Help picking category.

[Tomh1966]

Trying to pick between romantic and exhibitionist categories. (Novel category?)

Story.
First section chapters. Main female finds cheating husband and divorces. Her long road up with a few flings she finds fun but empty and finally deciding to give love a chance. = Romantic

Second section chapters. Same with main male character. = Romantic

Third section chapters. They meet. Open ended. Lots of exhibition stories mixed into the love aspect. FWIW they are monogamous.

The above understates just how much exhibitionism takes place.
She is naked. A LOT
She poses for art and photography classes
There is a chapter of a memory where she is in a short lived Playboy clone as an 18 year old.
Naked pranks and dares in college as memories.
A memory of her posing for a photographer on her 18th birthday. (Her property since she has the negatives)
etc.

More issues ?and potential problems?

Her exhibitionism is ego based rather than getting a sexual charge.
Her exhibitionism is also nudism based. She simply does not care about who sees her body sans clothing. A lot os things I read are "She got wet thinking she was naked in front of the crowd type things"
Sexual arousal for her is love and physical attraction based to an idividual.
I develop characters a lot to show motivations and who they are.

Help

 

[Tomh1966]

Forgot to mention. YEs I did read Love your readers and a few other guides.

 

[CyranoJ]

The above understates just how much exhibitionism takes place.

If you need to specify that, seems to me your category is Exhibitionism.

If it's orthogonal to the typical "exhibitionist kink," I wouldn't worry too much about it, I think? The category doesn't have the trolling reputation that a place like Loving Wives is infamous for.

 

[SimonDoom]

How long do you expect the entire story to be, in words? Lit readers tend to be receptive to long stories.

It sounds like exhibitionist to me, although it depends on whether the early part of the story involves some exhibitionism.

 

[Tomh1966]

How long do you expect the entire story to be, in words? Lit readers tend to be receptive to long stories.

It sounds like exhibitionist to me, although it depends on whether the early part of the story involves some exhibitionism.

The story ran way too long. It took 4 years and was 600+ pages. I had to separate the sections to let it load into my phone so I could think and look at what was there while brainstorming. The thing I like about the story is once they are married the are in their early to mid thirties. I can blather on long long long as I come up with scenarios.

Her part story has quite a bit of exhibitionism. First chapters. Chapter one and two are VERY short and no exhibitionism but shows who she is. MUCH later an event will reference back to the second chapter as a bit of a twist. Chapter 3 is a bit longer about losing her marriage and how much it hurt.

Chapter four is her starting on her road back, she finds parts of herself she gave up for her first (cheating) husband. Exhibition starts here (Wont give it away) She gets into girl talking with her all too explicit best friend and they go over good old NAKED times.

His part has little if any exhibitionism but shows how their common connection leads to mutual understanding and being up front. Next chapters

The last part picks up when they meet and end up really liking each other. She tells him the day they go exclusive that she is a nudist and exhibitionist and it is not up for debate. She lost that part of herself in her first marriage. She LOVES posing nude. It makes her happy and she is not giving it up again after finding that side of herself again. (Of course he loves it and they mutually agree that intimate touch is the boundary in their relationship and that she is free to be herself as long as the touch boundary is maintained.)

 

[CyranoJ]

The story ran way too long. It took 4 years and was 600+ pages.

Zoinks. Have you thought of just publishing it as a book? There is a "Novels & Novellas" category.

 

[Tomh1966]

Zoinks. Have you thought of just publishing it as a book? There is a "Novels & Novellas" category.

I am pulling out sections from it on this rewrite but it is very very rough and the formatting is hideous.

 

[SimonDoom]

The story ran way too long. It took 4 years and was 600+ pages. I had to separate the sections to let it load into my phone so I could think and look at what was there while brainstorming. The thing I like about the story is once they are married the are in their early to mid thirties. I can blather on long long long as I come up with scenarios.

Her part story has quite a bit of exhibitionism. First chapters. Chapter one and two are VERY short and no exhibitionism but shows who she is. MUCH later an event will reference back to the second chapter as a bit of a twist. Chapter 3 is a bit longer about losing her marriage and how much it hurt.

