A question for all you accomplished authors out there

[Comshaw]

I got to lookin' at my stories and realized I have a story in 7 categories: Mature, Romance, Loving Wives, Erotic Couplings, Reluctance/Nonconsent, Taboo/Incest and Anal.

There are 33 listed categories on Lit's "Stories" page. I've decided I'm going to challenge myself to put a story in as many of those as I can. I don't speak or write in any other language than English, so that eliminates the non-English category. And I won't even consider the illustrated category because I have difficulty drawing stick figures much less anything more complicated so that one is out.

The chain story category is a big question mark. Anyone have insight for me into how to go about getting involved in one?

And Audio is another. How does that one work? Do you write a story than read it, or have someone with a better voice read it to make a recorded file for submission?

Anyway, discounting those 4 leaves me 22 categories to get a story (or whatever written entry is required like essays) into.

Hmmmm...I'd best get myself busy, huh?


Comshaw

 

[StillStunned]

The chain story category is a big question mark. Anyone have insight for me into how to go about getting involved in one?

Find a group of writers who are willing to put in a lot of work to write something that barely anyone will ever read.

(This might sound cynical, but it's not much of an exaggeration.)

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

Some of us in AH did a Chain Story earlier in the year. You could look out and see if anyone proposes something similar on the forums.

Ah, I see @StillStunned beat me to it.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Yeah, I had a goal to write in all the categories. Like you I can't draw or write well enough in another language to be able to do those categories. I did manage practically all the others and then decide to organize a chain story - actually we had enough people to do two different one. There wasn't a lot of enthusiasm for doing it again in short order, though if you wait awhile you might be able to get enough people to have a stab at it.

At the moment, I've only got the Novels category missing from my goal list, but, while I'm writing something novel-length, I'm going to publish it in another category since Novels really is too quiet for the amount of words you have to write for it to be worth it just for some abstract goal.

 

[RejectReality]

I think there are still some open to all chains... Lemme see if I can remember where they were listed. I think it is in an old survivor contest thread.... There it is!

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/chain-stories-directory.402154/

The threads that are linked from there should have the necessary information to publish it as a chain story. If the chain starter followed best practices, it will be in post #1, which gets edited as the chain progresses.

I purposely wrote something with incest roleplay in it to disqualify it from pretty much every other category, in order to force myself to use N&N when I finish it. LOL ( On two different sites, actually ) Technically, I could get away with Mature ( as age-difference is the dominating theme, and the roleplay is only a few scenes in the middle ) but they get real squeamish about incest roleplay. No sense upsetting the natives, even though it will be going in a different pen name that isn't heavily Mature category like this one. I'm not overly concerned about the numbers anyway, so my silly little goal wins out once everything is weighed.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I've had the same aim for a while. I've done a novella, and wrote the final chapter for @TheRedChamber 's chain story - which as mentioned above has few views for the amount of effort involved, though the popular tags mean it's still getting a trickle.

I've been working to translate a 750-word story into German, given I can read the language, and I have a couple kind editors lined up, but it's become very obvious that I haven't actually written more than a couple sentences in German since I left school, and it's really hard work!

I've done a Letter and a Review, so there's not many more categories, though the recent split of Trans means an extra one. There's some I wasn't sure how to write in while meeting my own ethical boundaries - I managed I/T, and i've read that hypnosis can't make people do anything they're totally opposed to doing, only remove their inhibitions for something they wouldn't object to, so I think I could play with that for Mind Control.

Similarly I might manage NC/R by focusing on the reluctance of someone worried about their reputation and social standing, not because they don't want to. The category's readers would probably hate it, but that's never stopped me before.

 

[TheRedChamber]

...though the recent split of Trans means an extra one...

Goddamn it!

(It's fine. Both of mine for the original joint category seem to have gone in transgender although that's arguable for each of them. It probably won't be too long before I end up with another cross-dressing story coming to me naturally.)

 

[Bamagan]

I've had the same aim for a while. I've done a novella, and wrote the final chapter for @TheRedChamber 's chain story - which as mentioned above has few views for the amount of effort involved, though the popular tags mean it's still getting a trickle.

I've been working to translate a 750-word story into German, given I can read the language, and I have a couple kind editors lined up, but it's become very obvious that I haven't actually written more than a couple sentences in German since I left school, and it's really hard work!

I've done a Letter and a Review, so there's not many more categories, though the recent split of Trans means an extra one. There's some I wasn't sure how to write in while meeting my own ethical boundaries - I managed I/T, and i've read that hypnosis can't make people do anything they're totally opposed to doing, only remove their inhibitions for something they wouldn't object to, so I think I could play with that for Mind Control.

Similarly I might manage NC/R by focusing on the reluctance of someone worried about their reputation and social standing, not because they don't want to. The category's readers would probably hate it, but that's never stopped me before.

