How To Create a Linking Title Page and Link Chapters Together in a Series or Serial

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To link chapters together, you need to create a Title Page for a series or serial. Use the|++Organizer| link at the top of the screen. After you have saved it, you can link it to your Author Page with the |Outline| tab. Open Outline and search for your Author Name in the rolldown. Then Save again.

Then to link the chapters in, use the |Outline| tab while viewing the story. This will bring up a list with all the titles and chapters currently linked together on BC, a lot. Click on the window with the list then type the first few letters of your title for your story and it should scroll down to make looking for the right one easy. Just highlight the title you want your chapter linked to and click save.

There's a weight button to help you get chapters in the right order, chapters 1-9 should have weight 0, 10-99 weight 1, 100-999, weight 2, etc. You can give appendices and codexes to your story weights of 8 or 9 or something to be sure they appear after the chapters, or -1 or -5 or something if you want them to appear before the chapters.

Hope that helps! If you make mistakes, I or one of my editors will probably catch it within an hour or two and fix it for you. :)

If you just post chapter two of a multi-chapter story without doing any of this, one of us will probably do it within a day, giving you time to step up and do it if you can.

Hugs,
Erin

Curious

What's weight 1 for?

Typo

erin's picture

I made a typo, fixed now. :)

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

weight

allows you to put a story out of alphabetical order. interestingly, i didn't understand that negative weight makes the story go first, not positive, until i played with it.

"Treat everyone you meet as though they had a sign on them that said "Fragile, under construction"

dorothycolleen

DogSig.png

Note:

erin's picture

Organizer pages, like Title Page and Author Page as menu choices, have been moved from the Publication-type menu to the Organizational menu in the editing and creating screens.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Menu item |++TitlePage| changed to |++Organizer|

erin's picture

Too many uses of the phrase "Title Page". Hope this is clearer but it breaks some of the info in the FAQs and a few blogs.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Oye!

Gee, I've never done any of that. Guess I've a guardian angel watching me back.

Nancy Cole


~ ~ ~

"You may be what you resolve to be."

T.J. Jackson

Author / Universe Pages

Jemima Tychonaut's picture

I'm still learning my way with the set-up of BC, so please accept my apologies if this is a stupid question or been asked elsewhere. I've had a look in this section of the forum but couldn't see anything.

Okay, so I've posted my first story (I think my poor brain is still recovering from a close encounter with HTML) but my second story will involve chapters. In preparation I've had a look at this forum post which seems helpful. The question I had is how is a 'universe page' and 'author page' different from a title page? Is it that I create an author page and then put the title pages linked to that or is it different?



"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Different types of pages

You should already have an Author page. If you don't, I think Erin or some other helpful person will put one up for you. An author page groups all your stories together.

Title pages will be linked to your Author page. Under that, you link each chapter of your story.

If you write linked stories, or sequels, you'll need to create another level to stitch everything together in the correct order. Think of it like a tree with Author at the top, then stories, then chapters.

A Universe page is what you need if you write many stories set in the same 'Universe'. It doesn't mean a top-level page (I don't think).

If your story has more than 9 chapters, you have to start fiddling with weighting to get things to sort in the right order. For example, for stories titled "My TG tale -1-" to "M TG tale -9-" the weighting is zero and all chapters sort naturally. But "My TG tale -10-" would naturally sort after -1- and before -2- so you have to set the weighting to 1 to make it come after the first 9.

Hope this helps,

Penny

Thanks Penny

Jemima Tychonaut's picture

Thanks Penny, that seems to make sense. I guess I'll find out for sure when doing it!



"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

I Have a story

It is easy to comment. Even if you make an error
only a few people will read it. No great shame.

But a story is different. I will be subject to
rocks and arrows. It is a short story partially
true. How do I post it. And will someone review it.

Kaptin Nibbles

Need to get an account

erin's picture

Get an account here then you can use the ++Fiction link at the top of the screen to input the story. It will appear on the front page immediately. Reviewing here is done after posting.

