Most popular story ever

[NoCa]

While I firmly believe that best practice for any author is to chase the muse rather than the trends, I would like to try a little experiment and write a short story based solely on popular trends and tags.

My question is: what are the absolutely most popular tags/tropes/wordcount/number of paragraphs before first spicy segment etc? What would you recommend if you wanted to go for maximum visibility (and not quality )?

 

[Bamagan]

While I firmly believe that best practice for any author is to chase the muse rather than the trends, I would like to try a little experiment and write a short story based solely on popular trends and tags.

My question is: what are the absolutely most popular tags/tropes/wordcount/number of paragraphs before first spicy segment etc? What would you recommend if you wanted to go for maximum visibility (and not quality )?

I would hypothesize that maximum visibility means alienating as many potential audiences as possible, to the point where they feel compelled to view a disaster in the making. If so...
Interracial mom/son cuckolding with femdom BDSM. For revenge, the father whores out the daughter and her friends. They all reconcile in a fully pansexual group sex orgy with various fetishes. Following that, they get sex changes and do cross-generational impregnation. In a twist ending, the grandparents are alien cyborgs and peg the rest of the family with robo-tentacles. Just before everyone cums, the house starts teetering on the edge of a cliff. Stylized "The End" appears.

 

[onehitwanda]

I would hypothesize that maximum visibility means alienating as many potential audiences as possible, to the point where they feel compelled to view a disaster in the making. If so...
Interracial mom/son cuckolding with femdom BDSM. For revenge, the father whores out the daughter and her friends. They all reconcile in a fully pansexual group sex orgy with various fetishes. Following that, they get sex changes and do cross-generational impregnation. In a twist ending, the grandparents are alien cyborgs and peg the rest of the family with robo-tentacles. Just before everyone cums, the house starts teetering on the edge of a cliff. Stylized "The End" appears.

 

[NoCa]

I would hypothesize that maximum visibility means alienating as many potential audiences as possible, to the point where they feel compelled to view a disaster in the making. If so...
Interracial mom/son cuckolding with femdom BDSM. For revenge, the father whores out the daughter and her friends. They all reconcile in a fully pansexual group sex orgy with various fetishes. Following that, they get sex changes and do cross-generational impregnation. In a twist ending, the grandparents are alien cyborgs and peg the rest of the family with robo-tentacles. Just before everyone cums, the house starts teetering on the edge of a cliff. Stylized "The End" appears.

I am sure there is a great masterpiece beyond this premise. Alas, I fear ot might be beyond my writing skills.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I would hypothesize that maximum visibility means alienating as many potential audiences as possible, to the point where they feel compelled to view a disaster in the making. If so...
Interracial mom/son cuckolding with femdom BDSM. For revenge, the father whores out the daughter and her friends. They all reconcile in a fully pansexual group sex orgy with various fetishes. Following that, they get sex changes and do cross-generational impregnation. In a twist ending, the grandparents are alien cyborgs and peg the rest of the family with robo-tentacles. Just before everyone cums, the house starts teetering on the edge of a cliff. Stylized "The End" appears.

'Scuse me while I go bleach my ayes for a week.

 

[SimonDoom]

I pretty much did exactly this in the Spring of 2017, and it worked. By 10 months it was number 1 on the 12 month most viewed list. 450,000 views in one year. It's well over 2 million now.

Keep in mind there is no ONE way to write a story that becomes popular. Many different kinds of stories achieve popularity. And writing a story with the most popular themes and cliches is no guarantee it will become popular. That said, here's my formula:

