FAQ: How do I find a story to read?

When looking for a story to read on infinite-story.com there are many options to help you find just the right selection. The main page, for instance, lists a number of stories in three groups for those who just want to jump in and read. The main page also includes some quick-search links and the entire advanced search bar. You can jump to most of the quick-search links from the Read menu drop-down on any page of the site or jump to the search page by clicking on Read.

Note: Only stories that have been set to public and have at least 20 rooms in them will show up in any search list. Private stories can not be read by anyone but the owner and stories with less than 20 rooms can only be read if you directly look at the author's list of stories.

Quick-Search Links

The Quick-Search links take most of the work and worry out of your searches for you, and allows you quickly find a list of stories that may interest you. If you are interested in a certain genre or Category of story you can simply click on that Category and you will be taken to a list of stories from it. There are also other Quick-Searches that allow you to jump to other useful lists and each of them will be described briefly here:

Note: None of the quick searches will result in lists that include stories rated MA. To access the MA stories you have to do an advanced search.

• Most Popular: This search will show you a list of the stories that have been looked at and read the most time (number of hits) in descending order. These are also usually some of the oldest stories on the site.
• Top Rated: This search will show you a list of the stories that have been rated the highest by the users of the site, from highest to lowest. This is where you will likely find the cream of the crop the site has to offer.
• Newest Stories: This search will show you a list of the newest stories that have been created on the site, in descending order. Most of these stories are far from finished, but this can be a good way see what is up and coming.
• Recently Active: This search will show you a list of the stories that have recently been added to, in descending order, even if they are older stories. This is where you can see what is still being worked on.
• Random Story: Unlike the other Quick-Searches, this one not actually a search. Instead it will instantly take you to the start of one random story on the site without showing you a list. There is no knowing what you will find with this click.

Understanding the List

When you do a search of any kind it will result in a list of stories spread out over several pages. Understanding and navigating this list can seen daunting and confusing, but it's actually rather simple once you understand it.

The list is broken into ten columns and has a number of rows per page. Each row lists information about one story. At the top and bottom of the list you will see a row of numbers showing how many pages that the search revealed. You can jump to any of these pages by clicking on the page number, or click on Previous and next to jump back and forth one page at a time.

Most of the columns are self explanatory, but some of them may need a little description to help you understand them. The following are some short notes about some of them:

• Story Title: Along with the title of the story (which you can click on to jump to that story) this column can include a short comment about he story from the author below it and occasionally a small red square. The small red square means the story is locked by the owner, so that only he can add rooms to it.
• Owner: This column simply lists the name of the creator or owner of the story, but not necessarily the only person to have added to it. Clicking on the name opens up their profile page.
• Category: This column lists the category the owner of the story set for it. If you click on the category it will perform a Quick-Search for all stories of that category.
• MR: This column lists the Maturity Rating the owner of the story set for it. If you click on the MR at the top of the column it will take you to the Reference page describing what each rating means.
• Choices: This column tells you how many different choices the entire story has. The higher this number is, compared to the number of rooms, the more choices you are likely to find in each room.
• Rating (#): This column gives you the overall rating the other users have given this story (on a scale of 1 through 10) and how many people voted to create that average.

Advanced Searches

You are capable of altering your search in any way you want, using the provided tools, by doing an advanced search. The row of four pop-up menus and five check boxes below the Quick-Searches are used to formulate the type of Advance Search you want. You set each of them the way you want for your desired search and click the "Go" button to show the results. Each of these tools will be described here:

• First Pop-Up: This pop-up allows you to set what the main criteria by which the list of stories will be sorted. This usually will not remove any stories from the list, but simply choose which information will be used to sort the displayed stories.
• Second Pop-Up: This pop-up simply chooses what direction the data chosen by the first pop-up will be displayed: Ascending (lowest to highest) or Descending (highest to lowest).
• Third Pop-Up: This pop-up is a filter to limit the search to only stories of a certain category. If you leave it as "All Stories" this will do nothing to filter out any of them.
• Fourth Pop-Up: This pop-up is a filter to limit the search to only stories who's names start with a certain letter. If you leave this as "Starts with" or "Any letter" this will do nothing to filter out any of them.
• MR Check Boxes: These check boxes are used to filter the stories to only those with the Maturity Ratings you choose. By default this is set to all but MA, but you can change it simply by clicking them on and off however you want. Those that are checked will show up in the search and those that are un-checked will be filtered out of the search.
• Go Button: Once you set all your Advanced Search settings how you want them all you have to do is click this button and the page will reload with your settings in place. It will now display a list based on how you set them.