Also, after you post a story, your account will be upgraded to Author which gives you a few more perks and tools. :)

Good luck!

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Help.

Where is the |Outline| tab?????

I'm not sure I am doing this right.

Outline tab

If you look at the top of the post which started the thread you're now in, you'll see two tabs: View and Outline.

When you post a story part, the first thing that happens when you press 'submit' (after you're happy with the previews) is that the story page will be displayed as other will see it. At the top there will be three tabs: View, Edit and Outline.

Edit is for those occasions when you go "OMG! I totally didn't see that typo! I HAVE to change it!"

Click on Outline and you'll get an entry page where you get asked to select a 'parent' page for your story. The page you should select should be the title page for the story or, if it's a stand-alone entry then choose your author's name instead.

Aside: I find this the most tedious part of the whole operation, since every author, every title page, every chapter is in that list. I wish there was a way of limiting the drop-down to just the author's entries only.

For the first nine chapters you can leave the weight as zero. In general the weight should be the count of digits in your chapter number minus one. This ensures that the chapters sort in the right order when they are displayed on the right-hand side of the web page.

Job done!

Penny

Weighting Story Titles

I finally (only took a month) figured out how to link my story titles to my author page, but I have a slight problem. My first series is titled The Summer of Bailey, but the second series I'll be posting is titled Seasons of Bailey. Obviously they won't sort properly in alphabetical order.

I was wondering if there is any way to weight them in such a way as to having Seasons appear after The Summer? I was looking around for a weight option, but may have missed it somewhere. I just don't want first time readers to be confused as to which story comes first. Am I missing something, or like Obi Wan Kenobi, am I asking the impossible?

~Bailey

~Taylor Ryan
My muse suffers from insomnia, and it keeps me up at night.

Weighting

erin's picture

Yes, there is a weighting gadget. For fiction-type entries, it's in the outline tab, directly under the parent rollover. For organizer-type entries, it's in the edit page a bit above the body field.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Confused

So if I post say...
Bailey (Author)
-The Summer of Bailey (Title)
--Parts 1-7 (with weight at 0 for each)
-Seasons of Bailey (Title)

and then I weight my chapters under Seasons as 1, it should put them after The Summer? Or am I completely missing something?

I'm not seeing any option to weight them, other than the outline page of each story. There are no options for it when I choose the Edit tab in author page or either of the title pages.

Currently when I look at my author page it lists it as...
Bailey (Author)
-Seasons of Bailey (Title)
-The Summer of Bailey (Title)

and the next arrow at the bottom takes you to Seasons first. I want the complete opposite with The Summer to be the first page it goes to if you click the next arrow. So it isn't confusing for people.

Thanks for your help,
~Bailey

~Taylor Ryan
My muse suffers from insomnia, and it keeps me up at night.

Weights again

erin's picture

Weights only affect ordering at the same level. If parts 1 to 7 are attached to Summer, they don't need weights.

If Seasons of Bailey is a Fiction-type, view the story then open the outline tab and set the weight to 1.

If Seasons of Bailey is a title page done on an organizer-type entry, then open the story to edit and look down the left hand edge of the screen. When you get to the Body field, which is where the entry that appears inside the box when viewing the entry, you will find the weight widget which is a rollover-type choose your value thing BELOW the body field. Sorry, above I said that it was above the body field but it is below it. I was speaking from memory and this time I went and looked. :)

That said, I went and adjusted the weight on Seasons for you.

Hope that helps.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

o.O

lol! I was about to "mess with it" (did nothing but look at it though) and it changed on it's own. Then I read here that you changed it. Thought I was losing it for a second. Thanks for adjusting it for me. You're the best! I'll get it all figured out eventually I hope.

Thanks for your help,
~Bailey

~Taylor Ryan
My muse suffers from insomnia, and it keeps me up at night.

Losing tags when linking existing chapters to new title page?

