Where to Read Fanfiction
and how to find more you love
If I’ve finally convinced you to start reading fanfiction, the next logical question is where to get it from.
Archive of Our Own
My favorite resource for fanfiction is Archive of Our Own (AO3). You can browse for fanfics by fandom and then sort and filter for ratings, characters, tags, etc. I’ve found their filtering system to be comprehensive and allow me to select the criteria I’m interested in reading. AO3 also has an extensive tagging system and authors who post there will utilize the tags to inform the reader of various plot devices, tropes, content warnings, etc. The tags are clickable so that you can find more stories using the same tags and/or romantic pairings.
When you’ve found a fanfic you want to read, there are a few options on how to go about reading it. In your web browser, you can read the story in the default setting chapter by chapter, you can click the entire work to read it all in one page, or you can download the story to read offline. Within the download button, there are a couple of choices to make there too depending on your preferred format. For multi-chapter fanfics, I’ll often download the entire work and send it to my Kindle (and it will be available on both the Kindle app on my iPhone and my Kindle Paperwhite e-reader). For short fics, I’ll just read it within the browser of my iPhone.
The video below has a bunch of really great Draco/Hermione fanfic recommendations as well as a tutorial on how to send fanfics to your Kindle.
Fanfiction.net
One of the original websites I started on for reading fanfiction is Fanfiction.net. They organize the website by type of media and then by fandom. When you’re browsing within any particular fandom, you can toggle the type of story you want, characters your interested in, the rating, etc. These days, I rarely read fics from this site because it’s clunky to navigate and there are ads all over the place. People have said that the app-version is much better, but I haven’t tried it. Most of the stories I’m interested in reading are available on Archive of Our Own and there are only a few exceptions where I’ll need to find the story on Fanfiction.net.
Wattpad
Wattpad is another resource for both fanfiction and original fiction. I have no experience navigating this site whatsoever, so you’ll have to poke around yourself if you’re interested in reading there.
How to Find Fics You Will Like
A few weeks ago, someone somewhere on the internet suggested that AO3 become more algorithm-based so that readers could be served up relevant fics to read. However, the filtering system is so good at fine-tuning your results, that it really isn’t necessary. Plus, who wants their long-form fictional entertainment served to them from an algorithm? Fanfic author SenLinYu posted on her Twitter feed a thread on how she finds new fics to read and I completely agree (and have used) with this method.
Where to Get More Fanfiction Recommendations
If you want fanfiction recommendations with a bit more of a personal touch than the search results of a database like AO3, there are lots of resources depending on your fandom of choice. I will often share romance fics for Harry Potter and Bridgerton. There are subreddits for Harry Potter fanfic in general, Dramione, or Harry/Hermione. Facebook groups can also be great sources of recommendations, there’s one for Dramione and for Tomione (Tom Riddle/Hermione). If your TikTok For You Page is optimized for your interests, then you’ll see some fic recs there as well.
Want Harry Potter fanfic? Here’s a spreadsheet of my all-time favorites.
Thanks so much for reading this post! Looking for more bookish resources and romance book reviews? Read the archives!
Useful Resources:
Read an introduction to fanfiction
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