Loving Wives? Not worth it in my opinion.

[TubaBreath]

I’ll admit I have a bad attitude about LW, but so be it, I write LW-ish stories, with the understanding this is the way the category works here on Literotica. My inclination is to shut off comments, voting, and the other contact avenues, but publish anyway and let the haters twist in the wind. OTOH, I can just as easily let it all hang out, ignore the scoring - it’s a woefully defective system, anyway - and laugh at the ugly comments.

And @ChloeTzang, for the record, even perfect test scores don’t help. 1600, 3.95, and CalTech still said “no”.

 

[Duleigh]

I've tried LW twice, both were dedicated to shaming trolls, they appeared to be cheating spouses, one was a pastor hooking up with a hot black chick the other was a GI returning home from the war to find his wife sleeping with his friend. The one with the pastor did fairly well, turns out he was married to the black chick and they were having a little afternoon romp. The other got hammered, the GI that returned home was a ghost, and his widow remarried years after he died. For both the comments rant the gamut from nauseating to enthusiastic.

Is Loving Wives worth it?

In my humble opinion, yes! It's a highly valuable resource. It keeps the trolls over in LW land looking for a stroker that they can drool over and abuse the author to pump up their ego. It keeps them out of other categories where the authors work hard to produce an entertaining read and readers won't be distracted by their antics.

 

[Duleigh]

I can just as easily let it all hang out, ignore the scoring - it’s a woefully defective system, anyway - and laugh at the ugly comments.

You can delete any comments you feel need to disappear. It's your page, moderate any way you wish.

 

[Actingup]

I have to say, although I got many more comments on my LW story, they were not particularly useful comments. About half of the comments were praising the story, which felt good, but I didn't learn much from them. Some were just non-useful criticisms. A major chunk were two major plot issues, both of which I had thought about and decided to leave. I probably learned to be a little more careful but on the whole, learned minimally from those comments.

Per view, I get about as many comments on romance and LS as I did from LW. But I get much better and more thoughtful criticism, by far, on either of those. If I was trying to use the comments to get better at writing, I would absolutely go towards either of those categories.I am tending towards there now, button for that reason; I like writing them more.

I will say, I think my experience with LW comments is as bad as many. I get a higher percentage of nasty and mysoginstic comments from E&V than I have from LW. It's just a MUCH smaller denominator there.

Your experience is totally valid, but you may get some data if you post more stories there. If we ignore the comment quality and just go on views and votes, you can do extremely well on LW. You probably saw that I pasted this over in the Halloween thread:



It's not complete because I have some non-event Loving Wives stories, but essentially I could only approach the engagement from my top LW stories with a contest prize winner. Your LW story got lots of engagement, but I would imagine that if you posted a theme-appropriate story of the quality of your wonderful prize-winning 'Important Days' story over on LW, you would blow the lid off

 

[DeMont]

I’m interested in the martial relationships element and the drama associated with that. I don’t have a particular cheating fetish and find cuck kind of strange (just me, not saying others shouldn’t enjoy it). I’m interested in writing fallible people making mistakes - including infidelity - due to misunderstandings or hurt. But I think I’ll fit that into other categories going forward.

And I’m not so interested in the whole hot wife / sharing thing (again it’s fine if people like that).

@FrancesScott,
Good morning my dear colleague.
In response I would have to admit that I have no more interest in the "marital relationships element and the drama associated with that" than I do with the life cycle of the average fantail goldfish (please, I'm not a goldfishist!!!)

Fallible people making mistakes is so common to all walks of life that I can't immediately imagine putting it into a "marriage" context. I would say that if I tried to [sic] pen a cuck story it would come off as trite, unimaginative and unbelievable. Some may think it a great idea for an author to try and broaden their scope by stepping outside of their "comfort zone" but stepping into a "no comfort zone" and stepping into a "sink and die" zone are two different things.

As always I admire and respect any author that can write in whatever genre they feel is their "zone" or "stronghold" and I would always wish them the best of luck with the piece.
Deepest respects,
D.

