Whether/how to break up this story with slow burn and heterogeneous content?

[joy_of_cooking]

I'm working on a weird story and I'd appreciate some advice on how to package it for publication.

I've got it as chapters of 2k-5k words and I think that makes sense structurally. Those are the natural breaks in the action and where I have some more reflective material.

My problem is that if I publish each chapters as a story, I'm going to have four chapters with zero sexual content. (And I can't add any, because I need the MMC to be underage during this time.)

However, I think I'm going to piss people off if I publish as one story. They're going to start a sweet, non-erotic, realistic story about a boy with a bad home life and his slightly creepy imaginary friend. Then 20k words later they'll find themselves watching two dead people not even on earth any more doing a rather extreme maledom predicament bondage and pain play scene.

One option I'm considering is breaking it up unevenly. You can get a decent romance story if you only read up the first ten chapters. It won't have much sex. Also, it'll end with the FMC apparently ensuring her lover's salvation at the cost of never seeing him again. But it'll be sweet. And then people who are up for it can click through to the epilogue where they go off into their extremely kinky happily ever after.

How have others handled this kind of story that escalates slowly but gets pretty far out there by the end?

 

[Bamagan]

I'm working on a weird story and I'd appreciate some advice on how to package it for publication.

I've got it as chapters of 2k-5k words and I think that makes sense structurally. Those are the natural breaks in the action and where I have some more reflective material.

My problem is that if I publish each chapters as a story, I'm going to have four chapters with zero sexual content. (And I can't add any, because I need the MMC to be underage during this time.)

However, I think I'm going to piss people off if I publish as one story. They're going to start a sweet, non-erotic, realistic story about a boy with a bad home life and his slightly creepy imaginary friend. Then 20k words later they'll find themselves watching two dead people not even on earth any more doing a rather extreme maledom predicament bondage and pain play scene.

One option I'm considering is breaking it up unevenly. You can get a decent romance story if you only read up the first ten chapters. It won't have much sex. Also, it'll end with the FMC apparently ensuring her lover's salvation at the cost of never seeing him again. But it'll be sweet. And then people who are up for it can click through to the epilogue where they go off into their extremely kinky happily ever after.

How have others handled this kind of story that escalates slowly but gets pretty far out there by the end?

I would think breaking it unevenly as you suggested might be the best choice, since it sounds like the story literally starts in one world and ends in another. But at the same time, if the first part captures an audience, plunking the subsequent parts in another category or whatever doesn't necessarily save you from pissed off readers, who, frankly, leak all over the damn place regardless. I don't think publishing it as a single work would matter greatly in those terms.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I had a somewhat similar dilemma when I wrote My Fall and Rise. If told as a straight narrative, I figured it would be too grim for many readers to stick through the whole thing. So I started at a key midpoint in chapter one, then alternated the time line through the following chapters; Chapter Two before that point, Chapter three after it, etc. In the final chapter, I tied the two timelines together. Perhaps some variant of that could work for you.

(I know that sounds complicated, but you could always go read it to see how it worked. )

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I have read (and quite liked) my fall and rise!

I could imagine cutting it at the MMC's death and then telling the stories of his life and afterlife in parallel. But I worry that afterlife wouldn't make sense without the life to set up their characters and their relationship.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I don't think publishing it as a single work would matter greatly in those terms.

Sorry, I don't understand this sentence.

 

[Bamagan]

Sorry, I don't understand this sentence.

Apologies. I meant that I don't think publishing it as a single work, as opposed to publishing it in parts, will matter much in the context of not pissing some readers off. If they start out liking it and are offended by where it ends, I don't think they will cut you much slack for it being a series and giving them every opportunity to stop reading before the tone shifts or whatever. But I honestly don't think there are a huge number of readers who do that anyway. I think abandoning a story that veers away from what they want is far more common behavior. So the only ones to worry about are trolls and the few who get really emotionally invested in your characters and then wail about their troubles.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Now I understand, thank you!

 

[Voboy]

However, I think I'm going to piss people off if I publish as one story. They're going to start a sweet, non-erotic, realistic story about a boy with a bad home life and his slightly creepy imaginary friend. Then 20k words later they'll find themselves watching two dead people not even on earth any more doing a rather extreme maledom predicament bondage and pain play scene.

Are you sure these people will be any less pissed off if you space it out? Sooner or later, they'll find that the characters in whom they've invested time and energy are Doing Naughty Things, and I'd imagine if they're going to be squicked out, that squickage will be no better after a few weeks of investment vs 20k words' worth. Might even be worse.

Just a thought. I'm not in favor of breaks just for the sake of breaking, but you're putting thought into this; regardless, for me, 2-5k is a bit shorter than I prefer, and a story without sex... well. I'd not come back for the ending, to be honest.

I'd post it as one tale, but I agree that it appears to be kind of a non-straightforward issue.

 

[lavendersilk]

I love the idea of going back and forth through time.

Start with a somewhat innocuous sex scene. Where we don't really know who they are but they are making enjoyably, readable, sweet, sweet love, then slowly ease into the backstory.