1. It should be mom-son or brother-sister incest.
2. 3 to 8 Literotica pages. Around 8,000 to 30,000 words.
3. The general tone of the story should be somewhat sweet and romantic, full of genuine affection.
4. Don't rush it. Take some time to build up the attraction and make it plausible.
5. You can use a gimmick to get them together, but try to make it at least a little, tiny bit plausible. Readers in this category don't generally demand too much.
6. Play up the taboo aspect to create romantic/erotic tension and conflict. Readers like tease and buildup. You want your reader to feel that combination of irresistible desire and "but I really shouldn't do that" that makes incest stories delicious. In my story, one of my readers told me that he came the moment son touched mom's panties under her skimpy dress. I knew I'd done this right when I read that.
7. Take plenty of time with the sex. Never hurry the climactic sex scene.
8. Give it a happy ending.
9. Contrary to Bamagan's very amusing pseudo-advice, keep the kinks simple besides incest.
10. Have some sort of fun twist or concept in the plot of the story, something that makes it a little different from other stories in the genre.
11. Don't get fancy with the title. Have the word "Mom" or "Sister" in the title.
12. The tagline should complement the title so they work together to both inform the potential reader what it's about and titillate and tease.
13. Search the tag feature to get a sense of what tags people use for this category.
14. Use all the tags. Always include something like "mother son incest" or "brother sister incest" as a tag. Go for the clear and the obvious.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

I would hypothesize that maximum visibility means alienating as many potential audiences as possible, to the point where they feel compelled to view a disaster in the making. If so...
Interracial mom/son cuckolding with femdom BDSM. For revenge, the father whores out the daughter and her friends. They all reconcile in a fully pansexual group sex orgy with various fetishes. Following that, they get sex changes and do cross-generational impregnation. In a twist ending, the grandparents are alien cyborgs and peg the rest of the family with robo-tentacles. Just before everyone cums, the house starts teetering on the edge of a cliff. Stylized "The End" appears.

Don't forget mom sitting on son's lap. That needs to happen somewhere in the story.

 

[MrHereWriting]

While I firmly believe that best practice for any author is to chase the muse rather than the trends, I would like to try a little experiment and write a short story based solely on popular trends and tags.

My question is: what are the absolutely most popular tags/tropes/wordcount/number of paragraphs before first spicy segment etc? What would you recommend if you wanted to go for maximum visibility (and not quality )?

There is no reason not to go for both, unless you're attempting to insult the person with the most popular story on Lit.

 

[SimonDoom]

There is no reason not to go for both, unless you're attempting to insult the person with the most popular story on Lit.

This is definitely true. Two things are true here at Literotica: (1) prose style and "literary quality" are not that important to success at Literotica, in terms of popularity, and there are plenty of examples of popular stories that I do not regard as well written, but (2) good writing can't hurt, and it usually will help, all things being equal. A well-written silly mom-son story is likely to do better than a badly written one.

 

[NoCa]

I pretty much did exactly this in the Spring of 2017, and it worked. By 10 months it was number 1 on the 12 month most viewed list. 450,000 views in one year. It's well over 2 million now.

Keep in mind there is no ONE way to write a story that becomes popular. Many different kinds of stories achieve popularity. And writing a story with the most popular themes and cliches is no guarantee it will become popular. That said, here's my formula:

1. It should be mom-son or brother-sister incest.
2. 3 to 8 Literotica pages. Around 8,000 to 30,000 words.
3. The general tone of the story should be somewhat sweet and romantic, full of genuine affection.
4. Don't rush it. Take some time to build up the attraction and make it plausible.
5. You can use a gimmick to get them together, but try to make it at least a little, tiny bit plausible. Readers in this category don't generally demand too much.
6. Play up the taboo aspect to create romantic/erotic tension and conflict. Readers like tease and buildup. You want your reader to feel that combination of irresistible desire and "but I really shouldn't do that" that makes incest stories delicious. In my story, one of my readers told me that he came the moment son touched mom's panties under her skimpy dress. I knew I'd done this right when I read that.
7. Take plenty of time with the sex. Never hurry the climactic sex scene.
8. Give it a happy ending.
9. Contrary to Bamagan's very amusing pseudo-advice, keep the kinks simple besides incest.
10. Have some sort of fun twist or concept in the plot of the story, something that makes it a little different from other stories in the genre.
11. Don't get fancy with the title. Have the word "Mom" or "Sister" in the title.
12. The tagline should complement the title so they work together to both inform the potential reader what it's about and titillate and tease.
13. Search the tag feature to get a sense of what tags people use for this category.
14. Use all the tags. Always include something like "mother son incest" or "brother sister incest" as a tag. Go for the clear and the obvious.

