Help with writing an "Author's Introduction"

[nice90sguy]

Here's the "Author's" introduction to one of @yukonnights stories. I think it's a great piece of writing in itself:

Four Bi Swingers — Finding something to keep our sanity in the time of Covid 19

Author's Introduction: This is a story about two couples whose social lives have languished during the years of the Covid situation. The couples met online with the help of Swinger's Connection.com (a fictional website made up for this story). One of the couples have never taken their fantasy of swapping too seriously, but do like to look at the options online just for fun — but now a fun pass-time fantasy leads them, in their boredom caused by a curtailed social life, to jump into their swinger fantasy for real.

Just a heads up / Content Warning; This story contains scenes of bisexual female/female and bisexual male/male sexual engagement, so if that's not your thing I don't want to spring it on you unaware. Obviously, such a story also has male/female sex scenes with the swapping of spouses. If it sounds like a fun ride, hop on board and let's see where these two swinger couples go. The story has about 117 KB of text — which should be about six Literotica pages in length.

Story Tags; group sex, male bisexual, female bisexual, bisexual lesbian sex, bisexual male sex, wife swapping, husband swapping, etc.

What struck me about the above introduction is how the author managed to simultaneously reveal the story content without spoiling the story, while also enticing the reader into reading it.

I'm interested to hear from some other experienced writers here how they approach writing Author's Introductions, or whether they dispense with them altogether. Personally I think they're generally very important, especially for writers like me with no real track record, or when the content needs some kind of expectation-setting.

In contrast, here's the introduction I wrote for my last story, which I'm not really happy with:

Authors' note:

This story about the relationship between a human male, Waldo, and Libby, an animatronic doll.

There are only five illustrations in this part. They were done in iClone3 and Photoshop.

 

[NoJo]

There are only five illustrations in this part

Too self-deprecating, IMO

I disagree about the "Story Tags" bit of that intro, I think it was intentional, for the hard of reading. I use them (for finding stories), but I'm not sure how many other people do.

 

[AlinaX]

I very rarely have a foreword unless it's a content warning or an acknowledgement of some sort. Here's a favourite of mine from Vale:

This series started from a prompt in the Forum by ScrappyPaperDoodler: "As Many Tropes as Possible (A Tribute to Literotica and Smut in General):... a guy... who's hung like a horse and inherits a billion dollars from a father he never knew he had. He falls in love with his sister... after somehow winning... a game of poker... here's the twist: the sister is an alien-vampire and all the friends are cyborgs (see 'fem-bots')... his high school bully ends up banging the hero's mom... we all know revenge is a dish best served anally... the use of a time-machine..."

Me being me, I took the absurd as a challenge, and with a lot of help and ideas from Scrappy I've written an amusing tale of wishes and wanton lust.

Content Warning: Incest, Mind Control; all characters are at least 18 years old.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I can't imagine a scenario where I would include an authors note that did what I feel the title, description and tags should do, which is clearly articulate what the story is about.

I understand and sympathize with the reality that readers are frequently blind to those items when selecting a story, but all I will typically warn them about is the length of the story and the absence of sex within it. If they choose to read beyond that point, I'll take my chances, as will they.

I do provide links to other stories that readers would benefit from reading first.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I think it is beneficial to put a short foreword to give some information to the reader what he/she can expect from the story, the theme, the kinks, is it slowburn or not and so on. There are the tags as well, but I am not sure how many readers check those. There are so many stories on this website. There are 100+ stories that are published every day. A reader has to choose among so many of them, so giving reader an additional tool to filter through them should be a positive thing and it should lessen the chance of getting negative score and feedback due to "Thanks for wasting my time with the crap I don't like!" reactions. Categories help, but they are also quite limited.

To the OP. Don't say "The story has only 5 illustrations" as it would seem you are already apologizing for giving a subpar illustrated story and you are giving such initial perception to the reader. Rather say "The story has some delightful illustrations done in..."

 

[Kumquatqueen]

If the content isn't what Joe Average expects from the Category, I often list the story tags because almost no-one reads them, and do a similar intro.

Because hell hath no fury like a horny reader confronted with unexpected male/male content. Let them click away in a hurry and we'll all be happier.

 

[lovecraft68]

I do a very general intro, usually with why I wrote the story or a minimal alluding to the plot. I will add something if the story has some darker aspects or squick factor.