I believe you'll find there's a healthy appetite in R/NC for characters, especially women, who convince themselves to indulge in forbidden pleasures. That doesn't mean there won't be any whiny commenters, of course, but probably not too many.

 

[StillStunned]

I'm on twelve categories now, I think, and once I finish "Sweet Dreams, Poppy" (alternative title: "Shut Up And Masturbate") it will go in Toys & Masturbation for number thirteen.

I don't deliberately set out to write in as many categories as I can. I don't see it as a mark of versatility - a versatile writer should be able to write completely different stories within a single category.

 

[EmilyMiller]

A question for all you accomplished authors out there​

To date I have stories in each of:

1. Anal (7)
2. BDSM (11)
3. Celebrities & FanFic [my FanFic seems to have been put in Celebrities ] (3)
4. Erotic Couplings (7)
5. Erotic Horror (2)
6. Exhibitionist & Voyeur (10)
7. Fetish (13)
8. First Time (2)
9. Gay Male (1) *
10. Group Sex (4)
11. Humor & Satire (3)
12. Incest / Taboo (3)
13. Interracial (1) *
14. Lesbian Sex (11)
15. Loving Wives (3)
16. Mature (2)
17. Mind Control (1) *
18. Non-erotic (2) *
19. Non-consent / Reluctance [satire] (2)
20. Non-human (2) *
21. Novels & Novellas (1)
22. Reviews & Essays (12)
23. Romance (8)
24. SciFi & Fantasy (13)
25. Toys & Masturbation (4)
26. Transsexual & Cross-dressing (2) *

* = 750 word story only

The ones I haven’t written in are:

1. Chain stories
2. Cross dressing [since it was split out]
3. How to
4. Illustrated [which is now dead, right?]
5. Letters & Transcripts
6. Non-English

I doubt I’ll be doing any of the above any time soon.

 

[StillStunned]

Looking at my ever-expanding WIP folder (known in prophecy as "The Great Void That Will One Day Swallow The World"), I feel more and more like an unaccomplished writer.

 

[EmilyMiller]

To date I have stories in each of:

1. Anal (7)
2. BDSM (11)
3. Celebrities & FanFic [my FanFic seems to have been put in Celebrities ] (3)
4. Erotic Couplings (7)
5. Erotic Horror (2)
6. Exhibitionist & Voyeur (10)
7. Fetish (13)
8. First Time (2)
9. Gay Male (1) *
10. Group Sex (4)
11. Humor & Satire (3)
12. Incest / Taboo (3)
13. Interracial (1) *
14. Lesbian Sex (11)
15. Loving Wives (3)
16. Mature (2)
17. Mind Control (1) *
18. Non-erotic (2) *
19. Non-consent / Reluctance [satire] (2)
20. Non-human (2) *
21. Novels & Novellas (1)
22. Reviews & Essays (12)
23. Romance (8)
24. SciFi & Fantasy (13)
25. Toys & Masturbation (4)
26. Transsexual & Cross-dressing (2) *

* = 750 word story only

And six poems as well.

 

[HordHolm]

3. How to

I doubt I’ll be doing any of the above any time soon.

Oh, come on! Surely you have a 'How to' in you - everyone has a 'How to' in them. Just think of all the obscure knowledge we could share if everyone wrote the 'How to' that they have squirrelled away inside them....

 

[EmilyMiller]

Oh, come on! Surely you have a 'How to' in you - everyone has a 'How to' in them. Just think of all the obscure knowledge we could share if everyone wrote the 'How to' that they have squirrelled away inside them....

I guess A Big Stretch could have been How To Insert A Large Butt-plug.

 

[AlinaX]

Letters & Transcripts

It's surprisingly good fun to write these. I rarely read there, but I did enjoy writing for the category.

 

[EmilyMiller]

It's surprisingly good fun to write these. I rarely read there, but I did enjoy writing for the category.

How did you approach it?

 

[AlinaX]

I have one (From a Loving Wife) where a wife is writing to her ignorant husband, telling him in brutal detail of her descent into erotic degradation over the past few weeks. I have a series (Bellway) where two sisters exchange letters like some Regency era scandal. And there's a 750 (Our Pussy) where a woman writes to the owner of the pussy she just bought the deed to.

Approached this way, they're very similar to first-person stories, and any second-person references are quite light and clearly not aimed at the reader.

My Beloved Emily,

It is not even one day since we parted and already I am impatient for our next meeting. There is so much to tell, and I daren't trust the truth to ink and paper. What horror if this missive should go astray! The thought of my words being read by any eyes other than your own - why I'm sure I would die!

But I would die not to tell you, and straight away. You will call me a fool for daring to write what I should scarcely dare to whisper. I must, though, for to hold it in would surely do me greater injury than mere damage to my reputation.

(Another one of my Emilies, lol. Forgot about this one.)

 

[CalBishForNow]

I've done four and could easily do four more just by getting through my current list of ideas. I can't imagine getting all of them, though, or even all on the list of 29 that the OP would consider. Two main reasons.