This is fantastic! Thank you so much for all the advice . One last question: what would be the most popular POV the mom, the son, omniscent narrator? (I presume the first, but I rather ask anyway thx)

 

[SimonDoom]

This is fantastic! Thank you so much for all the advice . One last question: what would be the most popular POV the mom, the son, omniscent narrator? (I presume the first, but I rather ask anyway thx)

Great question!

My story (Late Night on the Loveseat with Mom) is told in the third person, and it switches perspective from mom to son, so you know what both are thinking as they sit together on the loveseat and things are getting hot and heavy. This is a risky way to do it, because you can be accused of "head hopping" and can confuse the reader. But I got no complaints this time and it seems like it worked.

I think most readers of these stories are men, although there's a fair share of women who have fantasies about their sons, too. So I think the default is to write the story from the son's perspective, either in first person or in third person limited. This is the best perspective to immerse the majority of the readers in your story. This is the way I typically write these stories now.

But it depends on the story. Whose story do you want to tell? Sometimes I want to tell the mom's story. Both choices can work. Male readers like stories from the male point of view because they relate to it. But many male readers also like stories from the woman's point of view because there's something extra sexy to them about a "good" wife/mom giving in to temptation, and they enjoy following that journey.

 

[SimonDoom]

This is so demotivating. I know that's not the intent but it's tough to look at my work and think "what's the point since I'm never going to write what Lit wants to read." I know from reading the forums that I'm not among the first thousand writers to have this realization, and I'm sure at least 500 have made it through and are still here.

I'm fortunate to have gotten some truth bombs from Chloe Tzang about how much weight to give to the Lit ratings (spoiler: not much)

Why is that demotivating? The OP's question was simply about how to reach the most possible authors, not about how to be popular or successful. There are multiple paths to be a "successful" writer at Literotica. There are authors high up on the most followed list who've never written an incest story.

 

[SimonDoom]

what Lit wants to read."

Lit wants to read everything. That's the lesson you should learn. It's a big tent with an infinite variety of tastes. That the tastes are not all equally represented shouldn't be discouraging.

 

[Collared_Angel]

Why is that demotivating? The OP's question was simply about how to reach the most possible authors, not about how to be popular or successful. There are multiple paths to be a "successful" writer at Literotica. There are authors high up on the most followed list who've never written an incest story.

I dunno, I get where the demotivation comes from: as a new author, it’s only natural to come in with stars in your eyes and hopes and dreams of climbing to the top of the charts... And then that dream sinks like a ship meeting a cannonball when you realize your odds of ever touching the charts decline dramatically if your story doesn’t feature incest. If incest is not one of your kinks, you gotta make a decision: do you roll over and cater to the masses to win more popularity, or do you keep true to your own style and say “fuck it, this is for me and it’s a win if I just average a 4.0+ rating.” I had a similar realization recently and chose the latter, although I do have a twisted step-daddy story coming soon that is a sort of nod to the genre

 

[SimonDoom]

I dunno, I get where the demotivation comes from: as a new author, it’s only natural to come in with stars in your eyes and hopes and dreams of climbing to the top of the charts... And then that dream sinks like a ship meeting a cannonball when you realize your odds of ever touching the charts decline dramatically if your story doesn’t feature incest. If incest is not one of your kinks, you gotta make a decision: do you roll over and cater to the masses to win more popularity, or do you keep true to your own style and say “fuck it, this is for me and it’s a win if I just average a 4.0+ rating.” I had a similar realization recently and chose the latter, although I do have a twisted step-daddy story coming soon that is a sort of nod to the genre

You're confusing two different things: views/visibility, which is what the OP is talking about, and scores. These are two totally unrelated measures of "success."

