A case for upfront warnings

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

I think I’m now a convert to putting a warning or disclaimer at the start of a story that cuts across categories. “Stuck in August,” posted on Feb. 27, is about a woman in her forties who has a threesome with a man in his seventies and a man in his twenties. I put it in Mature, because the earlier events showed the woman to be hot young stuff for one man and a comforting cougar for the other, making what I thought was novel use of the category’s premises. The upfront warning noted not only the threesome but also that the story is interracial, that there is anal sex, and that one of the men has a bisexual history.

The warning may have had the desired effect of deterring readers who might not be into all that. The score so far is 4.38, right around my average. The other side is that the story may turn out to be much less read than my other two Mature stories, which have 13k and 21k views. So far “Stuck in August” has fewer than 4k.

I like to think that I haven’t done this (entirely) out of cowardice. A reader might not want to waste time, and prefer not to get far into a story and then see something that provokes a “yecch!”

For those of you who Do The Math, I compute my average score as weighted by the stories’ vote totals, and I exclude the piece I posted in Reviews and Essays.

“Stuck in August” is here:

https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/stuck-in-august

The whole schmeer is here:

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5116173&page=submissions

 

[lovecraft68]

Sometimes its not as much about warning as category choice.

Yes there was age gaps which is what mature is, but...group sex would have been where I'd have put it.

Group sex is a mostly fun crowd, give them three or more, they're happy. Anal would not have been an issue, its common in group, especially DP. The interracial seems to only be an issue in LW because of how its used sets off the racist incels, don't see the issue in group.

Bi...that is generally a squick regardless of where you put it except maybe fetish. But its not totally flamed in group.

You have to kind of figure out what the 'trump kink is in your work and put it there.

If you write a similar one give group a go and compare.

Or...erotic couplings if pretty much a catch all for everything, but since its such a free for all, the readership is generally not large.

 

[NotWise]

The warning may have had the desired effect of deterring readers who might not be into all that. The score so far is 4.38, right around my average. The other side is that the story may turn out to be much less read than my other two Mature stories, which have 13k and 21k views. So far “Stuck in August” has fewer than 4k.

The warning isn't visible to the readers until they open the story, and at that point their View is already counted. As a result, your warning can't be causing the low number of "reads."

The story's short description may contribute to the low number of views, or it could just be one of those odd variations that happen sometimes. Last fall, I posted two of my "Pixie" stories four days apart. The first one has almost 19k views. The second one has 5k views. [Shrug]

 

[KeithD]

Mostly, in my opinion, warnings just help panty-waisted folks who aren't adult enough to be reading on an erotica story board in the first place locate what they want to hyperventilate over. I try to make sure the extreme content is noted in the keywords (and no, I don't take fault that the keywords are at the end rather than up front where the users have been asking for two decades that they should be put). I write for folks who can/will take responsibility for themselves and not melt and ask the smelling salts when they see something in one of my stories that goes too far for them.

 

[pollyannaowt]

Mostly, in my opinion, warnings just help panty-waisted folks who aren't adult enough to be reading on an erotica story board in the first place locate what they want to hyperventilate over. I try to make sure the extreme content is noted in the keywords (and no, I don't take fault that the keywords are at the end rather than up front where the users have been asking for two decades that they should be put). I write for folks who can/will take responsibility for themselves and not melt and ask the smelling salts when they see something in one of my stories that goes too far for them.

EEK! THERE IS SEX! SEX! IN MY STORY! GET IT OUT!!!please

 

[NotWise]

Mostly, in my opinion, warnings just help panty-waisted folks who aren't adult enough to be reading on an erotica story board in the first place locate what they want to hyperventilate over. I try to make sure the extreme content is noted in the keywords (and no, I don't take fault that the keywords are at the end rather than up front where the users have been asking for two decades that they should be put). I write for folks who can/will take responsibility for themselves and not melt and ask the smelling salts when they see something in one of my stories that goes too far for them.

If you use the new story page then the tags are at the top right on the first page. You have to click on the "tag" icon.

 

[ElectricBlue]

IThe warning may have had the desired effect of deterring readers who might not be into all that. The score so far is 4.38, right around my average. The other side is that the story may turn out to be much less read than my other two Mature stories, which have 13k and 21k views. So far “Stuck in August” has fewer than 4k.

I wouldn't have thought squick warnings are necessary in Mature. Readers in that category, from what I've observed, seem to be pretty tolerant and if they don't like something, move on without making a fuss. When they do like something, they're generous and will let you know, one way or another.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

Lovecraft68: I wasn't looking for a free pass on reader tolerance (apart from posting the warning). I did consider Group, because the threesome was the significant event in the story, but in the end I thought Mature best reflected all of the character interactions.

NotWise: Yeah, I realized that about views just after I posted. The short description might be keeping views relatively low, it at least indicates the threesome.

I'm okay with closing the thread now.