This is my intro for last years April Fools contest

Author' Note: Welcome to my latest story and entry in the Literotica 2022 April Fools Day Story Contest. Over the years I've written some stories with darker themes, or mixed serious conflict and situations in to add some realism into these taboo fantasies. But life's been hard for a lot of folks the last couple of years, and in lieu of that I decided to go with a tale low on the serious, but high on the fun. Enjoy. LC68
This is from my recent trip into the LW pool

Author's Note: Going back to last year my goal has been to revisit several categories I haven't posted in for quite some time, and this is one of them. Although there are three characters involved in this story, it's really about a woman named Karma, and as advertised, she can be a bitch. LC68

 

[Voboy]

My notes tend to do little more than place the story within my broader catalogue and remind the reader that it's a contest entry (if it is). It's almost never more than one paragraph, and it seldom totals more than five lines.

Exceptions involve a need to explain a term or a linguistic note in my historical shit.

My most off-the wall story included this little gem:

* * *

Though not a direct sequel to my Sexual Distancing story, this does reference some of the events there.

PLEASE don't leave me feedback that tells me it wasn't clear it was narrated by a dog. Let's be clear: it's narrated by a dog.

No humans were harmed during the writing of this story, unless they wanted to be, and all dogs in this piece are safely over the age of 18... in dog years.

Enjoy!

* * *

Be concise. Always.

 

[nice90sguy]

I read that story, it was fun!

 

[TadOverdon]

A rough translation of the French Foreign Legion's motto is supposedly "You have joined the Legion to die, and we will send you to where men die."

Lincoln is reputed to have said, in regard to a rumor about himself, "For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like."

In that spirit, the most introduction I can imagine providing to what I write would be something like, "If you found this page while looking for stories about about people fucking, this is another one of those."

 

[gunhilltrain]

A rough translation of the French Foreign Legion's motto is supposedly "You have joined the Legion to die, and we will send you to where men die."

Lincoln is reputed to have said, in regard to a rumor about himself, "For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like."

In that spirit, the most introduction I can imagine providing to what I write would be something like, "If you found this page while looking for stories about about people fucking, this is another one of those."

I have used quotes from others to open a story; I think that is an old literary device. For story about a New York streetwalker (set in 1975), I found this:

"If the object of the New York authorities were to increase prostitution and depravity, they could not better accomplish it than by their present policy towards the unfortunate class that everybody endeavors to ignore, but who suffer and cause more guilt, crime, and misery than even bad rum can justly be held accountable for."
Walt Whitman, Brooklyn Daily Times, June 20, 1859.

https://classic.literotica.com/s/tammy-the-streetwalker

That quote from Lincoln doesn't sound like him, but who knows?

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I’ll almost always put in a one or two-sentence welcome.

I’ve put additional detail in to either warn people (eg. for a tale which I put in Romance but had a strong BDSM theme or for one which opened with a horrific nightmare). The idea is to please readers, not upset them, so a gentle warning for content which might upset IMO saves my story being downvoted by an annoyed reader.

For my S/F Cordelia mermaid series, I included a one-paragraph history of the planet to allow readers to have the background or context.

Beyond that sort of thing, not so much.

I’m pretty sceptical as to the actual value of tags, frankly.

 

[KeithD]

I rarely have author's notes. I think that, in most cases, a story should stand on its own--or not--without further explanation. In one of the stories in this Valentine's Day Contest ("More than Lust"), I employ one, but at the end, where I can give a little kick of "Wow. How much of this true?" after the story is read. (The author's note certainly is true.)

 

[yowser]

Speaking as a reader, I am not fond of any introductory material (exception: noting a story is in response to a challenge/contest.) I understand the desire to fend off potentially unhappy readers, but if the intro is more than a sentence or two it is easy to think the author rather self-absorbed.

Most times, I want to get to the story, and let it carry itself (or not).

 

[Djmac1031]

That quote from Lincoln doesn't sound like him, but who knows?

 

[yukonnights]

There are only five illustrations in this part

Too self-deprecating, IMO

I disagree about the "Story Tags" bit of that intro, I think it was intentional, for the hard of reading. I use them (for finding stories), but I'm not sure how many other people do.

I like to put my own tags into the Introduction for the simple reason; Lit tags aren't always used by a reader and it's in my best interest to warn away anyone who might be offended by the story theme and then penalize me for the surprise. Female/Female stories usually don't get much blowback — but Male/Male can. Let's just say; I include as much info up front as possible for the "Hard of Reading". Also, it gives folks a better idea of what the story might be, which also weeds out those who wouldn't like it. I'd argue it's a courtesy to give such information up front.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Since Djmac1031 included a photo. Otherwise, thread drift?

