Categorization Help

[AlexIce]

Right now, I'm working on a story that involves a young man from the late 1950s who is thrown forward through time to 2025. Here are some key points I want to make:

- He's reunited with his high school sweetheart who is now an elderly woman who is a retired professor of theoretical physics. She becomes a key figure in the story when she is contacted by the government interview and run tests on her high school sweetheart.
- The cause of him jumping forward in time is never quite fully explained.
- The ending itself is going to be an absolute tearjerker
- And, in an absolute first for me, there's going to be no sex.

My first instinct is to classify this as a Sci-Fi story but the actual Sci-fi aspect of the story is going to be secondary to the romantic aspect of the story, which is mostly about, old flames, missed opportunities and what could've been.

So, I guess what I want to know is: What category should I file this under once I'm finished?

 

[TheLobster]

Romance should work, and I'm also thinking of Mature but I don't know how the audience there takes to pure romance / no sex stories.

 

[THBGato]

You could do non-erotic?

@ronde has done very well with some sex-free romantic stories in that category.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Romance is an option. I have a sci-fi story that I ended up putting in Romance because that felt like the heart of it, and it's been well received there. Though if it doesn't have a happy ever after ending you may want to manage reader expectations.

Mine did have sex but it wasn't a big part of the story, and I understand Romance is not a Mandatory Sex category.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

This sounds like a variation of Somewhere In Time.

 

[DanDraper]

You could do non-erotic?

I agree, non-erotic would be good for a story where no sex is involved. There is a scifi element to the story, but with no explanation of his time jump its in a vague area, so that category could be avoided. Romance could be a good category for this one with what you described, but so far I am leaning towards non-erotic.

I have seen stories with no sex in other categories, I've done it myself a couple of times, so you could still choose to put it in other categories if you like.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Get it over 20K words and place it in Novels/Novellas.

 

[AlexIce]

I agree, non-erotic would be good for a story where no sex is involved. There is a scifi element to the story, but with no explanation of his time jump its in a vague area, so that category could be avoided. Romance could be a good category for this one with what you described, but so far I am leaning towards non-erotic.

I have seen stories with no sex in other categories, I've done it myself a couple of times, so you could still choose to put it in other categories if you like.

I did consider non-erotic briefly before I realized that two favorite stories of mine, The Escort and Plans, are categorized as highly rated in the Romance genre and have no mentions of sex but absolutely cut you to the core.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'd say Romance or Mature. Depends on the pull on those heart strings, I reckon.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'd suggest romance. It sounds like that is the primary focus of the story, rather than the sci-fi angle or playing up the kinky aspects of the older woman-younger man element.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

I haven't written in Romance yet, but it sounds like that might be the play. The tearjerker ending is intriguing to me. I'm assuming it'll be bittersweet, but would you say he more or less gets the happy ending?

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I haven't written in Romance yet, but it sounds like that might be the play. The tearjerker ending is intriguing to me. I'm assuming it'll be bittersweet, but would you say he more or less gets the happy ending?

Have you seen the movie I mentioned .... Somewhere In Time?

Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somewhere_in_Time_(film)

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

Have you seen the movie I mentioned .... Somewhere In Time?

Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somewhere_in_Time_(film)

I haven't, but I just read the ending in the wiki synopsis. Happy-ish ending, I'd say.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I did a similar ending to one, but never got a chance to expand on it the way I hoped to.

 

[Jorunn]

Romance should work, and I'm also thinking of Mature but I don't know how the audience there takes to pure romance / no sex stories.

I did a takeoff of the romantic movie, ‘Somewhere in Time”, and called it “Somewhere Else in Time”. It used the same time travel concept Christopher Reeve used to get back to Jane Seymour. I put it in Mature but did not go deep into the “How”. Not a long story, I got some nice comments, but the scores were slightly below my average.

 

[Britva415]

Have you seen the movie I mentioned .... Somewhere In Time?

Is the ending of the OP's story like the ending of that one?

- The ending itself is going to be an absolute tearjerker

The Romance category readers tend to like happily-ever-after. Will it scratch that itch, even with the tears?

 

[M_K_Babalon]

You can put non sex stories here, but why, is always my question.

 

[AlexIce]

Is the ending of the OP's story like the ending of that one?


The Romance category readers tend to like happily-ever-after. Will it scratch that itch, even with the tears?

To answer the first question, the story and ending are nothing like the movie.

For the second question, with the working draft I have right now, I really do think it will.