So when I read fanfiction, I sort by kudos on AO3 or favorites on FFN and then start at the top and work my way down. I know what's popular isn't necessarily the same thing as what's good, but there's certainly a higher correlation than just grabbing random fic from the recently updated pile. I tend to read relatively old fic this way since it's had a couple of years to gather more kudos/faves. I also look at what authors are well-known and check out their works, though I'm pretty bad at this since the only source I know of is Fanlore, which in many cases is outdated. (That's how I found @Vast Derp and co.) Recently I've been reading a couple of fic recs from Derp & co as well. I think this might not be a common way of doing things? It seems most people either look at what's new or look at what's recommended, which seems odd to me because there's no quality control on what's new, and there are plenty of fandoms with a large amount of fic but virtually no presence anywhere else, so how would you get recs? But I suppose if you spend enough time reading fic, you run through the popular ones pretty fast, maybe? Since I do other crap like video games and published books and TV and Kintsugi, I generally read one large fic every month or so. Anyways, I am curious and a bit confused about how everybody else finds fic to read.
I sort by character and then just look through the list of new shit. Because I am a woman who wants to read shit about Porrim or something. And by god I will. Sometimes I'll sort by categories too but usually it's just character and let's fucking go.
i almost always go by popularity, just because i'm into several very common pairings, and the sheer volume of fic is overwhelming. also, with popular pairings (like john/karkat or steve/bucky) there's a whole lot of entry-level stuff, and frankly life's too short. i'm not going to mock or sneer if someone's not a good writer yet, but i'm also not going to spend my limited reading time plowing through the 63459th un-betaed iteration of "i'm not gay but it's okay if it's you." the popular end of the pool is where i'm more likely to find things that are worth my time, though i definitely won't like everything there either. that said, when i'm looking at a tag that's NOT completely swamped, i'll actually give each fic's summary a looking-over. there just isn't enough, say, cecil/earl fic to make me have to sort by kudos, i can skim the whole list. so at that point i'm pretty much going by the criteria i would apply to all fic if i had the time and patience: does the summary actually tell me what kind of story it is? none of my squicks/triggers/nopes in the tags? no spelling/grammar errors in the summary? not by an author who likes to pull bullshit? (i.e. untagged major character death or downer endings because 'that would spoil the suspense!') does it sound interesting?
There's fanfic recs pages on TVTropes as well. And sometimes if you go into the right anon meme on livejournal or dreamwidth you can ask for recs there, too.
I tend to accumulate fic rec tabs, and then basically pick one at random. Sometimes I go via length or genre or pairing or whatnot, and sometimes I actually go looking for new stuff, then I sort via focus, length, and new. And yeah, seconding all what @jacktrash said. Life is too short for bad fics, I had enough of those in my teenage years, heh. EDIT: how did i forget TVT's recc page. how.
oh, but i forgot to mention: my actual answer is usually None Of The Above! i usually don't get my fics from tag searches at all. what i mostly do is chain bookmarks. by which i mean, when i read something i like, i check the author's bookmarks. find something in there i like, check that author's bookmarks, and so on. i just followed a bookmark chain of winter soldier fic that took me almost three weeks to read through before it looped back and i couldn't find anything new that i wanted to read. must've found 500k words worth of fic without going back to the pairing or fandom tags.
You forgot the ever important "Is the fic my ship?" Which, is kind of a hugely deciding factor for me these days, I've gotten to the point where I don't read anything but my OTPs. Following that, though, I give the summary a really judgemental look, for both mechanical writing ability and "is this summary any kind of an interesting idea, like at all." I consider popularity worthless, especially on FFnet. AO3's popularity contest is slightly more reliable as an indicator of quality, but... Length can sometimes be the deciding factor on a so-so summary, especially as relates to the length/chapter ratio. A fic with more words per chapter tends to be better; I utterly refuse to read anything that averages less than a thousand words/chapter.
That depends on wether I'm new to the fandom or not. Usually, I'll get into the tag for a pairing I like - john/karkat or Dragon Age Protagonist Of Choice/Preferred Love Interest, these days - filter it by reading mood (gen, smut), kudos to hits ratio, and then start working: does the fic's summary seem interesting? Is it well written? Are there any of my squicks tagged? Does it seem like it uses characterization I agree with? Does the writer pull tumblr tagging system bullshit or uses the tags seriously? How many words per chapter? Does the fic type justify the words per chapter ratio? Is there any punctuation choices in the summary that make me twitch? -> this one is actually important, because if I don't agree with a writers punctuation I'll spend more time copy editing the if than reading it I'll open each fic that seems interesting in a new tab, and when there are enough tabs, I'll start addin them to the read later pile. After I reach either the end of the tag or a part where I stop finding stuff I like I'll switch to check-for-new-updates mode, and go through the same process. If I find a fic that I like REALLY very much, I'll favorite it and go check the authors other writing, read it, then check their favorites for anything interesting to add to the pile. If it passes the filtering and I am just lukewarm enjoying it I'll give kudos, and whatever passed the filters but turned out to be bullshit goes to the culling block.
tags, kudos, bookmark chain Recommendations from people I know online I am also lucky enough to be in big enough fandoms generally that I have the ability to sort by kudos
There's fanfic recs pages on TVTropes as well. And sometimes if you go into the right anon meme on livejournal or dreamwidth you can ask for recs there, too.
