First of all thanks again Martin for all the hard work you put into the site.
As I was reading the comments on the last chapter of Slave Academy I noticed some people wanted a bit more exposition or explaining of parts of the story; I was wondering if it would be possible to add a feature similar to bookmarking where you can link to text on the same story.
The way I envision the feature to work is by the Authors choice to at the end of the story can write mini exposition chapters that would normally be in the story itself but instead leave an appropriate link that if clicked would take the reader there for more explanation. Also at the end of the story you would have a link to the comment section so the reader doesn’t have to manually have to scroll throughout all the explanation or maybe you can instead of putting it at the end just hide the text and when you click the link it would show it and have another link to hide it again.
for example:
in the Slave Academy some readers wanted to know more about the actual Joe’s enslavement by Nathan; that explanation could be just a click away for anyone that wanted it.
another example would be; let’s say a reality change were public nudity became completely legal, in the story you can just leave a link so people that prefer short to the point stories don’t have to look at the world building but you can still satisfy the readers that do like world building and know how that reality change affect the world at large and not just the protagonist.
I know an Author could just make a chapter discussing those but I believe having it in the same story would be better as it would save on having to approve a different submission.
I understand what you’re asking for and agree that this would be nice, however, I doubt that it would get used much, to be honest. Especially since I can’t see an easy method for the user to use that. And it would be quite a lot of work to implement it, too.
So for now, I’d recomment using the browser’s own search function, i.e. you quote some unique part of the story the user can search for with Ctrl-F. That’s not nearly as convinient, but it would achieve what you’re looking for.
Also to jump to the comment section, you can press the comment badge at the top of the story (where the current number of comments are shown). And to jump from the top of the comment section to the bottom, simply click the ‘New Comment’ button.
Thanks for the fast reply
I know about the link to the comments section but I was talking about if we added all that stuff at the end of the story then you would have to scroll thru all of that to get to them but if the Author could add a link at the end of the actual story and not the end of all the extra exposition that way the reader wouldn’t have to manually scroll thru the extra eposition into the comments.
but the point is moot now since it’s hard to code and like you said wouldn’t get used much.
I am going to agree with Martin and say that feature probably wouldn’t get used. For instance, in my story that you mentioned, CommandoGuy, I would not have used that feature in the way you describe even if it had been available to me. If I wanted to write that scene, I would’ve just included it in the main body of the story.
I think the comments section underneath each story already serves the function you’re looking for, CommandoGuy. Every once in a while, in response to reader requests, I’ve used the comments to explain a bit more of the backstory that I withhold (or keep ambiguous) in the story itself.