Choose your category carefully

[oggbashan]

Some time ago I submitted one of my stories Trapped in the Loving Wives category.

It has attracted more than its fair share of angry PCs. While it is difficult to please all those who read Loving Wives, I shouldn't have put that story in that category. Apologies to the Loving Wives readers.

It is Fetish, and should have been submitted into the Fetish category.

It might have been unpopular there too, but I don't think it would have been mauled quite so badly.

There have been threads before about which category is appropriate for particular themes, but my experience with Trapped shows the effect of making the wrong choice.

If in doubt about which category is suitable, choose the Loving Wives category with caution. Perhaps it should be labelled "Post Here At Your Peril".

Posting a query on the Authors' Hangout will usually produce helpful advice on the best choice of category.

 

[lovecraft68]

Maybe even Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Never posted there as the category holds no appeal to me, but just reading the feedback comments alone is enough to make someone cringe.

 

[TxRad]

Maybe even Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Never posted there as the category holds no appeal to me, but just reading the feedback comments alone is enough to make someone cringe.

I posted "Until Death Do Us Part" there because it seemed like the best place and I expected to be maimed. Surprisingly, I got some well thought out and reasonable comments once the knee jerk crowd settled down. It created quite a discussion for several days.

 

[lovecraft68]

I posted "Until Death Do Us Part" there because it seemed like the best place and I expected to be maimed. Surprisingly, I got some well thought out and reasonable comments once the knee jerk crowd settled down. It created quite a discussion for several days.

Exception to the rule. I love to ghost the feedback forum and end up getting sucked into to reading the comments on stories I'll never read.

LW has nothing short of pure hate going through it and the comments are either funny ro disturbing depending on my mood when I read them.

The only cat I see as much nastiness towards is I have seem some harsh non con remarks. where people are calling out the story for being actual rape.

My question to that as it is to LW is if you hate it, why go there?

 

[TxRad]

Exception to the rule. I love to ghost the feedback forum and end up getting sucked into to reading the comments on stories I'll never read.

LW has nothing short of pure hate going through it and the comments are either funny ro disturbing depending on my mood when I read them.

The only cat I see as much nastiness towards is I have seem some harsh non con remarks. where people are calling out the story for being actual rape.

My question to that as it is to LW is if you hate it, why go there?

LW is a shark pit. It has three different groups with different agendas reading there. There is no satisfying all three, not even two out of three most of the time.

NC on the other hand has a couple of different readers who call all the stories as rape, sometimes without even reading them. My story Wet is a great example. There is a supposed couple that yelled rape about it even though it was more her raping him in the end. It was obvious they never read the whole story.

I still get 1 bombed every time it gets above 4.5.

 

[Hubs_in_hose]

My stories usually cross categories. I think I understand the big ones: incest/taboo, gay male, BDSM, Mind Control, Non-English and Non-Human. My understanding is that if the story has any of the above in it, that is its category. After that it most stories seem to cross several boundaries.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I only wrote one LW story and it got a flood of comments, a surprising number of them very favorable. I got lucky, methinks, and am unlikely to post there again. What baffled me is the number of commenters who wanted my protagonist to lose instead of triumph. Some sick folks read LW . . .

 

[jomar]

Like a lot of folk I dipped into the LW to see what's what. My goal was to agitate and I got tons of responses, like they do, but ultimately I missed the mark and the story did fairly well... not H well, but 4+ well. It's a pretty interesting category.

ETA: The trolling as a result of the malcontents did affect other story scores. Harsh.

 

[Malinov]

but how?

Most of my stories are written with literary intentions, which is to say my stories are rarely defined by a particular type of sexual act, but rather by the emotions that compel the characters to action. For me, this makes my stories romances, but that genre (and category) is clearly defined by characteristics that elude me.

I, myself, would like to see a "literary" category, but absent that, everything seems to be a crapshoot. Apart from asking the crowd about every individual story, what kind of guidance is there for less deliberately erotic tales?

 

[Darkniciad]

Most of my stories are written with literary intentions, which is to say my stories are rarely defined by a particular type of sexual act, but rather by the emotions that compel the characters to action. For me, this makes my stories romances, but that genre (and category) is clearly defined by characteristics that elude me.

I, myself, would like to see a "literary" category, but absent that, everything seems to be a crapshoot. Apart from asking the crowd about every individual story, what kind of guidance is there for less deliberately erotic tales?

