Archive of Our Own is one of many online writing communities that you can use to get your fiction in front of others. This way, readers can caringly critique your work, helping you improve your writing along the way.

Here, we'll explore Archive of Our Own, the tools that it offers writers, and how you can use them to become a better writer.

What Is Archive of Our Own?

Archive of Our Own, or "AO3," is a project of the Organization for Transformative Works, or "OTW." The OTW is an organization dedicated to fostering and preserving "transformative works." These works "add something new with a further purpose" to existing media—fine, call it "fanfiction," if you must.

This background is part of what separates AO3 from other collaborative fiction websites. Most contributors to AO3 want their work to be recognized, and they reap personal benefits from their participation. However, many contributors also see their posts as part of something more significant.

The same can be said for the users that leave feedback on the writings of others. Their objective is to encourage and critique the original contributor, but they also see themselves as caretakers of a piece of culture that is personally significant to them.

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How to Join AO3

Anyone can go on AO3 and read the stories written by contributors. You can even leave "kudos" and comment on contributions using a guest name.

Leaving AO3 comments without a profile

With an account, you can contribute your own works, participate in challenges, save works that you want to read later, and follow other contributors and stories for updates. Further, some posts on AO3 are only visible to users with accounts.

Benefits of creating an AO3 account

Creating an account is free and easy, but it isn't immediate. To create an account, you have to request an invitation.

There's no application, but AO3 uses an automated email service to send profile invitations. When you request an invitation, you're adding yourself to the list of other new users. Depending on the time and how busy the automated service is, it could be hours or days before the invite arrives.

Once you do get the email, it's just a click to confirm your email address. From there, you create a username and password. Keep in mind that your username is associated with your account, but doesn't have to be associated with your writing. Content can be published under pseudonyms managed through your account, or published anonymously.

How to Create a New Post

When your account is set up, click Post New from your dashboard.

Manage AO3 posts and collections

You'll notice that there are a lot of fields before you can actually type, paste, or import your story. These fields are:

  1. Rating
  2. Archive Warnings
  3. Fandom
  4. Categories
  5. Relationships
  6. Characters
  7. Additional Tags

These fields determine how AO3 catalogs your content and how other users find it. You can choose not to set a rating for your piece, and have it appear as "not rated" to other users. You can also choose not to set warnings, though this too comes with a label to other site users.

AO3 tag choices

Fandom is a required field. This is usually the work or body of work that inspired your story, though you can type anything in this field; it doesn't have to fit in with a fandom that others have already contributed it to. Associating your work with a recognized and popular fandom will make it easier for other users to find, but so will good tags.

The Preface section is where you create your title, organize notes if you have any, and write a summary of your work. This is also where you can add contributors who can add or edit your work. To do this, select the box labeled Add co-creators, and enter their usernames in the resulting text field.

AO3 post preface fields

The Associations section is where you describe how your piece fits with other pieces that you contribute or plan on contributing. It is also how you publish stories in pieces, such as chapter-by-chapter. The Post to Collections / Challenges field in this section is also how you enter your contributions into challenges, which we'll talk more about later.

AO3 associations fields

The Privacy section allows you to control who can see and comment on your content. Checking the Enable Comment Moderation box gives you the opportunity to read comments on your contributions before you decide whether other users will be able to see them. You can turn comments off here as well, but you won't get much feedback that way.

AO3 post privacy settings

The rest of the page is for text entry in rich text, HTML, or plain text with limited HTML. AO3 is really good about cleaning up the formatting for you if this isn't your cup of tea. Worst case scenario, you can always preview your post before you publish to make sure that everything looks the way you want it to.

Setting Notifications for Comments, Kudos, and Updates

There are a lot of ways that you can manage your profile settings, but there are just a few key items that impact how you collaborate with other users to improve your writing. All of these are in the Preferences section of your profile, which you'll find in the banner on the left side of the screen.

AO3 profile preferences

The last box in the Privacy section allows other users to invite you to co-create works, a feature that we've already addressed. Scroll further down to find the sections for Comments and Collections, Challenges, and Gifts. Here, you can toggle email notifications for interactions, and limit how others can interact with your works.

As for interacting with others, this is all done through a toolbar that appears at the top right of the pane when you're on another contributor's story.

Bookmark a story to add it to your collections, select Mark for Later to add a work to a list on your page so that you can easily find it later, select Subscribe to get notified when the author creates or updates a work, or select Comments to read public comments left by other users.

How to Create and Participate in Challenges

Challenges are one of the best collaborative features on AO3. Larger and regular challenges are pretty well-publicized by the platform itself. However, any user can create challenges, and smaller independent challenges are going on all the time.

Participating in challenges helps you to hone your writing skills by writing within constraints set by the challenge creator. Some challenges can also serve as prompts when you want to write but don't know where to start.

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You can also create your own challenges by selecting Collections from the banner on the left side of the pane, and then selecting New Collection from the toolbar across the top of the pane.

When you create a challenge, you will have the option of defining "rules." Creating rules that encourage writers or editors to do a task that you struggle with in your own content is a great way to see how other people approach that issue.

What Will You Archive?

Archive of Our Own is a great way to find original content related to some of your favorite topics and also lets you share your inspired content with others. However, it is also a fantastic place to post your writing for comments and criticism, as well as to workshop new ideas.