I don't read much fic now, but when I did I usually did the bookmark chain thing. When I wasn't following links fom someone's favourites on fanfiction dot net, I tended to use the search filters to find ones with characters or pairings I liked in genres I found interesting, and then select from the results the ones with titles and descriptions that looked promising. I followed links from fanfic recs on TVTropes a few times too, though.
I tend to find an author i like and binge all their fic. I get into new fandoms pretty regularly because an author i like starts writing it so whoops time to find the canon
That's why I'm currently trying to watch the mcu. I checked out the Incredible Hulk from two different places and both times the disc was unreadable. >: (
None of the above. I read pretty much exclusively and Ao3 and my method is to go through the big list and look at the tags for squicks and triggers, then look at description and see if it sounds interesting. Narrowing down goes about like this: Pick a fandom > Pick a Character > Pick a pairing > Pick N/SFW > If NSFW, Pick a kink. Sometimes I will notice several fics I like are by the same author and go through that authors works for anything else I might like, still following the above chain. How far along the chain I go tends to depend on my mood at the time, and oocasionally I will skip the shipping step.
When I'm in the mood for something, I'll go to AO3 and sort by kudos, and I'll also binge authors, and I'm subscribed to a couple authors. But I also have a friend who runs a rec blog, and another friend who reads a ton and sends me any fic she thinks I might like, so I find most of my new fic from them or other friend recommendations. I just keep my Marked For Later reasonably topped off, and haven't run out yet.
For big fandoms like Homestuck or MCU, I usually only go by recommendations of authors I like. For instance, all the MCU stuff I've read is because roachpatrol or ceruleancynic recced it at some point. Similarly for fandoms that I'm not really in, or not really big on fanworks; for instance I don't go for much PMMM stuff and only started reading To The Stars because an author I like in a different fandom recced it For smaller fandoms or fandoms where I have less-popular ships I usually just skim the summaries on any new stuff to see if there are any blatant grammatical or characterization errors and if the premise looks interesting or not.
i usually pick a fandom (or go to a crossover section sometimes) go immediately to whatever site i'm on's advanced search, change the length to around >10,000 words, then change genre to whatever im in the mood for. if there's still thousands of fics to pick from (usually unlikely for me) THEN i start narrowing down by whether or not favorite characters are in it or the rest of my determination list: 1. how long is the average chapter? if there's a high chapter count but each one is only about a hundred words, i probably won't read it. 2. do the tags contain the words "songfic" or "don't like don't read"? i usually pass those by too. the way songfics are set up usually hurts my head and i don't like the aggressive tone of the other tag. 3. when was it last updated? i've been burned too many times by good fic that hasn't updated in 10+ years in a lot of my smaller fandoms. i'll sometimes still read them knowing there won't be a proper ending. 4. look for specific AU tropes i enjoy. very rarely, in such cases like the borderlands, portal, and midnight crew fandoms, there's not much to work with so i'll read anything i can get my hands on that even minimally suits my tastes, combing through the choices like a desperate fool every once in a while or rereading old favorites. idc about length in those cases but every other time it has to be long because i want the chapter backlog so i don't lose interest. that's why i qualify everything by length first. i don't think it's ever occurred to me to sort by kudos or likes, i might try that!
People like you seem to be the norm as far as point one goes. I'm a fan of short chapters but it seems most of the fics I click on have 10k words a chapter. As for three, I've heard that from a lot of people, but isn't it hard to keep up with updating fic? I generally read to whatever chapter is last and then don't return. It seems my options for keeping up with updating fic are A) ruin my email account with a garbage load of update spam or B) check each fic individually whenever I'm in the mood to read. On AO3 I've been trying a bit of C) bookmark the fic and put the current final chapter in the bookmark notes. I just AO3 or FFN had something like YouTube where you can see what's updated when you go to the actual website instead of in emails. I'm also a fan of author's notes, but everybody else seems to hate those for some reason. I love seeing little updates in the author's life/writing process at the beginning of each chapter.
I´m pretty neutral on authors notes. They certainly don´t belong inside the actual chapter but at the beginning or end I can just skip them if I wanna. And sometimes they have fun metainfo. I subscribe to all unfinished fics I read on AO3, and still end up not having enough new material that I like. I read too darn fast.
