Experience with mixing sub genres?

Working on a series that mixes genres - start with some voyeurism and bondage, moves into monster stuff, and will probably end up covering everything from toes to nose. It's all done (or at least attempted to be done) in a realistic and creative way.

Wondering if others have had experience with trying it out.

Thanks

Spanning several genres is no problem. My last one was a Loving Wives / non-consensual / BDMS / Voyeur combo and was reasonably well received. The main challenge is usually figuring out what category to submit the story in...

GM is a trump genre, so despite every MM story I've ever written getting put into one category, I have a lot of experience with genre mixing.

I think the most common 'mixed' genre might be romance, but since the few straight stories that I read mostly come from scifi/fantasy, this might be wrong. It's just that in every category, there are love stories. And most of my GM stories are romances, or at least romantic.

I've also dabbled in bondage, mature, nonhuman, scifi/fantasy, noncon, anal, group sex, first time, interracial, toys&masturbation, and letters&transcripts. But all of those were through the context of GM relationships. That's why we call GM a trump genre. It didn't matter that my story File 66 belonged in letters&transcripts. It didn't matter that Shy Jared was about a silver fox. It didn't matter that half of my stories are about nonhumans or fantasy worlds. It all went in one place.

Is GENRE anything like CATEGORY?

I heard GENRE is a category for NONE OF THE ABOVE.

You assholes corrupt the language when you just make shit up.

There's more than one way to skin a category. Or a gory cat. But I digress.

Choosing categories (and calling them genres or genera or whatever) for posting should IMHO be based on certain criteria:

* Does the story fit the cat?
* Do you want a high vote score?
* Do you want lots of readers?
* Do fucktard comments bother you?

The votes vs readers axis is significant. In some cats, you'll only get a few hundred readers, but fairly high votes if the story is OK. In other cats (like LW), you'll get tens of thousands or more views, but many many fucktard comments and 1-bombs etc. And some give both. My highest-scoring story is in the same cat as my lowest-scoring but most-read story. Of course, the winner panders to readers and the loser challenges readers.

If you're nervous, then don't necessarily mix too many sub-cats IN ONE EPISODE. Write a multi-part tale where each chapter is a different category. You might be able to drag in more readers that way. Assuming that your goal is to grab eyeballs, that is.

Cruel2BKind said:

GM is a trump genre, so despite every MM story I've ever written getting put into one category, I have a lot of experience with genre mixing.

I think the most common 'mixed' genre might be romance, but since the few straight stories that I read mostly come from scifi/fantasy, this might be wrong. It's just that in every category, there are love stories. And most of my GM stories are romances, or at least romantic.

I've also dabbled in bondage, mature, nonhuman, scifi/fantasy, noncon, anal, group sex, first time, interracial, toys&masturbation, and letters&transcripts. But all of those were through the context of GM relationships. That's why we call GM a trump genre. It didn't matter that my story File 66 belonged in letters&transcripts. It didn't matter that Shy Jared was about a silver fox. It didn't matter that half of my stories are about nonhumans or fantasy worlds. It all went in one place.

Click to expand...

I don't agree. I find that there really is no such thing as a trump category. I've mixed GM, Incest and Anal all into one and it went to the category I wanted. It may have been because I included in the notes section a reason for keeping the series in the same category. If that's the case, then doing so overrides any supposed "trump" you might fear exists. Remember that Laurel really only skims through the stories and her eye catches certain words, phrases, or situations. If she gets the idea that the story is about two men, she'll put it in GM.

Next time, add something in the Notes field about why you want the story to go where you want it. She'll probably agree.

There's nothing wrong with it.

If anything, it helps make your story unique.

But be sure to advertise the different sub-themes in the story description so people get fair warning.

JAMESBJOHNSON said:

Is GENRE anything like CATEGORY?

I heard GENRE is a category for NONE OF THE ABOVE.

You assholes corrupt the language when you just make shit up.

Click to expand...

He's an angry elf

I had a long running series that was a mix of incest and BDSM as well as some other fetishes. But because of incest I left it there for the duration. It was not a widely read series. BDSM/incest I guess is not a good combo. Although it was all consensual the oncest crowd is not overly found of rough stuff.

I did receive my all time favorite comment through it though. "That my dear author is no way for a loving brother to treat his sister!"