Chapter four is her starting on her road back, she finds parts of herself she gave up for her first (cheating) husband. Exhibition starts here (Wont give it away) She gets into girl talking with her all too explicit best friend and they go over good old NAKED times.

His part has little if any exhibitionism but shows how their common connection leads to mutual understanding and being up front. Next chapters

The last part picks up when they meet and end up really liking each other. She tells him the day they go exclusive that she is a nudist and exhibitionist and it is not up for debate. She lost that part of herself in her first marriage. She LOVES posing nude. It makes her happy and she is not giving it up again after finding that side of herself again. (Of course he loves it and they mutually agree that intimate touch is the boundary in their relationship and that she is free to be herself as long as the touch boundary is maintained.)

I have an alternative idea, which is to publish several separate "books" consisting of multiple chapters, all of which books are part of the same character universe but aren't necessarily regarded as the same book. The books don't have to be numbered or chaptered consecutively. Some other authors have done stories like this. This way, you don't have the problem of mixing up categories so badly that readers are upset. I believe ElectricBlue and BiscuitHammer have both written stories like this, so they might have suggestions.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I believe ElectricBlue and BiscuitHammer have both written stories like this, so they might have suggestions.

EB tips hat towards Simon.

Yep, I've got a bunch of stories each running stand-alone and separate story cycles, in what I loosely call my Floating World (the Japanese allusion is deliberate). The common thread is the central male character (because I'm lazy and he's easy to write) but the focus of each different collection is the (in most cases) female protagonist(s). Over time, the various characters interweave - a bit character in one story becomes lead in another, but any new reader doesn't need to know that, doesn't need the contiguous knowledge.

The technique allows me to category shift whenever I choose - which means I have stories in, at one count, thirteen different categories. I know some readers follow me from category to category (my five faithful fans) but I suspect most single category focus readers don't.

The approach allows me to create an over-arching world (urban/suburban contemporary erotica) where I'm comfortable, and place different story threads in it. I mix first and third person narratives, and don't have a preference - I normally find out who my narrator is from the first paragraph.

If you look at my story file, these are the interlinked collections:

The Floating World (five parts, four separate stories),
The Floating World - the Madelyn Chapters (one long multi-chapter story),
The Hyacinth House (where I went all meta and cycled back onto the previous two stories, where the inspiration for Madelyn reads the opening encounter, recognises herself, and contacts the author, who is the same male lead, but not quite, in a different setting),
American Girls Down Under (a collaborative story with the same established male character and the other writer's established characters),
A Girl on the Bus (started as a 750 word anthology story and continued, then adds a separate Covid themed story),
Garter Belts and Cigarettes/Whisky (two strokers - for me, anyway) followed by a Desiderare (where a side character gets centre stage).

It means I write wherever/whatever I want, but don't need to bother about any massive over-riding plot because there isn't one - they're far more mood based stories about characters and their lives, just living. A bit like being alive, really. It works for me, wouldn't work for everyone.

 

[Tomh1966]

I have an alternative idea, which is to publish several separate "books" consisting of multiple chapters, all of which books are part of the same character universe but aren't necessarily regarded as the same book. The books don't have to be numbered or chaptered consecutively. Some other authors have done stories like this. This way, you don't have the problem of mixing up categories so badly that readers are upset. I believe ElectricBlue and BiscuitHammer have both written stories like this, so they might have suggestions.

I also tip my hat to you. I dismissed the idea then... I am one of those people that an idea will sit in the back of the brain and brews then when the idea completes, it pops to the front of the brain...

What if...

Series of books of stories...
All with the same first part of the name but appended differently.
IE
Title- Lead Character 1 Mom
Title- Lead Character 2 Daughter who is A LOT like mom... and not like her too!
Title- Lead Character 3 Etc

All in the same world. Common history and related... This is good on several levels
1) If I bog down on on lead I can switch leads and perhaps get unstuck and do a chapter or two
2) They are 20 years apart in time which leads to different circumstance
3) Its not 600 Pages
4) I can use the characters and pull parts from my other stories which might not pass muster here.

Im still down with Novels vs Exhibition vs Romance roughly in that order with #1 and 2 very close.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Im still down with Novels vs Exhibition vs Romance roughly in that order with #1 and 2 very close.