 

[sirhugs]

"Fallible people making mistakes is so common to all walks of life that I can't immediately imagine putting it into a "marriage" context. "

this is precisely WHY the "marriage context" works- because marriage is very common and fallible people making mistakes is so common, so they fit together like puzzle pieces...
I agree writing in "no go" areas is at best frustrating, at worst devastating, but also that stretching your boundaries is healthy.
My viewpoint is skewed perhaps because I began my Lit life writing Loving wives and it was only later I branched out. When I started, LW was not quite the smelly trash heap it is now.
On the other hand, I am fascinated by the fact that incest, which is much more taboo (not to mention illegal IRL) is the most popular category.

 

[iwatchus]

I would imagine that if you posted a theme-appropriate story of the quality of your wonderful prize-winning 'Important Days' story over on LW, you would blow the lid off

I have no doubt that author's get great views and amazing vote totals in LW. My lone story in there is similar to your contest LW in both (almost 30K votes, 1.7K views), despite being a very mediocre story. (It was something like my fifth story, less than a month after I had started writing.) It was for an event, the first time I had tried to write for an event. It was one of two plots I had conceived before I started writing.

It has 3.5X the votes of "Important Days", although Important Days has more views.

My first Romance is a more interesting comparison. It has roughly 1/3 of the views, votes, comments, and favorites. So very similar engagement rate, but only a third of the views. But its comments are so much more thoughtful. Yes, the Romance is a better written story (I wrote it six weeks later, even if it appeared five days earlier.) But I learned a lot about my writing from the Romance's comments.

Even people want to write in LW for the total views, I have no problem with that. We all want more views. If we didn't want people reading our stories, we would never post them. And category has more to do with views than anything, including story quality. Yes, any category can get high views for exceptional stories. But poorly written stories can get high vies in some categories.

I'm sure some people write in the category because they like the stories. Apparently lots of people. I'm not here to kink shame.

But don't tell me it's for the engagement rates. You get similar engagement rates on some other categories. This is not just based on my experience, the @8letters analyses from a few years ago tell me my experience is fairly normal.

And don't tell me it's because of the quality of the comments you get. No doubt you get a lot of them. Great views with good engagement rates means a great number of comments. But the overall quality of those is shit. Again, not just my experience, look at literally hundreds of posts over many threads complaining about the comments in LW.

 

[Actingup]

I have no doubt that author's get great views and amazing vote totals in LW. My lone story in there is similar to your contest LW in both (almost 30K votes, 1.7K views), despite being a very mediocre story. (It was something like my fifth story, less than a month after I had started writing.) It was for an event, the first time I had tried to write for an event. It was one of two plots I had conceived before I started writing.

It has 3.5X the votes of "Important Days", although Important Days has more views.

My first Romance is a more interesting comparison. It has roughly 1/3 of the views, votes, comments, and favorites. So very similar engagement rate, but only a third of the views. But its comments are so much more thoughtful. Yes, the Romance is a better written story (I wrote it six weeks later, even if it appeared five days earlier.) But I learned a lot about my writing from the Romance's comments.

Even people want to write in LW for the total views, I have no problem with that. We all want more views. If we didn't want people reading our stories, we would never post them. And category has more to do with views than anything, including story quality. Yes, any category can get high views for exceptional stories. But poorly written stories can get high vies in some categories.

I'm sure some people write in the category because they like the stories. Apparently lots of people. I'm not here to kink shame.

But don't tell me it's for the engagement rates. You get similar engagement rates on some other categories. This is not just based on my experience, the @8letters analyses from a few years ago tell me my experience is fairly normal.

And don't tell me it's because of the quality of the comments you get. No doubt you get a lot of them. Great views with good engagement rates means a great number of comments. But the overall quality of those is shit. Again, not just my experience, look at literally hundreds of posts over many threads complaining about the comments in LW.

Fair enough - there's no doubt that some of the LW comments are terrible, and some are actively destructive. I've probably dodged a couple of bullets, although one thing that I've definitely had in LW is the way that the commentators can conflate the intelligence/beliefs of the writer with the stupidity of the actions of the writer's characters (for example some of the comments on my 'Crapshooting', which is a bit of a wife swapping satire). And I don't hesitate to delete comments that are actively abusive (or me, my mother or of other readers).

