The Mystery of the Solo Stories

A word from our sponsor:

Printer-friendly version

Author: 

Blog About: 

I'm a keen reader of solo stories - stories which have a beginning, a middle and an end in one complete read. I normally scan down the Quick Cuts on the home page and pick up any solos I haven't previously read and give them a go.

However, today I clicked on the Solo menu item, expecting to find the same list as seen on the Home Page, but with all non-solos filtered out.Instead was a series of 15 pages of stories, each of about 60 stories, which gives a total of around 900 stories - surely far less than the total number of solo stories written on this site.

And the stories weren't in order of newest first, neither were they in alphabetical nor even random order. Instead, the first 8 stories were from one author, and that author also had several other occurrences on that front page, far more than a random selection would provide.

So I am intrigued which stories are chosen to go into this menu choice, and in what order are they placed.

Anyone any ideas?

Comments

Random is random

erin's picture

Random order can include things like the first 6 stories all being by the same author, who it turns out writes a lot of solos. The caching seems to be out of whack again so you may see the same list until it gets back in whack. Piper is working on the servers so expect glitches.

I try to mark stories as solo but the criteria is narrow. No drabbles, no verse, no universe stories. We ought to have four or five thousand solos here but not all of them have the tag and so are not included in the solo listing.

Hugs,
Erin

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

Jaina

Andrea Lena's picture
264156-197302-jaina-solo.jpg
Today's Random Solo

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

Marking as "Solo"

Many stories might not be marked as "Solo" because the author didn't notice the flag. At the bottom of the story body, alongside the "Ongoing/Completed" flag, there are three dots "•••". Click the dots and the flag changes to "Solo".

Authors might want to go back and flag old solo stories.

Kris

{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}