From your description, I reckon I'd go E&V, for the simple reason it's a kink category, whereas N&N isn't.

 

[Tomh1966]

From your description, I reckon I'd go E&V, for the simple reason it's a kink category, whereas N&N isn't.

Because ?
A- kink would offend a significant portion of readers
B- More readers in E&V

NOT being critical. Just trying to find my pace here to entertain and not offend.

 

[SimonDoom]

Because ?
A- kink would offend a significant portion of readers
B- More readers in E&V

NOT being critical. Just trying to find my pace here to entertain and not offend.

E&V is a moderately trafficked category. Not as much as some, like Loving Wives or Incest, but more than Novels.

E&V also is an open-minded and forgiving category. As long as your story has significant elements of E&V, it can fly there even if it has other kinks as well.

I've published a number of stories in E&V and have good experiences there, but that's also because I enjoy those kinds of stories and my stories tend to have many exhibitionist/voyeuristic elements, even stories published in other categories like incest.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Because ?
A- kink would offend a significant portion of readers
B- More readers in E&V

NOT being critical. Just trying to find my pace here to entertain and not offend.

By "kink" I meant the category name is the clue to what's in it, which, on a smut site is fundamentally useful. N&N is a clue to what's in a library, nothing more. E&V tells you from the start you're going to find stories about people who like to watch, and people who like to be watched.

If readers get offended by kinks; a) why are they reading in that category? and b) what they fuck are they doing on an adult web site? I have little patience for the nervous nellies who get spooked when they find something "awful" in their favourite category and go ballistic about it. Grow up, hit the back key, find another story.

Besides, as Simon notes, N&N is a bit of a backwater, volume wise. The readers are obviously whispering, "Ssshhh," or sneaking down to the back of the stacks .

 

[leespiked]

we don't even get the basics right here

a foursome story should not be categorized as GROUP SEX
threesome, foursome, group, not that hard, get the hell out of the group section, 3s and 4s, you're screwing things up

 

[SimonDoom]

a foursome story should not be categorized as GROUP SEX
threesome, foursome, group, not that hard, get the hell out of the group section, 3s and 4s, you're screwing things up

I wasn't aware there was a numerical threshold for it to qualify as group sex. What's the number?

I'm not sure why a foursome wouldn't be group sex. Four is a group. If the focus of the story is on the fact that there are four involved in sex at once, that would seem to be the correct category. I think for most people, that would be group sex, because most people never participate in a foursome for sex.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I wasn't aware there was a numerical threshold for it to qualify as group sex. What's the number?

I'm not sure why a foursome wouldn't be group sex. Four is a group. If the focus of the story is on the fact that there are four involved in sex at once, that would seem to be the correct category. I think for most people, that would be group sex, because most people never participate in a foursome for sex.

I suspect you're responding to a category meister who applies their own rules to a category and then bollocks everyone who doesn't comply.

Like you, I'd have thought more than two was a group, and four, definitely. It perhaps explains why my few Group stories got the least response from readers. I won't post there again; it's a tumbleweeds category for me, a most unresponsive lot.

 

[TadOverdon]

So, I don't know about our latest, Mother: Settling the Score.

There's incest in about four chapters out of twelve. None, really, in the first chapter.

Do I put it in Incest/Taboo, Novels and Novellas, or Loving Wives?

Loving Wives would be fun in a way because the haters will lose their shit at Chapter One... but I don't think so.

OTOH, if experience with The Graduates was any indication some of the I/T crowd will hit the ceiling over the cuckoldry anyway. I notice that was my lowest-rated story in I/T, falling just short of a 4.

In any event, it's going up this week with this disclaimer at the beginning:

Author's disclaimer and warning: There are no nice people in this story.


ETA: To play fair with readers this one has to go in N&N I suppose. Fewer readers there but I have a few followers now who will probably check it out anyway. I'll just tag incest in the appropriate chapters.

 

[NotWise]

I suspect you're responding to a category meister who applies their own rules to a category and then bollocks everyone who doesn't comply.