I'm currently doing that to a story. It is hard work, but fun... if I ever publish it.

I write s l o w as a turtle.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I had a somewhat similar dilemma when I wrote My Fall and Rise. If told as a straight narrative, I figured it would be too grim for many readers to stick through the whole thing. So I started at a key midpoint in chapter one, then alternated the time line through the following chapters; Chapter Two before that point, Chapter three after it, etc. In the final chapter, I tied the two timelines together. Perhaps some variant of that could work for you.

Seconding this suggestion. You can get away with a lot if you establish reader expectations up front.

I used non-chronological narrative for a romance story where the love interest dies, to make it clear that this wasn't going to be a happy-ever after, and that let me turn it into "but their love still mattered". James Cameron did something similar in Titanic. Between the two of us we scored eleven Oscars, four Golden Globes, over two billion in box-office takings, and a top-250 place in the Literotica Romance section.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Ooh you people want me to do something hard... Now I'm tempted.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Hmm this actually dovetails neatly with another idea I had been considering. The life could be told in the first person, as a story the MMC is recounting in the afterlife. The afterlife could be told in the third person, as something that's "happening now". It would not be obvious until the end of the life story that the narrator in life was the MMC in afterlife.

Now I just have to write a whole lot more kinky dead people sex than I expected. My current outline has 10 life chapters and 2 afterlife chapters...

 

[KeithD]

The general advice to suspend stories with cliff hangers or invitations for readers to fool themselves about something hasn't changed over the years.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Why not post the first four chapters that don't contain any sex in a non-erotic category, and then the chapter that does contain sex in the fitting category?

I have no actual experience with this since I never tried it, so it's just a thought. But when I find the nth chapter of a story and it looks interesting, I check the author's page to find the earlier chapters.

 

[oneagainst]

Just to state the obvious. No actual sex does not equal crap story. I've found that people are more than willing to follow the story for its own sake. Some might even skim the sex to get to the next part.

Buggering about with non-linear storytelling just to get sex up front, or trusting your gut?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Just to state the obvious. No actual sex does not equal crap story. I've found that people are more than willing to follow the story for its own sake. Some might even skim the sex to get to the next part.

Buggering about with non-linear storytelling just to get sex up front, or trusting your gut?

"Just to get sex up front" didn't seem to be the point here, though.

 

[MelissaBaby]

"Just to get sex up front" didn't seem to be the point here, though.

It was my impression that JOC's concern was that the story changed dramatically in theme and tone over the full course of the narrative, and that readers might feel like it was a bait and switch.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I'm leaning toward posting this as one long story (~30k?) with an introduction warning people where it's going and how slowly it gets there.

I'm also thinking of doing the nonlinear thing. In addition to evening out the sex, it also made me realize there's an arc in the afterlife too. It could be more than a sexy epilogue. It could be their journey from the sex they think they should be having to the sex they really want to have. Maybe their sexual and emotional arcs can be told in parallel.

I'll run a few chapters by my beta readers and see how they feel. (And people reading this thread are welcome to message me if they want to volunteer too.)

 

[EroticCupcake]

I had a somewhat similar dilemma when I wrote My Fall and Rise. If told as a straight narrative, I figured it would be too grim for many readers to stick through the whole thing. So I started at a key midpoint in chapter one, then alternated the time line through the following chapters; Chapter Two before that point, Chapter three after it, etc. In the final chapter, I tied the two timelines together. Perhaps some variant of that could work for you.

(I know that sounds complicated, but you could always go read it to see how it worked. )

Some version of this. You don't need sex immediately but you need to convey genre ASAP.

Maybe there is a deranged person complaining about angry sex ghosts. Or MMC has a non-sexual ghost experience or MMC's dead mom spoken about ghosts, etc.

I think of "The Matrix" as a good example. The story had to start with Trinity being a badass because Neo's story didn't convey genre until much too late. This is a problem to solve creatively.

 

[lovecraft68]

This is an erotica site so I'm not following where people would be pissed that when people get older they have sex, and sometimes in nasty ways.

The real issue I see coming is a serious of kickbacks for having an underaged character even in a sexless chapter. There is no rhyme or reason for those rejections.

 

[AchtungNight]

I’d make sure the sex is worth wading through the mire to get to. Clear your mental blocks and plot however you must, then let the muses out to play.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm leaning toward posting this as one long story (~30k?) with an introduction warning people where it's going and how slowly it gets there.

I'm also thinking of doing the nonlinear thing. In addition to evening out the sex, it also made me realize there's an arc in the afterlife too. It could be more than a sexy epilogue. It could be their journey from the sex they think they should be having to the sex they really want to have. Maybe their sexual and emotional arcs can be told in parallel.

I'll run a few chapters by my beta readers and see how they feel. (And people reading this thread are welcome to message me if they want to volunteer too.)

If it's only 30K (which is not long by Literotica standards--it's novella length), then this seems like the obvious answer. Just clearly separate the underage portions of the story from sexual activity and you should be fine.