The story that I've had stuck in pending for over a month is a LW story - I'm going to curious to see how that goes down, as it touches on a couple of audience triggers. If it ever gets published.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Some authors here assume that LW stories MUST be cuckold stories.

The term "Loving Wives" can encompass far more than what you assume is required for a cuck relationship.

I wrote and posted one of my first stories over 4 years ago to LW:
He Missed You – (750 Word Project)
"750 words of my wife's return from a business trip."

The story has over 36k views, rated at 3.82/1,223 votes. This is one of my very first attempts to write and post any stories, anywhere! Of course there are some comments from those who think they own the category, and it should only be about cheating wives. But there are also other comments showing the opposite view.

************************
whew
by Anonymous user on 02/05/2021
not a cuck story. thank you author. that was lovely. this should be what LW stories should read like.
************************


So, Loving Wives stories are what the authors here choose to make it! If you'll only post "misogynistic cuck shit" there, then you're just shoveling shit into it.

 

[CalBishForNow]

On the other hand, I am fascinated by the fact that incest, which is much more taboo (not to mention illegal IRL) is the most popular category.

Yeah, LW was my favorite category as a reader here for years before I ever started writing, and I just picked and chose between the ones that were "loving" and the ones that weren't. I was publishing stories here for months before I thought about categories and their respective stats. Trying Taboo/Incest at some point seems obvious, but it's... taboo! What is it about Internet perverts in general, or the ones cultivated by this site in particular, that makes that so popular and successful? I'm sure I could get a good rating there (by comparison to LW, at least), but I suspect it would feel, let's say, "different" than the other categories...

No offense to people who do it. No kink shaming here. I even have an idea I'm toying with. I'm just saying, the category stands out.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Fair enough - there's no doubt that some of the LW comments are terrible

You seem to have slipped into an alternate reality where the denizens of LW are literature majors with a deep love and understanding of prose and an appreciation of the craft of storytelling. All I can say is that my mileage has varied considerably.

I think if what you want is thoughtful comments, Novels and Novellas is the place. I’ve had more insightful feedback in virtually every category than LW. But your experience has been different, which i understand.

 

[iwatchus]

I think if what you want is thoughtful comments, Novels and Novellas is the place. I’ve had more insightful feedback in virtually every category than LW. But your experience has been different, which i understand.

I was hoping to see this, but my first foray into N&N has not gotten many comments or particularly high quality ones. I only have one novel thus far, published in six chunks almost three months ago. It has good ratings, but I'm disappointed in the engagement otherwise.

I have found the three best categories for me for quality of comments (and high engagement per view) are Romance, LS and SF&F. And I have yet to put a serious story in SF&F (a new novel coming around the first of the year).

I will say, at the other end, E&V has very few comments and what I got were generally lower quality than even LW.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I'm disappointed in the engagement otherwise.

It’s low views for sure.

 

[iwatchus]

It’s low views for sure.

It's very similar views to my SF&F series, but fewer comments and favorites per story, even though it is substantially better rated. And I found the comments less useful, certainly than I get on Romance or LS. I had expected more useful comments in the category. I have another one coming in there for the Pink orchid event. Maybe that will get better comments.

 

[EmilyMiller]

It's very similar views to my SF&F series, but fewer comments and favorites per story, even though it is substantially better rated. And I found the comments less useful, certainly than I get on Romance or LS. I had expected more useful comments in the category. I have another one coming in there for the Pink orchid event. Maybe that will get better comments.

There is also a random overlay to all of this. Where your story placed on the category new list, whether it made the first page of the site new list. What day it went live on. Who happened to read it. What else was published that day etc.

I think you need four or five stories in a category to draw any more robust conclusions.

 

[iwatchus]

I think you need four or five stories in a category to draw any more robust conclusions.

Largely true, although I temper a lot of my expectations based on the analyses done by @8letters a few years ago. There are definite outliers, I have one in each direction at a minimum. But most of me experiences seem fairly typical in terms of numbers. It certainly takes more experience to evaluate quality of comments, And the quality probably varies more by story than the numbers do.

