Non-human and Erotic Horror

If you were writing a story about non-human creature, but it involved murders (like sacrifices, general horror-esque murder; NOT used in a sexual manner which is very much against rules).

Would you put it in Erotic Horror or Non-human? How would you differentiate the two? Is there a spot on literotica that explains the different categories with detail?

I think I'd put it in horror--on the basis that putting it in the less-violent category would have more a chance of shocking an unprepared reader.

There are short explanation of the categories on the Story page. I'm not aware of an official fuller-explanation one.

I usually think of anything non-human as that, no matter if murder occurred or not. My erotic horrors has always consisted of humans doing horrific things, I think we assume the non-humans are always up to no good. JMO.

kromen said:

I think we assume the non-humans are always up to no good. JMO.

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Oh? Aren't fairy Romance type stories put here too? You go in for a nice unicorn and princess story and the unicorn gets sliced and diced and served to the princess for dinner, I think you're probably gonna get pissed with the author.

This is one where you're going to have to judge it by the story. You need to decide which is the dominant theme.

Horror is a bit of a trump card -- although not a major one. If there's a significant portion of the story that centers around the sacrifices and murders, you may want to go that way. Even a 30% might be enough to consider going Horror as opposed to NonHuman.

Non Human has become the sexy Vampire and Werewolf category, and that's honestly what most readers are coming there looking for. It makes the darker stories a much tougher sell than they once were.

In addition, the moderators seem to give more leeway for darker storylines in horror than they do in NonHuman. Something that might be rejected in NH may very well pass muster as an erotic Horror story. I suppose that they believe the title of the category alone serves as an up front warning.

Darkniciad said:

Non Human has become the sexy Vampire and Werewolf category, and that's honestly what most readers are coming there looking for. It makes the darker stories a much tougher sell than they once were.

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See that is what I was thinking when i thought about placing it there. I don't want to give away the creature, because its more than 1 chapter... but its definitely not one of those "I am a deadly but gentle" type of stories.

Its more of a rough, and gritty.. I am evil and now I am going to fuck you hard sort of stories.

PurrfectMoon said:

See that is what I was thinking when i thought about placing it there. I don't want to give away the creature, because its more than 1 chapter... but its definitely not one of those "I am a deadly but gentle" type of stories.

Its more of a rough, and gritty.. I am evil and now I am going to fuck you hard sort of stories.

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Go with non-human for the opposite reason of the shock value. I understand his point of catching the reder off guard, give them a a little scare or thrill.

But Lit readers are funny and if you put something too violent in there you could get a lot of flack. If this is a death and destruction bad ass type non-human is the way to go.

Your description makes me think along the lines of Lumley's Necroscope series. Evil and horny as hell.

Post the benign build-up chapter(s) in non-human, then start tossing them into horror when the blood and gore starts.

There's plenty of overlap between the two. NonHuman gets more attention, but as Dark pointed out the readers are mainly after the sexy Vampire/Werewolf cliches.

If it's paranormal romance (Twilight, True Blood), put it in NonHuman. A little bit of violence and gore won't matter so long as one of your protagonists is a sexy Vampire/Werewolf/Angel/etc and there's a significant chance they're going to get it on at some point with your other protagonist.

If it's old-skool horror (King, Clive Barker), put it in Erotic Horror. This is where the NonHuman character is clearly the antagonist, sex and seduction (which can still be really hot) is a means to catch prey and love is largely absent.

Tyro999 said:

Post the benign build-up chapter(s) in non-human, then start tossing them into horror when the blood and gore starts.

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I disagree with that. Because the categories are very close to begin with it's not worth jumping. It's not like you have an erotic couplings story but chapter three will feature incest or Gay male and you have to jump ship for risk of offending people. I think start and stay in non human, they will enjoy the benign parts as well they are not all bloodthirsty.

Since the category is "Erotic Horror," does the horror in your story have anything to do with the erotica or the sex? If not, sounds like nonhuman might work better. And although werewolves and vampires may dominate nonhuman, that doesn't mean they're all sexy critters, nor does it mean there can't be other critters and darker themes in there.