags:

  1. If you would like to make it clear that your fic takes place during one of the primary seven books, then a tag like Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will work well. If your story is more or less canonical (remember that “canon” is a complex term in this fandom) then Canon Compliant may be useful, especially if you think that something about the fic might lead the reader to think that it's an AU.1
  2. If the fic is canon compliant except for for some timeline divergences — if, in other words, it's an “alternate history” fic — then use Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence.
    1. If your canon divergence is centered on one of the books, then Canon Divergence - [Book] or Canon Divergence - Post-[Book] would also be good to include. For example, there are plenty of Canon Divergence - Post-Order of the Phoenix fics.
    2. Other common canon divergence tags are Alternate Universe - No [Character] (typically “No Voldemort”), Alternate Universe - No [Event] (typically “No Second Wizarding War” or something like that), and Alternate Universe - [Character] Lives.
    3. If you're just ignoring the epilogue, then Not Epilogue Compliant may be a good choice. Epilogue What Epilogue is also fairly common, and the two tags have been wrangled together.
  3. If your story diverges from canon in more fundamental ways (e.g. magic works very differently than in canon), then you might want to use tags like Alternate Universe - Magical Cores or Alternate Universe - Soulmates. You may want to check Fanlore's page on AUs or the AU-pedia, by Brianna-Imagination.
  4. If the bulk of your story is set during a time period outside the primary seven books, then consider using a tag like one of the following: Hogwarts Founders Era (c. A.D. 1000), Riddle at Hogwarts Era (1938-1945), Pre-Marauders Era (1945-1971), Marauders Era (1971-1978), Post-Marauders Era or Pre-Philosopher's Stone (1978-1991), and Post-Deathly Hallows (1997+). For fics set during (or near enough to) the events of Fantastic Beasts or Cursed Child, I recommend tagging your fic as belonging to those fandoms (as well as to Harry Potter) rather than using an “Era” tag, so that people will more successfully find or avoid your fic.
    1. Additionally, some fics posit an Eighth Year for Hogwarts, either in the normal course of things or in order to make up for that year where the school was run by Death Eaters. Technically speaking, Hermione Granger canonically lived out an Eighth Year.

Miscellaneous tags:

  1. Tags may convey the tone or theme of your fic: e.g. Angst, Crack, Friendship, Fluff, Humor, Light-hearted, Marriage, Parenthood, Trauma. You might also decide to get more specific, e.g. Light Angst or Domestic Fluff.
  2. Tags may say something about the plot: e.g. Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, PWP, Romance, Slow Burn, Smut, Whump.
    1. Fix-it Fics change something (sometimes many things) in canon that the author wasn't happy with, or perhaps that the main characters weren't happy with. They may be AUs or time travel fics, or even a canon compliant fic if the author is able to fit their “fix” in the gaps not shown in canon.
  3. Tags may describe the format or structure of your fic, e.g. Art, Dialogue-only, Epistolary, Five Things, Online Media / Social Media, Podfic, Poetry, Texting.
  4. Tags may provide content warnings, e.g. Child Abuse, Familial Abuse, Harm to Children, Suicide.
  5. If your main characters (and/or important supporting characters) have ended up in a different house, then tag the fic with [House] [Character Name] and Alternate Hogwarts House Sorting. Or, if they're in a different school, then use [School] Student [Character Name]. Only use [School] if the school will be important to the story; if everyone attends Beauxbatons but the story takes place exclusively during their summer vacation to Argentina, then you probably shouldn't tag it “Beauxbatons,” but if Hermione is a Beauxbatons student on vacation in Argentina, then “Beauxbatons Student Hermione Granger” might still be appropriate.
  6. Other tags you may find useful include Not Beta Read (often assigned as no beta we die like [Remus Lupin, King Charles, etc.]) and Other Tags to Be Added.

I advise against using tags like Drabble or Oneshot, because this should be obvious from the word or chapter count, but you do whatever floats your boat.

1. 913718's fic “surrogate,” a retelling of Deathly Hallows from Voldemort's perspective, radically reinterprets the canon text in a way that diverges from what Harry believes and the reader assumes but never conflicts with with actual facts. Voldemort's relationship with his father is not exactly what we were led to believe, but it is plausible if we understand that people occasionally lie or draw incorrect conclusions. [ ▲ ]