Incest stories don't have higher scores than other stories. They just have more views, because they have a bigger readership. Why should anyone be discouraged by that? This site has a huge readership and there are plenty of readers for all kinds of stories. Don't worry about what other people like to read and write. Focus on what you like to write and do what you need to do to write the best stories and find an appreciative audience.

 

[NoCa]

You're confusing two different things: views/visibility, which is what the OP is talking about, and scores. These are two totally unrelated measures of "success."

Incest stories don't have higher scores than other stories. They just have more views, because they have a bigger readership. Why should anyone be discouraged by that? This site has a huge readership and there are plenty of readers for all kinds of stories. Don't worry about what other people like to read and write. Focus on what you like to write and do what you need to do to write the best stories and find an appreciative audience.

Thank you, sensei. And ypu are absolutely right. Right now I don't want to try being original, just excercise . Story telling is very much about execution.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I pretty much did exactly this in the Spring of 2017, and it worked. By 10 months it was number 1 on the 12 month most viewed list. 450,000 views in one year. It's well over 2 million now.

Keep in mind there is no ONE way to write a story that becomes popular. Many different kinds of stories achieve popularity. And writing a story with the most popular themes and cliches is no guarantee it will become popular. That said, here's my formula:

1. It should be mom-son or brother-sister incest.
2. 3 to 8 Literotica pages. Around 8,000 to 30,000 words.
3. The general tone of the story should be somewhat sweet and romantic, full of genuine affection.
4. Don't rush it. Take some time to build up the attraction and make it plausible.
5. You can use a gimmick to get them together, but try to make it at least a little, tiny bit plausible. Readers in this category don't generally demand too much.
6. Play up the taboo aspect to create romantic/erotic tension and conflict. Readers like tease and buildup. You want your reader to feel that combination of irresistible desire and "but I really shouldn't do that" that makes incest stories delicious. In my story, one of my readers told me that he came the moment son touched mom's panties under her skimpy dress. I knew I'd done this right when I read that.
7. Take plenty of time with the sex. Never hurry the climactic sex scene.
8. Give it a happy ending.
9. Contrary to Bamagan's very amusing pseudo-advice, keep the kinks simple besides incest.
10. Have some sort of fun twist or concept in the plot of the story, something that makes it a little different from other stories in the genre.
11. Don't get fancy with the title. Have the word "Mom" or "Sister" in the title.
12. The tagline should complement the title so they work together to both inform the potential reader what it's about and titillate and tease.
13. Search the tag feature to get a sense of what tags people use for this category.
14. Use all the tags. Always include something like "mother son incest" or "brother sister incest" as a tag. Go for the clear and the obvious.

That got me a 4.38 on 1100 votes and 49K views.

 

[TheLobster]

Incest stories don't have higher scores than other stories.

I think they might actually have slightly lower scores compared to less popular categories, precisely because T/I is so popular. When you've got many eyeballs (and, uh, the other balls) on your story, the likelihood of someone finding something objectionable and rewarding you with a 1-3-star grows accordingly; and since votes below 4 are disproportionally devastating when you're chasing the upper 4.x scores, it is thus less likely that a T/I story breaks into that coveted range.

(This is also somewhat corroborated by looking at older incest submissions, back when the readership there was smaller, which appear to have higher scores).

 

[Collared_Angel]

You're confusing two different things: views/visibility, which is what the OP is talking about, and scores. These are two totally unrelated measures of "success."

Incest stories don't have higher scores than other stories. They just have more views, because they have a bigger readership. Why should anyone be discouraged by that? This site has a huge readership and there are plenty of readers for all kinds of stories. Don't worry about what other people like to read and write. Focus on what you like to write and do what you need to do to write the best stories and find an appreciative audience.