I noticed that someone had linked parts 2 and 3 of "The Manumission Game" under part 1, instead of all three parts under an independent title page. I find that confusing when I see it on other stories -- it tends to look, in some contexts, as though the story is long abandoned with just one chapter -- so I tried to add a new title page with ++Organizer, and then link the three existing chapters to that title page. Chapter 3 looks fine, but chapters 1 and 2 have lost all their genre/trope tags (like Transgender, Magic, etc.).

I can probably add those tags back with the Edit page, but is there a way to prevent that from happening again in the future?

Me too very confused

I have created a title page Here and want to link the two chapters I have written so far, which are here and here. Yet, when I go to either of the pages and click outline, I cannot find my newly created title page, similarly I cannot find the title or book page even when I try editing the chapters I have written so far.

Any help appreciated

Irvine

Linking chapters to title page

Try it this way:

Go to "My Stories" and select a chapter of your story - or bring it up however you wish.

Select "Edit", and scroll right down to the bottom. You'll see a section labeled "Book Outline", and on the right-hand side there is a drop down box, this is mislabeled "Book".

Click the box and drop it down. Now scroll down and find your name (Hitting "I" will get you to the "I"'s quicker). Select it, and you'll discover another dropdown box will appear. This one should have everything in it you have ever posted.

In the second box, scroll down and find your title page. Select this and it will become the parent of your chapter.

If you haven't done anything funky with your numbering, chapters will appear in the right order. When your chapters reach two didits, you'll need to increase the weight to make the two-digit chapters sort after the one-digit chapters. (Some of us are crazy enough to have three-digit chapters. I won't mention Bike.)

Enjoy!

In future, you can do this when you first post your chapters.

Penny

It doesn't look that way when I do it

When I go to the "book" section, the only dropdown box has "book" titles. It doesn't include the name from my title page ("The Pastor") or my name ("Asche") as an option. There's a "title" called "create a new book", but when I select it, it says that the title of my chapter will be the name of the book ("The Pastor -- Chapter 1"), which isn't really what I want.

Do I just need to wait for a while for my title page to appear in the menu?

Title page

Have you actually created a title page yet? This can be done using the link "Create Content" on the right. Create an Organizer page with the title of your book and a brief teaser of your story (if you want). As you add chapters to your story, the system automatically inserts links to the chapters on the title page. Once you have done that, you can assign chapter files under it.

Whenever I've had to do that it is immediately available in the submission page dropdown.

As for the absence of your author's name, I can't answer that. Normally Erin or the Elves create an Organizer page for you when you are accepted as an author. As your name appears in the list of authors (top of page link) you should be there.

Penny

Ooh, I have a Question.

Hypatia Littlewings's picture

Do you need to already have a couple of entries before you can set up some sort of organization.

I have a project in mind. But it might be a bit too ambitious, at least for someone who only has a couple of non rhyming poems, posted so far. *big silly grin*
-

It is a universe with stories based upon My Role Play as "Hypatia" in "Second Life", not set in SL as such but in my personal Fairy Role Play there. So far I have (the order below is based on how fished the parts are):

1) The mythical legend of the origin of the Fae as told by Hypatia as she has heard it.(this is very short) SL Hypatia has told this many times in world there. I have several minor variation of this saved.

2) The Origin story of this universe.(this is a short story, set near the beginning of time, prehistory) This is complete, but needs polishing.

3) And the beginnings of story a descendant of the Fae(not Hypatia) that does not know they are one, or any of the background.(this would be long and multi-chapters/parts) This is the part where it gets ambitious. not sure I am up to doing it well.

4) The basic concept for Hypatia's own story. (to be attempted later)

5) &/or 6) The origins of this idea, technical info, & possible details/rules about this universe if I decide to share it and/or just as info.
-

I had been planning on contacting you via PM to discuss how to set this up. If I go ahead with it. But your post kind of prompted me to mention it here.

I hope my muse is up to it!
*pixie dusts my self for inspiration*
~Hypatia >i< ..:::
-

PS. Sorry for the oddball formatting of this post.

Yes, yes it is :)

erin's picture

You can set up a Title or Series page without anything under it yet.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.