This post is inspired by a comment in another thread yesterday of a few people being quite daunted and/or confused by the prospect of finding fanfiction to read even if they are aware of AO3 as a site. I figured this deserved its own post.

Disclaimer: I'm hardly an expert at using AO3. I'm making this post with some basic tips as a starting-off point, and I invite any active AO3-users to contribute in the comments with additional tips and tricks.

Finding a Fandom

AO3 is primarily known for fanfiction, but the site also hosts completely original works. The tag Original Work can be browsed and filtered like any fandom. Start here, if that is what you're interested in. (Original Work, sorted by Kudos, English only)

If you're interested in a specific fandom, there's two easy ways to get there:

• Option 1: On the top left, under "Fandoms", find the alphabetic list of all fandoms of one media type (e.g. Books & Literature). Click the letter your fandom starts with and then either scroll until you find it, or (recommended) use Ctrl+F on PC to find the fandom on that page. On mobile, your browser likely also has a Find in Page option. (Mine is there when I tap the three dots on the bottom right and then scroll down a bit, that's using Chrome on iOS)
  
• Option 2: Type the name of your Fandom/Piece of Media into the search bar and then click on the Fandom beneath any fic's title and author. Example: When I type "a court of thorns and roses" into the search bar, the second result is actually a Once Upon a Time Fic with that as a title. If I only want to see fics for Sarah J Maas book series, I click the "A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas" link with the dotted line underneath.

If you're not sure what you are looking for, here are some options:

• Go on the All Fandoms page and browse the most popular fandoms, see if any of that strikes your fancy
  
• Instead of starting with a specific fandom, you can also type a specific element/trope into the search bar. If you're looking for explicit things, try this with any kink or sex act, and you'll find plenty of stories that feature that thing. You can then further specify your search with the "Edit your Search" button on the top right.

Sorting

By default, fics on AO3 are sorted by when they were last updated. This is helpful for always getting shown something new, but if it's your first time venturing into a fandom (or into fanfic in general), you might want to start with something that's established and somewhat acknowledged. For that, I recommend using the "Sort and Filter" panel on the right of the page to sort by Kudos. That way, you get the "best of" for our current search.

Remember to press the "Sort and Filter" button above to actually apply the new sorting.

Filtering Your Search

Once you're on the page of a specific fandom (or character, or sex act, whatever floats your boat), you can refine your search. Particularly useful to know:

• The search is split into Include and Exclude. This means that all tags, ratings, relationships etc. can be used to both filter for, as well as filter against
  
• This might not be obvious unless you click on it: the Categories search section is used to specify a gender combination, e.g. M/M or F/F or F/M
• If you're looking primarily for smut, filter by Include -> Rating -> Explicit. Note that an explicit rating doesn't mean there won't be anything but explicit content in the fic, but you can use tags such as "Porn Without Plot" or "Eventual Smut" to further specify.
• Open the Relationships section to see the most popular pairings in the chosen fandom or search. Note again, that if none of these strike your fancy, you can simply exclude them in the Exclude section and you'll see the next most popular ones.
  
• Remember that you always need to scroll back up and press the Sort and Filter button in order for your search parameters to get applied.
  

Kudos and Comments

Kudos: Kudos are AO3's version of Likes, but the culture around them is a little bit different: From what I've seen, you generally give a story Kudos as a bare minimum of "I read this, thanks for writing it". If you really enjoyed it, leave a comment saying so. If you really really enjoyed it and want to make sure you find it again, there is a bookmark function.

Critique: All work on AO3 is available for free. Respect the authors that put their time and effort into these stories, and remember that for writers much like for readers, AO3 is the place they go as a hobby and for fun. As such, it's common courtesy that Comments on AO3 are not a place for criticism. This isn't goodreads. If you leave a "3/5, the characterization was kind of inconsistent" beneath a fic on AO3, that is generally considered a dick move. Say something nice or move on.

Generally, it makes a lot of sense to just be generous with your comments and your kudos! AO3 comments don't need to be lengthy, but you have the chance to make any fic writer's entire week (and motivate them to write more!) with a simple "I loved reading this, thank you so much!" or any mention of any specific detail about the fic you enjoyed.

Edit for an addition: No fic is ever "too old" to leave a comment on. This is an Archive. You're not expected to keep up with fics as they release, and I promise you every author will find a lot of joy in their old fics getting newly appreciated.

Tags and "DDDNE"

AO3 is famous for a) allowing anything, there's no topic too dark or weird to be written about on this site and b) its extensive Tagging system that allows readers to search for as well as avoid literally anything. As Romance readers, most of us are already familiar with the concept of not yucking other people's yums and just staying out of the genres and tropes we don't enjoy, but on AO3 this goes doubly: If there's types of content you don't want to see (and I bet there is, for everyone), make sure to carefully look at a fic's tags before reading.

This means that you may find fic with tags/contents that are distasteful to you: from unusual kinks, to things like incest or underage characters, to unhealthy/immoral relationships... If you encounter such things, know that it is your own responsibility as a reader to avoid/ignore/exclude them.

The term "Dead Dove do not eat" is sometimes used to express this sentiment, based on a scene from the TV Show Arrested Development. What it boils down to is this: if something is tagged with a thing you absolutely don't want to see/support/promote/read about, then simply do not interact with it. Don't like, don't read. Make liberal use of your back button and/or your Exclude search options, but don't make it the problem of the people who do enjoy reading or writing about the controversial thing in question, at least not on AO3 itself.

Miscellaneous Tips

• Bookmark (either in AO3 or in your browser) your favorite tags or searches in order to quickly find something specific again. This is increasingly useful the more complex your searches get.
  
• If you like a thing (be it a character, a relationship, or any other tag/trope/act/kink), you can click on it and see more stories with that tag, character, relationship etc.
• When filtering by relationships, be aware of the difference between / and &: Astarion/Halsin means fic where the characters Astarion and Halsin are romantically/sexually involved with each other. Astarion & Halsin means fic where both characters appear and interact, but not necessarily as a couple. (side note: that's where the term "slash fiction" originates)
  
• There are a bunch of search field operators that you can use to further filter your searches. Find them here on the Hidden Search Operators Cheatsheet
  
• There are skins for AO3 that you can apply to make the site look different. For example, to view the site in "dark mode". Find those skins here.
  
• /r/AO3 exists and has some further tips, browser extensions and other useful stuff in its sidebar.
  
• Edit for addition: AO3 very deliberately does not have anything like an "algorithm" to show you content, no "for you" page or anything like that. You curate your own experience, and AO3 doesn't track which tags you enjoy. See this post.

Closing Words and Further Questions

Thank you for reading!! I know this seems really basic if you're already familiar with AO3, but considering that a few of you were so happy about my explanation in the other thread, I believe this post is useful to a bunch of people!

If you're an AO3 regular yourself, please do feel free to chime in with additions, corrections and further tips for what I've missed. I haven't been using the site for that long, so I'm sure there's plenty to add.