I think you misunderstand me: the fact that visibility and ratings are totally different metrics is exactly what I was pointing out. I’m saying that it’s natural for a writer to want to have the high views/visibility- that’s the exact reason the OP asked this question, after all. It is not uncommon for a newer writer to think chart-topping views/visibility can happen organically for a story in any of the Literotica categories, perhaps not realizing that it takes more than just writing a good story to achieve those stats, or not knowing that the Literotica readership is so heavily skewed towards incest. So when you learn that this in fact the case, you have to decide how you want to judge your own success going forward: Do you still want to chase the readership numbers, and if so are you willing to put in the work and write about what the masses want? If not, do you allow yourself to become demotivated and quit writing? Or do you choose a different metric, like ratings, to judge your success by? You asked “Why is that demotivating”, and since I felt like I understood where ThRedLantern might have been coming from, I answered you but also gave insight as to how I personally overcame the feeling.

 

[SimonDoom]

That got me a 4.38 on 1100 votes and 49K views.

Are you referring to How I Married My Sister? I assume so because the view numbers and scores pretty much match.

I read the story. My response:

1. It's way too short. It's far shorter than my recommended length. By making it so short you skim over important events with generalized narrative rather than digging into the details of what happened. Your story is 3900 words, but since it's almost all narrative it fits into less than one Lit page. That's too short. It's especially problematic because your story takes place over a long time as opposed to being about one specific incident.
2. You start with paragraphs of unnecessary backstory. Get rid of all of it. Start the story around paragraph 7 "We got to the resort hotel." Unveil the backstory as you go from that point forward.
3. There's too much generalized narrative and not enough dialogue and specific scene description. I call it telling, not showing. Show, instead. The story should be told primarily by showing people interacting with one another rather than by having a narrator generally describing what's happening.
4. You don't describe the first sex scene at all.
5. The second sex scene is rushed.
6. I want to know a little more about the two characters. Some details about their likes, dislikes, personalities. I want to be invested in them.
7. For instance, sister learns to like exhibitionism and being seen naked, but you don't describe a specific incident of this happening. This would help.
8. The idea of the story is good, but you need to take more time with it. I want to learn more about who these characters are, and I want to care more about them getting together. This is an important aspect of a good erotic story: the reader is eager for the character to have sex before it happens. But you have to make the readers care. Your readers have to get to know and to be invested in your characters to the point that they are thinking, "I can't wait for them to fuck!"
9. You used only 6 tags. Use all 10. You didn't use "brother sister incest." You could have had more titillating tags.

 

[filthytrancendence]

Do you still want to chase the readership numbers, and if so are you willing to put in the work and write about what the masses want? If not, do you allow yourself to become demotivated and quit writing? Or do you choose a different metric, like ratings, to judge your success by?

Views and rating are different heads of the same hydra, I'm afraid. If you're chasing views, that's going to limit you to a couple specific categories. But chasing rating within each category is going to limit content even more to the specifics of what does well within your chosen category.

And if that's what you want to do, there's nothing wrong with that approach.

At some point we've got to decide if we're chasing numbers or not. The numbers are nice either way, it's just a question of what is motivating our writing. Personally, I don't do well creatively when the category/content is dictated to me, at least not for longer works. And so I accept that I'm never going to see massive numbers except perhaps by some fluke of fate or other. Not that I don't try and do what I can to make my stories successful, just that there's only so far I'm willing to take that, and allowing it to dictate the content of my story is where the line is for me. YMMV.

 

[SimonDoom]

Views and rating are different heads of the same hydra, I'm afraid. If you're chasing views, that's going to limit you to a couple specific categories. But chasing rating within each category is going to limit content even more to the specifics of what does well within your chosen category.

And if that's what you want to do, there's nothing wrong with that approach.

At some point we've got to decide if we're chasing numbers or not. The numbers are nice either way, it's just a question of what is motivating our writing. Personally, I don't do well creatively when the category/content is dictated to me, at least not for longer works. And so I accept that I'm never going to see massive numbers except perhaps by some fluke of fate or other. Not that I don't try and do what I can to make my stories successful, just that there's only so far I'm willing to take that, and allowing it to dictate the content of my story is where the line is for me. YMMV.

