Mixed Category Stories

[feather1892]

Hi

I am new to erotic writing and recently published my first story. My second story which is in the same series has just been submitted. I am working on the third entry and I have ideas for several more entries.

I am wondering whether it is a good idea to go from one story category to another in the one story series. My first story is a heterosexual incest/taboo story. The second is a crossdressing tale featuring the same character. The third instalment, when ready, is a lesbian encounter. Future stories will revisit these topics and will also fall under loving wives and group sex.

My question is, do I risk having my stories lost in the mire by mixing topics. Should I try to stick to one area in a story arc and save other areas for a separate series?

Thanks for your help

 

[PriestOfIshtar]

Love this question, Feather, as I am doing that with my first series. It's *mostly* in one category, but some episodes just don't fit, so I have submitted them into a different category.

Accordingly, I have been following some other threads where this has come up, and the most common answer seems to be: "keep the whole series in one category, the one that best fits the theme of the series" -- but I also see plenty of people doing the opposite.

Accordingly, I conclude there is no clear right or wrong to this.

Statistically, you are going to get stories in front of more readers by jumping across categories, but if you anger them by that same jumping around, it's unlikely to be a net win.

In my next series, I am going to try *not* jumping around and see if I can detect any discernable difference.

 

[PeytonMirabelle]

I think it's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you may gain exposure to new readers by hopping categories, because some folks stick to 1-3 hubs for their stories. On the other hand, not many people will see "Chap. 4" and go back to find the old stories if they haven't read them and fans from the category you started in may not follow you.

I'm doing that now with my ongoing series, and results have been mixed.

 

[SimonDoom]

Answer: Yes, you risk losing readers over the course of your series if you radically change categories from one chapter to another. The reason is that many Literotica readers are interested in some categories, but not others. If you start your series with an incest chapter and then shift to something completely different, you are going to lose a LOT of readers.

If I were in your shoes, I would ask why I wanted to publish a multi-chapter series where each chapter concerns a completely different kind of erotic subject. What's the point, erotically or artistically? Why not just publish completely different stories as opposed to publishing multiple chapters as part of one story?

You may have a good reason to do so, and if you are willing to face the probable reader blow-back for the sake of your own artistic purposes, then go for it. But I wouldn't do that.

 

[PriestOfIshtar]

If I were in your shoes, I would ask why I wanted to publish a multi-chapter series where each chapter concerns a completely different kind of erotic subject. What's the point, erotically or artistically? Why not just publish completely different stories as opposed to publishing multiple chapters as part of one story?

In my own case, it's because the story has an arc, and the erotic elements evolve with the characters. In some ways, I assume, the "Novels & Novellas" category would be more appropriate, but that feels SO generic as to not appeal to me.

To summarize:

• First we have the choice of whether to write a story that passes through several categories;
• Then we have the choice of how to classify each chapter.

Assuming a story with diverse expressions of the erotic, then we have the choice:

• Correctly label each chapter, and confuse readers who read from a category hub;
• Label all chapters according the dominant theme of the whole piece, and risk angering readers with a chapter that seems poorly categorized...

 

[TadOverdon]

I've been involved in several of these discussions over the last couple of weeks, and...well, everything there is to say has been said by the posters ahead of me here. LOL

As to "why publish a long story with multiple categories in it," I suppose the simple answer is "It's a long sex story with multiple characters in it. Some of whom like to do more than one thing sexually."

Maybe that begs the question as to why one should want to write a long story like that, and the best answer to that is...Reply Hazy, Try Again Later. It's just what I like to write.

ETA: There's another answer, I guess, which is that the stories weren't and aren't being written with Literotica as the only or primary outlet for distribution, so they aren't structured to take into account getting the maximum advantage of the categorization system.

 

[feather1892]

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful feedback. In my case I have the outline of a story arc that involves very different forms of sexual encounters. I want to keep the same characters to build on their character traits. However I am deliberately setting out each instalment so that they make sense as standalone short stories - for example - explicitly stating that character A is married to character b even though this would be known to anyone who read previous instalments.

The biggest fear is that if you put a story down as chapter 2 then most people won’t read it without reading chapter 1, but if that is in a different category then they may not read either. I thought of giving individual titles to the instalments with no numbering, but then that could be confusing for anyone wanting to follow in sequential order.


Anyway perhaps the only way to know is to try it. Maybe sometime I will rewrite and collate them all into a short novel, but I’ll see what the reaction is to this approach first.

 

[TadOverdon]

It should be unnecessary to say that I'm speaking only for myself.

However, speaking only for myself...if I like a story and it's titled so that I can find the other chapters, I'm not going to pay any attention to the categories of the other chapters before I give them a try.

And if I find a writer that I like, I'll read their stories in categories that don't interest me much.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The biggest fear is that if you put a story down as chapter 2 then most people won’t read it without reading chapter 1, but if that is in a different category then they may not read either. I thought of giving individual titles to the instalments with no numbering, but then that could be confusing for anyone wanting to follow in sequential order.

One option might be to title them alphabetically, e.g.:

Sexy Catgirls: A Beginning
Sexy Catgirls: Bondage Is Beautiful
Sexy Catgirls: Catgirls On Patrol

etc. etc. Easy for anybody checking your archive to read them in sequence, but to anybody who only sees the n'th chapter, doesn't imply that you have to have read the others first.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Answer: Yes, you risk losing readers over the course of your series if you radically change categories from one chapter to another. The reason is that many Literotica readers are interested in some categories, but not others.

Concur. I have lesbian stories in the Lesbian category, and another lesbian story over in SF/F because it also contains fantasy elements. When I post a new story in Lesbian, I see a noticeable bump on the other stories in Lesbian, implying that readers who enjoyed it sought out my other work in that category - but nothing on my SF/F lesbian story, unless I specifically plug it with "if you enjoyed this you might also enjoy..."