 

[Jada59]

I'm with you but it doesn't seem to help. One of mine has a disclaimer that it's pure porn. Someone complained that it was porn. Uh... Yeah.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Lovecraft68: I wasn't looking for a free pass on reader tolerance (apart from posting the warning). I did consider Group, because the threesome was the significant event in the story, but in the end I thought Mature best reflected all of the character interactions.

NotWise: Yeah, I realized that about views just after I posted. The short description might be keeping views relatively low, it at least indicates the threesome.

I'm okay with closing the thread now.

You'll probably get more of a response from the Mature category readers. I dropped something long into Group and got tumbleweeds by comparison. I won't bother going there again.

 

[LexxRuthless]

From the comments I received on the few stories I posted an up-front warning, it is clear that posting a warning was a mistake. I put a disclaimer at the front of my story About a Cat, and it is my least-viewed story. That one got the following comments:

"...I almost didn't read this story because of your admonition."

"I was put off a bit by your disclaimer, since I do like the sex bits. However, it was worth it."

"I know you told me not to, LexxRuthless, but regardless of the fact that I am not a fan of cats, I read your story anyway. And in spite of the cats, it was a pretty good story. As others have said, it ended a little too soon to suit me, but maybe some day you can write another chapter."

By comparison, I did not warn readers in advance with my story Whoops! I had intended the family sex scene in the end to be a surprising twist, and it was. That got me a lot of angry comments, but the story still managed a "Hot" rating and it has almost 200k views...as opposed to the 30k that About a Cat has managed in twice the time.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

By comparison, I did not warn readers in advance with my story Whoops! I had intended the family sex scene in the end to be a surprising twist, and it was. That got me a lot of angry comments, but the story still managed a "Hot" rating and it has almost 200k views...as opposed to the 30k that About a Cat has managed in twice the time.

But couldn’t those differences in views merely be contributable to that About a Cat was 1) published to Romance (which as a category gets significantly less views than some other categories) versus Whoops in I/T (the most popular category) and 2) having been published a year before Whoops that you, presumably, would have had less followers to read AaC?

I include a note before chapters that warns whether there’s no sex scenes, because I think it would be unfair to not tell readers that upfront on an erotic site. But my most read chapters by far have no sex: I suspect the trend in my readership is likely because those are the first chapters in an I/T series, and because I’m a new writer with a small following reading my works.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

I don't believe in warnings... read my shit at your own peril.

 

[SimonDoom]

Sometimes I lose interest in having a strong opinion about something, and this is one of those times. I was previously strongly against disclaimers, or trigger warnings, or whatever. I'm not sure how much they really achieve. But I don't have much of an opinion now. Being able to view the tags at the beginning of the story is a big improvement, and it to some degree reduces the need for disclaimers.

 

[Bebop3]

I'm strongly in favor of providing a warning if you believe that a reasonable percentage of your readers won't enjoy or be comfortable with the content.

It saves them the time and energy they would have spent reading something they likely wouldn't enjoy and it saves you from unreasonable downvoting based on their squicks and not quality of writing.

 

[KeithD]

A reasonable percentage of my readers know what I write already. I write what I write. The readers can sort themselves out. I don't write for the anal retentive and those needing babysitters.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'll say this much. While I still don't regularly use disclaimers, or, maybe ever so far, except for my 750-word stories, I am more mindful of making sure the title, description, category and tags can give the reader a reasonably informed idea about the subject matter and possible "squick" issues that might arise. This isn't a general short story site or magazine, it's an erotic story site, where everyone is aware that readers tend to come looking for specific subject matter, and to avoid other subject matter. So I take a more mindful approach to the use of tags, especially since they're now easily viewable at the beginning of the story.

It's easier for me because I tend to avoid mixing too many erotic subjects in my stories. I like many, many erotic subjects, but I prefer, both as a reader and writer, for a single erotic story to have an erotic focus.

 

[Hypoxia]

My practice for some time has been to include up-front tags and warnings (sometimes facetious) with the caution, "If such bothers you, stop reading." Trolls in LW will ignore all warnings anyway, so be creative there.

 

[BillandKate]

Trolls in LW will ignore all warnings anyway, so be creative there.

On the contrary, the LW trolls read the warning - skip to the last page without reading the story - then 1bomb it.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

For my most recent story which didn't fit categories well, I put in a book-style blurb as a warning, which seemed to work quite well - it's got loads of views and did have great scores and comments.

Only I didn't put in my usual warning that "This story contains British English", figuring that it's obvious from the first paragraph it's set in London.

So while some people loved it, I also got comments like "Stupid. I speak English but not mid evil English." I think we can predict those guys didn't give it a five-star rating! I'll be miffed if it loses the red H.

Should have gone for my usual warning: "This story contains British English, bisexuals and lots of booze. If any of these offend you, other authors are available."

 

[GuessImJamie]

On the contrary, the LW trolls read the warning - skip to the last page without reading the story - then 1bomb it.

And being "bears of small brain," it reminds them of why they are bombing it.