I think this is one reasonable way of dealing with the issue. My personal approach is that I don't write all my stories with the same philosophy/goal/motivation. I mix it up and try different things. Sometimes I write stories with an eye toward being "popular," and sometimes I write stories just because they scratch a very personal creative itch. I find this approach to be very satisfying. Some of the stories I have MOST enjoyed writing and publishing are those with the fewest views and lowest scores. That's why I get somewhat puzzled when I read that people are "demotivated" when they realize that reader tastes, being what they are, mean their story is not likely to be at the very top of a list. Enjoy the readership that you have; don't worry about the readership that wants something else.

 

[NoCa]

Are you referring to How I Married My Sister? I assume so because the view numbers and scores pretty much match.

I read the story. My response:

1. It's way too short. It's far shorter than my recommended length. By making it so short you skim over important events with generalized narrative rather than digging into the details of what happened. Your story is 3900 words, but since it's almost all narrative it fits into less than one Lit page. That's too short. It's especially problematic because your story takes place over a long time as opposed to being about one specific incident.
2. You start with paragraphs of unnecessary backstory. Get rid of all of it. Start the story around paragraph 7 "We got to the resort hotel." Unveil the backstory as you go from that point forward.
3. There's too much generalized narrative and not enough dialogue and specific scene description. I call it telling, not showing. Show, instead. The story should be told primarily by showing people interacting with one another rather than by having a narrator generally describing what's happening.
4. You don't describe the first sex scene at all.
5. The second sex scene is rushed.
6. I want to know a little more about the two characters. Some details about their likes, dislikes, personalities. I want to be invested in them.
7. For instance, sister learns to like exhibitionism and being seen naked, but you don't describe a specific incident of this happening. This would help.
8. The idea of the story is good, but you need to take more time with it. I want to learn more about who these characters are, and I want to care more about them getting together. This is an important aspect of a good erotic story: the reader is eager for the character to have sex before it happens. But you have to make the readers care. Your readers have to get to know and to be invested in your characters to the point that they are thinking, "I can't wait for them to fuck!"
9. You used only 6 tags. Use all 10. You didn't use "brother sister incest." You could have had more titillating tags.

That's some solid feedback right there! Any chance you could do the same for The Queen of Phalli (not the whole thing of course, just a quick skim of chapter 1).

 

[Euphony]

I would hypothesize that maximum visibility means alienating as many potential audiences as possible, to the point where they feel compelled to view a disaster in the making. If so...
Interracial mom/son cuckolding with femdom BDSM. For revenge, the father whores out the daughter and her friends. They all reconcile in a fully pansexual group sex orgy with various fetishes. Following that, they get sex changes and do cross-generational impregnation. In a twist ending, the grandparents are alien cyborgs and peg the rest of the family with robo-tentacles. Just before everyone cums, the house starts teetering on the edge of a cliff. Stylized "The End" appears.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Most popular story template, pretty much what Simon listed.

Write in incest. Do not publish anywhere else. Incest is king. Even if you hate incest yourself. 100% incest.
Make it mom/son. Nothing else.
Make Mom the sexual aggressor, as in she pursues son sexually, not son going after Mom (preferrably she mounts herself into his lap), thus absolving Son of any guilt or shame for wanting to fuck his Mom (hey she wanted anyways). This one is MAN-DA-TO-RY!!
Put ABSOLUTELY ZERO transgression (other than the incest itself) in the story, this may even include Mom being single (divorce/widow) so that there is no cheating.
Put ABSOLUTELY ZERO conflict in the story, nothing to get in the way of the sex, basically as little actual plot as possible.
Put in just enough build up for the plausibility of the sex.
Make sure that the smut ratio is minimum 50%. This means that if your word count is 10K, 5k of it should be actual sex.
Make your word count somewhere between 10-15k or at widest 7-20k.
Make your title and description as OBVIOUS AS ALL FUCK as to what will happen, spoil the ending even is ok.

These rules can be bent/broken to some degree and the story can still be successful, but these are things that the largest demographic out there are looking for.