New York City Hall during Lincoln's funeral.

https://www.historynet.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Lincoln-Funeral-New-York-City.jpg

His body was taken on a roundabout train trip from Washington to New York, and then through the mid-West before finally reaching Springfield, IL.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

If it needs an explanatory intro, the content isn't good enough.

Writing in its simplest terms, is a way of explaining a story. If your story needs further explaining outside of the story, then the story wasn't written properly.

 

[nice90sguy]

Thanks for people's varied answers.
I guess my opinion is pretty close to Yokunnights -- I've been bitten with stories that included financial domination by NOT having a warning in the introduction. I also feel obligated to mention femdom, even though I also add that as a tag, because it's a niche.

But I can see there are clearly a lot of stories that don't need an introduction, and in fact having one would make their author seem slightly pompous.

 

[yukonnights]

If it needs an explanatory intro, the content isn't good enough.

Writing in its simplest terms, is a way of explaining a story. If your story needs further explaining outside of the story, then the story wasn't written properly.

This makes no sense? We're talking about a content heads-up before the person reads it ??? There are a number of potential triggers in erotic content — there is no downside to trying to prevent that from happening on a story intended to entertain.

I might agree with what you've said if we're talking about the Title — if that's done poorly it could lead some unsuspecting reader into content that's disturbing to them. We're sending our stories out to a huge audience and there is no way to know who or in what way some content might affect them. Bottom line, it's just common courtesy.

 

[SomaSlave]

I put in my first ever content advisory for my last story, Soma's Journey: Virgin No More. I struggled between putting it in Gay Male and Fetish, but finally put it in GM with this warning:

This story contains references to enema play. While I've tried to tone down the details for readers for whom the topic may be squicky, I had to include it, since this was the actual setting of my defloration. I've tried to avoid the gory details as much as possible and focus on the main event and the profound insight it gave me into who I am. That's why it's in Gay Male instead of Fetish. If you choose to bypass this story, I'll understand. However, I urge you to give it a read: you'll learn more about my own background and, I hope, enjoy the story.

In retrospect, I probably didn't need it here. However, I was a bit burned by another story, which I put in BDSM because it was clearly a BDSM story and partly based on an experience of mine. I thought it was rather good, and had a great closing line, but is currently my second lowest rated story. The only reasons I can think of are: (1) it's a Domme/sub situation and (b) the sub gets no pleasure from the encounter. It was probably borderline NonCon, but it should have fared better. Perhaps I needed an introduction like this: Danger, Will Robinson! A sub gets used like a sub and doesn't top from the bottom. Abandon hope, all gorny huys.

Bitter much? Nah. I'll figure this category stuff out one of these millennia

 

[Britva415]

I disagree about the "Story Tags" bit of that intro, I think it was intentional, for the hard of reading.

It's not clear to me what it was that you disagreed with?

Are you just saying that the tags shouldn't need to be listed because all the same words were already used in the author's intro?

 

[pink_silk_glove]

This makes no sense? We're talking about a content heads-up before the person reads it ??? There are a number of potential triggers in erotic content — there is no downside to trying to prevent that from happening on a story intended to entertain.

I might agree with what you've said if we're talking about the Title — if that's done poorly it could lead some unsuspecting reader into content that's disturbing to them. We're sending our stories out to a huge audience and there is no way to know who or in what way some content might affect them. Bottom line, it's just common courtesy.

A content warning is different, but the introduction that the OP quoted sets up the whole plot before it even begins, as if to explain why the reader might not understand it while reading. It's unnecessary. If the story is well crafted, the plot and all of its motive shall reveal itself so.

 

[NoJo]

It's not clear to me what it was that you disagreed with?

Are you just saying that the tags shouldn't need to be listed because all the same words were already used in the author's intro?

I was just saying that it's not a bad idea to include (i.e. reiterate) the story tags in the introduction, for those readers who don't ever look at them. Reminds me of some web sites that do this with their SEO keywords.

 

[oneagainst]

Yeah, I like launching straight in if it's a standalone story: parachute the reader into the thick of it and let them work it all out. It's different I think if you're mid-story-arc, so a couple of sentences to sum up the story so far, then maybe (the obligatory) warning about this chapter containing femdom (that will still get you one-starred by the reader who presumably thought you were kidding and still curiously managed to read every word all the way through to the end while hating it with every fibre of their being).

If you're using characters you've introduced in previous stories, I've found that linking out to their origin stories seems to work for readers - they can dive into the back story if they like and you don't have to explain who they are to the rest of the readership. Curiously (because I track these things) it also reignites viewing of your back catalogue....