1. I have no interest in certain categories. I probably couldn't do a good job with them and wouldn't enjoy writing or reading them. The challenge of something new is interesting by definition, I guess, but other than that.
2. The category of many stories is essentially arbitrary. I already have published several stories where I essentially flipped a coin between putting them in Group Sex or Loving Wives or Erotic Couplings and Fetish and it easily could have gone the other way. Lots more stories could go in more than one category too. A story about an alien could go in NonHuman or Sci-Fi & Fantasy. A story about a demon possessing someone could go in those and also Mind Control and Erotic Horror. If someone has a torrid fling progressing from simple exhibitionism through masturbation through conventional coupling and past it to anal, and they happen to publish it in four installments, are they obligated to hit all four categories?

Putting a story in a category I haven't already done just for the box-checking exercise, or writing a story just to fit in a category I haven't hit yet, doesn't seem interesting to me and probably wouldn't be to most others either.

But on the other hand, I'm currently at 4 and contemplating 8. If I found myself at 15 or 20 without trying, maybe I'd feel differently about checking off the remaining boxes.

 

[alohadave]

How did you approach it?

Dracula is almost all epistolary. It's one of the most well known examples of the style.

Also, fun fact, there is a service you can subscribe to that will send you emails that correspond with the calendar dates from the book. I think @MillieDynamite has talked about it before. Dracula Daily is the name.

 

[iwatchus]

I've written for fourteen. One I ended up deciding not to publish for personal reasons, one is for Crime and Punishment, so appears on Monday. My 14th I just submitted. I have a WIP for a 15th category, but I don't that to be done for months. There are a few categories I could easily imagine expanding into. I was uninterested in hon-human, but @PennyThompson and @NuclearFairy have me reconsidering that. And maybe I could write "Mommy asked me to play Santa so she could sit in my lap" story for Winter Holidays. That's about as close to T/I as I think I could ever come.

 

[yowser]

It is an interesting goal, and worthy if it pushes you to try out different styles, themes, ways of writing.

Others have pointed out the difficulty of reaching some of the odder categories (chain, audio, etc.) and the stock-split that added another category (oddly enough I had worked hard to do a trans/cross story, only to have what was really a crossdress story get recategorised as 'trans') which tosses a new wrinkle into the goalpost placement bit.

I'm up to 27 and will manage another couple, but a few are out of the running practically (non-english, audio.)

I will observe, which will undoubtedly be an unpopular opinion, that spreading one's totals via the 750 word route is a bit of an end run around the goal, not a violation of the letter but surely the spirit of the goal. To my mind it's rather like running up and touching the bull's nose and dashing away rather than grabbing the horns and doing the full wrestle exercise.

But it all depends on the nature of your motivation. And I applaud your desire, and those of others, to expand one's range and deepen important skills.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I will observe, which will undoubtedly be an unpopular opinion, that spreading one's totals via the 750 word route is a bit of an end run around the goal, not a violation of the letter but surely the spirit of the goal.

I agree. Which I why I highlighted where I had taken the ‘low road.’ TBH I have scores of story ideas, none of which are in Gay Male. In some categories, 750 words is about the extent of my commitment.

 

[Erozetta]

Eventually I will get there with all of them. Currently I think I have around 14 categories covered including audio, poetry, poetry with audio, chain stories, letters, and reviews.

I also have an erotic game idea the works which I'll get my husband to code for me.



As far as chain stories and audio, I've been thinking of making a starting point for a new chain story and leaving it open for other authors to jump into if they want. It would basically be "where I stop, you pick up and continue." I'd just ask that if anyone wanted to join in, to reach out and let me know so I can coordinate entry points if multiple people want to jump in at the same time, but I wouldn't need to know what they were writing, just a timeline for their submit so I can tell the next person when they can read what's currently up to submit their contribution.

For audio, I already have a mic set up for my podcast, so I just started recording audio versions of my stories and poetry. What does best in the category, though, is pure jack-off material. Moaning and groaning and soft or powerful speaking depend on if you're playing to men listening or women. I am not yet comfortable with that idea, which is funny because I've worked as a phone sex operator before. But I think my giggly and soft spoken nature carried me on that for uncomfortable reasons.

 

[lovecraft68]

I write what I like, I don't care about ticking off category boxes.

 

[StillStunned]

As far as chain stories and audio, I've been thinking of making a starting point for a new chain story and leaving it open for other authors to jump into if they want. It would basically be "where I stop, you pick up and continue." I'd just ask that if anyone wanted to join in, to reach out and let me know so I can coordinate entry points if multiple people want to jump in at the same time, but I wouldn't need to know what they were writing, just a timeline for their submit so I can tell the next person when they can read what's currently up to submit their contribution.

I opened up the City of Scum as a shared universe, not entirely like a chain story but not entirely unlike it either. Writers are free to seize on any plot points or characters and take them forward.

I should really finish a few more stories in that setting.