Posting multi-chapter stories … Which theme is best?
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I want to post multi-chapter stories, but I believe the viewing page of the theme twenty fifteen is too short to display much content. I need a theme adapted to stories of about 15,000 words with five chapters on a total f five, linked pages. I would like to use page jumps to navigate from chapter to chapter, or at best links. Should I use just a blank theme?
WP.com: Yes
Correct account: YesThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Welcome to WordPress.com!
I would like to use page jumps to navigate from chapter to chapter, or at best links
You can create your chapters as individual pages, and then use your site menu to create a structure where a book can have a main page, and then below that in the menu “drop down” if you hover over it you can organize the individual chapters: https://wordpress.com/support/menus/#create-drop-down-menus
The advantage of using your site menu is that it appears at the top of every page (or the side, in the case of your theme) so no one feels lost.
If you want something more visual like a landing page, you can also use the block editor (think of Legos, but for page layout) to create more of a visual index if you prefer as well. E.G. you can create a grid of thumbnail images and then link those to the individual book pages (instead or in addition to the main site menu) so you have a lot of options here actually.
Should I use just a blank theme?
I’ll answer honestly and say I like your site as it is now. The design is coming along nicely. :) Themes here are flexible enough that you could use your current theme or a new one… that is mostly about how you feel about the design and style of the theme itself.
Your current theme is a fine one for long-form content like a book actually, this demo link gives you an example of what a page full of text and images would look like using the Twenty Fifteen theme: https://twentyfifteendemo.wordpress.com/image-alignment-and-styles/
So you can change to a new theme if you want a new design, but I don’t think you have to switch, what you have now is looking good!
Out of curiosity, do you happen to have any sites (does not have to be WordPress) that you are drawing inspiration from or trying to emulate? If so it may help for us to see that example just in case I’m not accounting for features that are common on author sites that we’re not aware of.Thanks for the additional info!
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Hi, Jerry!
Thanks for the quick response! I’m glad you like the site. Currently, I post stories on fanfiction.net, but it’s acting wonky a lot lately and I’m afraid I’ll lose them, though I keep file copies. I took the opportunity to study drop-down menus and think that’s a great idea for building a main story page and then chapters.
This is all my own graphic work. I studied graphic design a bit in college just for fun. My goal with the site is to list my stories on the Story Index page, then link them up together. I’m not sure how to remove the picture on the side of the page if I wanted to add another. When I go to header image, it only allows me to edit the picture on the written part of the home page, not where the navigation bar is on the side.
I like this theme, too. There are probably many others I could use, but I’m eager just to get it up and running.
All my best, Denise.
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Hi again,
This is all my own graphic work. I studied graphic design a bit in college just for fun. My goal with the site is to list my stories on the Story Index page, then link them up together.
If I can offer a suggestion, it is worth adding the chapters for one of your books (you can use a page per chapter) and then it will make it easier to experiment. Setting up a new website is kind of a chicken vs. egg problem and it’s hard to know where to start, but you will definitely want to start with adding content to your site… it’s difficult to get it set up when it’s as empty as it is now.
Once you create your chapters, let us know and we can talk through how to set things up further from there.
I’m not sure how to remove the picture on the side of the page if I wanted to add another.
it sounds like you were in the right spot. It may help to understand that the “header” on this site is the lefthand sidebar. I show in this video how you can change it: https://d.pr/v/i7yMnq
The smaller image of the GIs on the right is one you added directly to the page you set as your homepage. That can be edited by editing your homepage from the list here: https://wordpress.com/pages/
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Thanks again for the quick reply. I’ll keep working at putting chapters on. I like the drop-down menu idea very much. :-)
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I have tons of questions, but here’s just one: I would like to add a comment form to every page of my stories. Each page is a separate chapter, so a 3-chapter story will have three pages. I like to read comments about how I’m doing as a writer, but there’s only the Like button on each page. That’s not verbal enough for this writer. I need to know how people think, or how they enjoyed the story. Only their written comments can tell me that. Can you help me place a comment box on each page (each chapter)?
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To enable comments on specific pages, please follow the steps at https://wordpress.com/support/comments/#on-a-post-or-page
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Hi! Thanks for the quick reply. I have enabled comments under Discussion, but I only see the Like Button. Like is not what I’m after. I want the reader to be able to write a word commentary into a block such as the one on the home page. Can you help me set up ‘blocks’ on all the pages for commentary, not just a Like Button?
Thanks!
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I’d like to add tag words to my blog, but I don’t know how. Can you help me? A
Also, I put a blog stats widget block on the sidebar of the homepage, but I can’t move it or delete it as the sidebar doesn’t come up under Edit. How do I change it in any way when I can’t see it on the edit page? I read how to remove widgets, but I can’t see it on the edit page for Home, so I can’t get at it to change it.
Thanks for your help.
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Sure, we’ve got a tutorial on adding tags here:
https://wordpress.com/support/posts/tags/Plus some FAQs here:
https://wordpress.com/support/posts/categories-vs-tags/Also, I put a blog stats widget block on the sidebar of the homepage, but I can’t move it or delete it as the sidebar doesn’t come up under Edit. How do I change it in any way when I can’t see it on the edit page? I read how to remove widgets, but I can’t see it on the edit page for Home, so I can’t get at it to change it.
You’re using an older theme that requires setting up all widgets through Customize > Widgets. So you can remove it there, or change its visibility, or do whatever works best for you. It’s just not directly editable in the page layout with that theme. I hope that helps!
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Thanks for your quick reply. When I go to Reader and drop down to Tags, I put in two words of my blog name as a search tag, but my blog doesn’t come up. Shouldn’t it come up with those key words? If it should, how do I make my blog appear while searching a particular tag?
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I found out how to remove Blog Stats on the Homepage sidebar. But I would like to have it on another page, like an About Me page. Is that possible, or must it go only on the sidebar of the Homepage?
Thanks for answering both of my questions, including the one in the block above.
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What tags are you searching for in the Reader?
As for the page, if you only want it linked to on one specific page, personally I’d recommend just adding the link to the page’s content: https://wordpress.com/support/links/
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I’m searching for Rat Patrol and my friend’s blog comes up with that tag, but hers is an older blog. I want readers who type in the Rat Patrol or use a tag to find my site listed, too.
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Hello there,
I’ve done a search for Rat Patrol in the reader and I’m seeing the blog post appear as seen here:
If you’d want to use that tag, it would be searchable.
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Hi, I’ve done a Google search for my Rat Patrol Stories blog and I haven’t found anything. I’ve been reading a lot about meta data and other confusing terms. Do have some hints for me to optimize search engine capability?
On the page above, I want to change Name of story to the actual titles I have listed in the index. Can you help me?
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Your site was just recently made public 2 weeks ago.
It can take Google a few weeks to a few months to index new sites, but you can track their progress by verifying your site in their search console: https://wordpress.com/support/site-verification-services/#google-search-console
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I verified my site ownership, but now to the second question. How do I get rid of Name of Story from my search page on Reader and add the titles of my stories in a clickable way. Thanks!
P.S. I don’t know where Name of Story came from, but it’s not very descriptive of my works.
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Hmm, I’m not sure I understand. You see “Name of Story” as a title somewhere on your site? Or is it on a specific page in the WordPress.com reader? Can you share a link to the page you are seeing this on so we can visit and take a closer look?
Thanks!
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