Categories

[windar]

I hope people won't take this the wrong way, but as a newbie to this site I find the categories somewhat confusing, to say the least. I write multi-chapter novella length stories (50k words or so on average with typically 20 or so chapters). Taken as a whole, most, or at least many, have elements that are Non-Consent/Reluctance, BDSM, Erotic Horror (I've written several erotic crime thrillers), Group Sex (in some cases the participants are married so is that Loving Wives?), Lesbian, Interracial (though why the skin color of the participants matters isn't clear to me), Masturbation, Exhibitionism, occasionally Incest, and perhaps bits and pieces of others...Also, a great many are written with my regular co-author, so does that make them Chain Stories? And perhaps long stretches of detectives solving murders or French Resistance fighters smuggling downed Allied airmen across borders in some of them could be Non-Erotic?

So, when I decided to post my story, "Trabbian Justice" here to expose it to a new audience (is that Exhibitionism?), I chose Novels and Novellas, "Erotic fiction with a broader scope", because that seems to cover the terrain. Now, some have told me that is rather a "dead" category, or at least less followed than some others.

To be honest, if I'm looking to read a story, I tend to search tags and then look at the description and ignore the category. So what is the purpose of the categories and if they have one, how could they be better delineated for those who haven't been here for long and find them confusing? Wouldn't the tags, with perhaps a slightly expanded descrition (say 100 words or so suffice)?

 

[NotWise]

Love Your Readers: Categories by Tx_Tall_Tales is the essential source for using Lit's categories.

In short, there are certain trump categories (I/T and GM, for instance), and if the story contains elements in one of those categories, then that's where it should go. If the story doesn't contain trump elements, then it should go to whatever category describes its main elements.

I always wonder, when authors combine a wide range or erotic elements in one story, if they're really thinking much about their audience.

 

[rescatooor]

Love Your Readers: Categories by Tx_Tall_Tales is the essential source for using Lit's categories.

In short, there are certain trump categories (I/T and GM, for instance), and if the story contains elements in one of those categories, then that's where it should go. If the story doesn't contain trump elements, then it should go to whatever category describes its main elements.

I always wonder, when authors combine a wide range or erotic elements in one story, if they're really thinking much about their audience.

They might be thinking about their target audience constantly and passionately. But they might not be thinking about which Lit category the story might go into.

 

[Lifestyle66]

...(in some cases the participants are married so is that Loving Wives?), ...

Just a word of warning: The "Loving Wives" category has a huge following of haters. If your LW story is one of consensual extramarital sex, you'll probably receive a load of 1-ratings. The stories they seem to approve are ones which "Burn the Bitch" for extramarital affairs, or in some other ways seek revenge.

I've posted to that category, and gotten slammed with 1 ratings and bad comments (not on quality of writing, but rather "Disgusting" as the subject matter.)

So, post there with that caution in mind.

 

[ElectricBlue]

To be honest, if I'm looking to read a story, I tend to search tags and then look at the description and ignore the category. So what is the purpose of the categories and if they have one, how could they be better delineated for those who haven't been here for long and find them confusing? Wouldn't the tags, with perhaps a slightly expanded descrition (say 100 words or so suffice)?

The categories were set up more than twenty years ago, they are what they are and won't change in a hurry. The site is progressing towards an enhanced tag system, but that's a slow process.

There are a few guides to navigation, so track them down and do your best to understand them. Be aware that there is a fundamental divide within Lit - Loving Wives and all other categories.

Figure out the differences and decide which side of the chasm you want to live on. Two different tribes, two completely different audiences.

 

[astushkin]

8letters posted some stats about categories that may be helpful. Note the comment about multi-chapter stories.

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?p=89859483&highlight=categories#post89859483

 

[SimonDoom]

Literotica has a variety of story organization and search tools that have developed over time and overlapped, messily, like uneven layers of sediment. Different readers use different tools to find the stories they want. Categories definitely are one of the more often-used tools.

The advantage of a category is it's a one-stop shop. Go to a category hub and you can find the latest stories in that category, the most commented-on stories, and the highest-rated stories. You can find the most popular authors who write those types of stories.

Take NotWise's advice and read that article about Categories. It was written a long time ago but it's still the best work on the subject I know of at Literotica. It has very savvy advice about where your story should be placed.

 

[rescatooor]

Since they are chaptered stories, why not just post each chapter to the category you think best encapsulates that particular chapter?

Just an idea.

 

[windar]

In short, there are certain trump categories (I/T and GM, for instance), and if the story contains elements in one of those categories, then that's where it should go. If the story doesn't contain trump elements, then it should go to whatever category describes its main elements.

I once wrote a story that had Trump in it, though I didn't actually give the character a name beyond POTUS. Are there Biden categories, too? That would seem only fair.

I always wonder, when authors combine a wide range or erotic elements in one story, if they're really thinking much about their audience.