Sounds like Romance to me. Unless maybe the stories don't end with Happily Ever After?

When the story is about emotion, it tends to do well in Romance, regardless of sex-lite or even no detailed sex at all. It's one of the few categories where you can fade to black before any sundry parts are revealed and not get panned for it.

When all else fails, Erotic Couplings. The readership is a bit transient, but when you can't clearly define anything ( I still encourage you to consider romance, from the description you're giving ) it can be the only choice. People reading that category are expecting a fairly wide range of more or less vanilla sexual situations.

 

[Malinov]

Sounds like Romance to me. Unless maybe the stories don't end with Happily Ever After?

When the story is about emotion, it tends to do well in Romance, regardless of sex-lite or even no detailed sex at all. It's one of the few categories where you can fade to black before any sundry parts are revealed and not get panned for it.

When all else fails, Erotic Couplings. The readership is a bit transient, but when you can't clearly define anything ( I still encourage you to consider romance, from the description you're giving ) it can be the only choice. People reading that category are expecting a fairly wide range of more or less vanilla sexual situations.

Thanks - that was my analysis too, although I have been taken to task several times for choosing romance - erotic couplings always seemed vague, but I guess that is the intention.

 

[Brunne]

When the story is about emotion, it tends to do well in Romance, regardless of sex-lite or even no detailed sex at all.

I agree with the emotion-factor relationship with the Romance category. I'm writing a part-2 to my current story (which didn't fit comfortably in any category really), but as the part-2 is going to involve a lot more emotion and not just reaction to an erotic situation (as in part 1), I'm going to give it a go in Romance.

I think that as long as certain story elements are respected (at least bitter-sweet if not happily-ever-after ending) people would be surprised at what the Romance audience will handle and how far they'll go along with you. I've read some stories that involved far from vanilla sexuality, and if the emotion and plot were dealt with in line with the genre it was welcomed with open arms. As long as you don't include very specific kink (e.g. incest, fetish, etc) and ensure a sufficient level of emotional depth, Romance readers are more open-minded than they're often given credit for.

I was told that because I had some biting and blindfolding that I should post in BDSM...big mistake, and one I won't make again. I'll take advice from authors who actually write in a category, but not from writers making assumptions about categories they never write in (not saying that's happening here, just sayin').

 

[Ruth12]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Darkniciad]

There are a core group of purists in BDSM that will put the kibosh on anything that doesn't meet their standards.

If the biting and blindfolding was a central theme of the sex, Fetish is a possibility. Though most of the readership there is looking for panties, feet, and spanking, other things can do fairly well there.

Just looking at a poster's profile doesn't necessarily tell you what categories they write in. I have three different pen names

Never take any suggestion at face value, though. When you're considering breaking into a new category, take advantage of the category portal ( which lists contest winners, popular stories, vote and score stats for recent stories ) and the toplist for the category to see what's flying, and what's dying. It can give you a fair idea of the readership before you dive in.

I was told that because I had some biting and blindfolding that I should post in BDSM...big mistake, and one I won't make again. I'll take advice from authors who actually write in a category, but not from writers making assumptions about categories they never write in (not saying that's happening here, just sayin').

 

[sr71plt]

Although bondage is included (in fact, leads off) the BDSM category, mild bondage is so different and less kinky than SM, that I treat it as a fetish and categorize it in Fetish.

 

[Brunne]

Although bondage is included (in fact, leads off) the BDSM category, mild bondage is so different and less kinky than SM, that I treat it as a fetish and categorize it in Fetish.

If 50 Shades is anything to go by (sorry, had to mention it), we can only assume that the goal-posts have changed, and 'light bondage' has well and truly entered the realm of 'erotic romance' (depending on plot and emotional depth of course) and is now too mainstream to be considered a 'fetish'.

That and people have been using fuzzy pink handcuffs for years and it's been perfectly acceptable bedroom practice!

(I'm sure will just argue with the above, but just putting it out there)

 

[Brunne]

Never take any suggestion at face value, though. When you're considering breaking into a new category, take advantage of the category portal ( which lists contest winners, popular stories, vote and score stats for recent stories ) and the toplist for the category to see what's flying, and what's dying. It can give you a fair idea of the readership before you dive in.

Thanks Darkniciad - definitely going with what seems similar/popular in a category and also with my gut in future!