Like you, I'd have thought more than two was a group, and four, definitely. It perhaps explains why my few Group stories got the least response from readers. I won't post there again; it's a tumbleweeds category for me, a most unresponsive lot.

The guy was just making up his own rule.

"Threeway" is a common tag in the category. If you count all the other ways of indicating a threesome, then it's likely to be the most common group. As near as I can tell, this is very often a couple+1.

My two stories in Group feature foursomes and a moresome, and I suspect that a threesome with a sentimental ending would float better than either of those.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I suspect you're responding to a category meister who applies their own rules to a category and then bollocks everyone who doesn't comply.

Like you, I'd have thought more than two was a group, and four, definitely. It perhaps explains why my few Group stories got the least response from readers. I won't post there again; it's a tumbleweeds category for me, a most unresponsive lot.

The definition according to Lit itself: "Group sex stories with threesomes, foursomes, and orgies from Literotica." I have heard before that you need more than four for an orgy, but tbh it's more of a mind thing.

I'd say most Group stories are 3-4 people - it's hard to create more vivid characters than that in any short story.

 

[TadOverdon]

The guy was just making up his own rule.

A guy reviewed a book of ours on another site and dinged us for leaving the tag "netorare" off as if we'd committed some basic sin against consumer rights.

And, like, sorry - I'd never heard of the word and when I Google it, it's hentai stuff. Okay, good, but I'm not required to immerse myself in your subculture, guy - the word you seem to have wanted was infidelity.

 

[Quinn_McMullen]

Here's a question for all you experienced writers out there.

I had my first story published under Romance. I got a lot of comments beating up my main female character for "betraying" her cheating husband. I suppose it didn't meet the high moral standards expected of romance.

I have submitted a second chapter. This one I submitted under Exhibitionist because a second female chararcter spends a great deal of time hiking naked in the woods.

I have four additional chapters in the works. I am wondering whether or not I should have all these under the novella category.

If so, how do I get the site admins to move the submissions.

FWIW, I don't care about any contests.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Here's a question for all you experienced writers out there.

I had my first story published under Romance. I got a lot of comments beating up my main female character for "betraying" her cheating husband. I suppose it didn't meet the high moral standards expected of romance.

I have submitted a second chapter. This one I submitted under Exhibitionist because a second female chararcter spends a great deal of time hiking naked in the woods.

I have four additional chapters in the works. I am wondering whether or not I should have all these under the novella category.

If so, how do I get the site admins to move the submissions.

FWIW, I don't care about any contests.

See my comment above - N&N is a bit of a nowhere category. If you don't stick with E&V (which is not a bad category), and you've gone a bit Loving Wives in Romance (they like warm and fuzzy) then you could try Erotic Couplings. It's not too bad as a category, and generally readers don't declare war.

To ask for a category change, resubmit the whole story, same title plus EDIT, and add a Note to the Editor, asking for a category change. Keep in mind that Laurel is the final arbiter of category, but unless the story is mostly incest or non-con, she'll mostly always change.

Doing it that way, as an edit, means you keep all scores and comments. You won't get a run on the new category front page, though.

 

[RetroFan]

I'm also writing a story at the moment that I'm having a hard time finding a category for.

The story involves a highly dysfunctional family where the slacker son - a stupid and sadistic psychopath - scores some unknown drugs. He takes one pill, his sluttish wife another and the other four tablets are secretly fed to the other family members as a practical joke. These are the abusive, bigoted and tyrannical husband/father, the stressed out and long-suffering wife/mother, the mousy sister/daughter and the daughter's sensible boyfriend. All begin having group delusions and paranoia about dangerous animals, demons, monsters, ghosts and UFOs, and flee their house, taking to the road trying to 'escape' the things chasing them.

There is sex and nudity but it isn't the main focus of the story. There are some fetish-type scenes, but not really enough for the fetish category. There isn't any incest. Erotic Horror seems most likely but the 'supernatural' events are drug-fuelled fantasies. Sci-fi also doesn't work. It is a dark story, with lots of shocking scenes including racism, bullying, domestic violence and very black humour.

I would still lean towards Erotic Horror, but any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I would still lean towards Erotic Horror, but any thoughts would be appreciated.

Agree.