My stories have done very well on other sites where they have been posted. In many cases, readers have specifically commented that they enjoyed the breadth of topics covered. But as the song says, "You can't please everyone, so you have to please yourself".

Take NotWise's advice and read that article about Categories. It was written a long time ago but it's still the best work on the subject I know of at Literotica. It has very savvy advice about where your story should be placed.

I will have a look at it. Though wouldn't I do better to take advice from someone who is Wise???

Since they are chaptered stories, why not just post each chapter to the category you think best encapsulates that particular chapter?

Just an idea.

I thought about that, but I like the idea of having the whole story in one place. Maybe I'll try that if I decide to post more stories here.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

 

[SimonDoom]

I will have a look at it. Though wouldn't I do better to take advice from someone who is Wise???


.

He's modest, not unwise.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Since they are chaptered stories, why not just post each chapter to the category you think best encapsulates that particular chapter?

Just an idea.

Generally not the best idea - if the story is going to go all over the shop, then it's probably better to place it in a broad based single category like Erotic Couplings and get the same reader base to give it some traction. If you category hop, you're "starting again" with each chapter and you're less likely to sustain readers.

A better strategy, I think, is to avoid the temptation to cover off many different shenanigans in the same story cycle, but to give it a tighter category focus right from the start.

Different kink, different characters, different story.

 

[windar]

Generally not the best idea - if the story is going to go all over the shop, then it's probably better to place it in a broad based single category like Erotic Couplings and get the same reader base to give it some traction. If you category hop, you're "starting again" with each chapter and you're less likely to sustain readers.

A better strategy, I think, is to avoid the temptation to cover off many different shenanigans in the same story cycle, but to give it a tighter category focus right from the start.

Different kink, different characters, different story.

If I write a story specifically for here, I may do that. But I'm not going to monkey around with what I've already written just to fit some arbitrary categories...

 

[SimonDoom]

Since they are chaptered stories, why not just post each chapter to the category you think best encapsulates that particular chapter?

Just an idea.

Agree with ElectricBlue. This is usually a bad idea, because you will piss off and lose readers.

One of the things that becomes clear with some experience at Literotica is how weird and Balkanized the landscape of kinks and categories is. Readers love one fetish, and hate another.

Sometimes it works. And sometimes you may have no good alternative.

But I think it's generally a better idea to choose one over-arching category that works for the whole story, and stick with it.

If you want to write a bunch of chapters that cover completely different categories of kinkiness, ask yourself the hard question why you want to do it this way rather than just write separate standalone stories.

I'm a big believer in the idea of erotic focus --- a story should have an erotic focus, play with it, indulge in it, and stick with it. If you want to wander, then just write different, separate stories.

You don't have to do it this way, but that's my philosophy. I think it works from both a pragmatic and aesthetic perspective.

 

[ElectricBlue]

If you want to write a bunch of chapters that cover completely different categories of kinkiness, ask yourself the hard question why you want to do it this way rather than just write separate standalone stories.

I'm a big believer in the idea of erotic focus --- a story should have an erotic focus, play with it, indulge in it, and stick with it. If you want to wander, then just write different, separate stories.

You don't have to do it this way, but that's my philosophy. I think it works from both a pragmatic and aesthetic perspective.

Agree this.

What's the likelihood that your favourite characters to write are going to have a huge range of kinks? Pretty low, I'd have thought.

Separate, stand-alone stories is so much easier, and stretches your imagination more. Last time I counted my own body of work, I ended up in seventeen different categories, which is a fair spread.

I need to drop the data and look at which categories dominate - at first glance, Mature, Romance, Erotic Couplings, Fetish, and Sci/Fi & Fantasy.

 

[RichardKimble]

I apologize for the minor thread-jacking I'm about to engage in, but it's at least topically relevant.

I have a story that I composed and cannot find a natural category. It's sort of a memoir/recollection where father and son both retell stories of being cheated on (infidelity by females). Neither are married (one is engaged) and both are long-term relationships. There is minimal sex in the story and it's relatively short ~ 7500 words.

It's hetero, no fetishes, has a "somewhat" happy ending (ie, some closure but no reconciliation). There's no burning of women in effigy, and no voyeurism (except for a 'walk-in' and turn right around scene).

It's not a story about anyone's first time, but one of the relationships is a 'first true love' kind of angle.

I've thought about changing one of the relationships to be a marriage just so it will have a category, but that category (LW) is one I'm reluctant to wade into because there is no lynching of women going on in the story.

Anyone have advice on where to put it?

Anywho, apologies again to the OP. I appreciate you initiating this topic, the responses so far have been enlightening and the subject interesting.

Cheers,
RichardK

 

[lovecraft68]

I always wonder, when authors combine a wide range or erotic elements in one story, if they're really thinking much about their audience.

My answer to that is they care about writing their story first before catering to specific readers and saying "oh shit, what if they..."

And that's the way it should be if you want to be a writer.

If you want to be a number chaser its a different conversation, but number chasers rarely write anything complex, just pandering to specific targets.

 

[PennameWombat]

<snip>
I will have a look at it. Though wouldn't I do better to take advice from someone who is Wise???
<snip>

Do you really want advice?

If I write a story specifically for here, I may do that. But I'm not going to monkey around with what I've already written just to fit some arbitrary categories...

You're the one coming here. This site works the way it works. A favorite hobby on this forum is to bitch tirelessly about the Categories. None of that has resulted in a change. Put energies elsewhere.

But there is the "Novels and Novellas" category. It's not for non-erotic, but for works that have complexity but don't necessarily fit well into another single thematic category.

Oh, just so you don't have to come here and post in shock if it happens. The sole submissions editor, Laurel, has the right to redirect your submission into a different Category if she so chooses. It's happened to me, it's probably happened to everyone who's posted on this thread.

 

[NotWise]

My answer to that is they care about writing their story first before catering to specific readers and saying "oh shit, what if they..."

And that's the way it should be if you want to be a writer.

If you want to be a number chaser its a different conversation, but number chasers rarely write anything complex, just pandering to specific targets.

I'll point out the obvious. If an author doesn't care how readers react, then there's no reason for them to publish here.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'll point out the obvious. If an author doesn't care how readers react, then there's no reason for them to publish here.

Everyone wants their story to be received well, but you can want that for your story your way and draw them to it, or go out of your way to write to formula of what works.

When I started here I did a long brother sister series 39 chapters and a 5 part spin off over about 18 months. You know round about what incest numbers are, they're high and higher back in 2010/11 when I wrote this.

Know what I was getting a chapter? How about 40-50 votes. Why? Because it featured rough BDSM sex, drug abuse, mental illness violence and all manner of real life shit.

But it was a good story, a dark romance, and I put my soul into it. For 40 votes a chapter while "Look its mommy's boobs" got 800 or more.

But I finished it, and I'm proud of the story itself and for never caving or pandering. After that I started writing some fun stuff with a few more serious things worked in, experimented with romance and other categories and over time I've done well here.

But I never sold the muse out for numbers. The stories that attracted a larger audience got them, the ones that didn't, didn't.

I've never written anything for "lets see how many votes I get"

Those that do? That's their thing, but its not like we're talking dollars here. I'll take my baby my way any day over "what's the biggest draw here' crowd.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I'll point out the obvious. If an author doesn't care how readers react, then there's no reason for them to publish here.

That's a false dichotomy. Caring about the integrity of your vision as an author doesn't preclude caring about whether or not your readers like what you produce.

I've submitted several things in Novels and Novellas because there are no categories that are appropriate. I could probably get more readers if I focused on single "fetishes", to use your term, but I have no interested in doing so. I do care about how reader's react, and I give them the best that I can. To me, limiting myself in that way is doing just the opposite.

 

[NotWise]

.......

 

[NotWise]

That's a false dichotomy. Caring about the integrity of your vision as an author doesn't preclude caring about whether or not your readers like what you produce.

I tried to write a response then realized that I have no idea what you're saying.

 

[desecration]

Group Sex (in some cases the participants are married so is that Loving Wives?)

I view it this way: category is whatever makes the story different from others, e.g. if there are marriages involved, it's Loving Wives unless the marriages are unessential (a married woman who is in the background gets run over by a cement truck driven by her ex-husband with only a six-and-a-half inch penis that's not as thick as a red bull can).

 

[MelissaBaby]

.......

My apologies, Fetishes was Simon's word, not yours.

 

[windar]

I apologize for the minor thread-jacking I'm about to engage in, but it's at least topically relevant.

I have a story that I composed and cannot find a natural category. It's sort of a memoir/recollection where father and son both retell stories of being cheated on (infidelity by females). Neither are married (one is engaged) and both are long-term relationships. There is minimal sex in the story and it's relatively short ~ 7500 words.

It's hetero, no fetishes, has a "somewhat" happy ending (ie, some closure but no reconciliation). There's no burning of women in effigy, and no voyeurism (except for a 'walk-in' and turn right around scene).

It's not a story about anyone's first time, but one of the relationships is a 'first true love' kind of angle.

I've thought about changing one of the relationships to be a marriage just so it will have a category, but that category (LW) is one I'm reluctant to wade into because there is no lynching of women going on in the story.

Anyone have advice on where to put it?

Anywho, apologies again to the OP. I appreciate you initiating this topic, the responses so far have been enlightening and the subject interesting.

Cheers,
RichardK

No thread jacking at all. In fact you make my point perfectly. Stories don't fit into neat boxes. They're about people and people don't fit into neat boxes either.