 

[Actingup]

You seem to have slipped into an alternate reality where the denizens of LW are literature majors with a deep love and understanding of prose and an appreciation of the craft of storytelling. All I can say is that my mileage has varied considerably.

I think if what you want is thoughtful comments, Novels and Novellas is the place. I’ve had more insightful feedback in virtually every category than LW. But your experience has been different, which i understand.

I think that some of the entertainment comes from the fact that some of the commentators really are a bit like that, whereas others read like they’ve just been thrown out of the local truckers’ diner for bad language. And some of those have some penetrating and occasionally withering insights that have me nodding to say ‘fair comment’. Best of all of course is when they defend the story against others.

 

[yowser]

For those of us with low entertainment thresholds, reading the LW comments is generally worth a whole bag of popcorn.

A selection (maybe 10% but representative) from one series:

Anonymous
good start
The background/backstory read easily, didn't feel forced.
As for the poker game .. pleasantly surprised. I didn't expect her to start under the table.
What I liked most was that you wrote it in such a way that it all felt 'natural' ..

Anonymous
Now that's a wife who's keeping her marriage interesting!
Great story...rather abrupt ending, but definitely left me hoping for and imagining more.
ps...my sympathies for the commenter who can't separate erotic fiction from reality. Lighten up, Buddie.

Anonymous
Now there's a wife that's looking for a divorce.

bonnietaylor2
I gave this a 5 of course since you pissed off the fucking pile of shit annony!!

hardwettalk
Woops! Just checked your profile. Sorry about the "Lady"

Anonymous
If my wife ever did something like that, I would lose my shit
It's one thing to have whatever wild and kinky fantasy you want in the bedroom, it's another thing to act on it.

cyferx
Things Left Unsaid
This comment is for the whole series and not just Chapter 1. There may be spoilers.
First of all, you write really well. I enjoy reading your stories even when they are flawed. I am actually disappointed this story is not better. I came here from your new story Suzanne Comes Again. I read that and had some qualms and came to read this one and I can see some of the same issues.
This story suffers from perennial Loving Wives "slut freefall" and "instant cuckold" issues all bad cuck stories suffer from.....

(then 3 lengthy paragraphs of highly detailed criticism….)

Normally I would give these stories at least 3* due to the high level of the writing, regardless of the perceived problems of plot or story mechanics, but these failings were so egregious for such an accomplished writer, that I gave them all 2* except for the last chapter which showed some serious insight. I gave that a 3* to acknowledge that there was some interesting discussion of consequences and going forward and there was even the interesting hint to my mind that the husband might be forgiving her transgression sub rosa. There was certainly promise with this story. I hope you make you new series more than a complex stroke story.

Anonymous
Correct ending
I made a comment to an earlier chapter that I liked the woman-in-control part, rather than the more usual, and implicitly misogynist, wife-is-slut/whore. She was presented this way, without comment.

Interestingly, this comes back in the final chapter. The long discussion between husband and wife fits the whole story, both of them working through what had happened. And there we have Jim, right off, bringing up the fact of her woman-in-control behavior and that maybe - probably? - they really should have discussed it first.

I like it, a sign of good writing.

Dyolf4500

Loosen up guys. It's just a story and a damn good one at that. Nobody's real wife got fucked. If you're so damn moral, what are you doing on a porn site? 5*

 

[EmilyMiller]

I think that some of the entertainment comes from the fact that some of the commentators really are a bit like that, whereas others read like they’ve just been thrown out of the local truckers’ diner for bad language. And some of those have some penetrating and occasionally withering insights that have me nodding to say ‘fair comment’. Best of all of course is when they defend the story against others.

View attachment 2572880

It’s like Aristotle taking to Socrates, Plato, and Thales .

 

[CalBishForNow]

I have 52 comments on my first LW story. 37 of them were in the first two days. For comparison, it was my 13th story published here, and all previous stories have a total of 25 comments between them. There was the abuse we more or less expect, 13 comments like that (anyone else feeling superstitious?) among the first 37. But I also got 11 comments with purely positive feedback, and the following bits of constructive criticism:

• Use tags. I hadn't before. It had just never occurred to me, or I wondered about it but didn't bother until people spoke up.
• Non-substantive editorial stuff I missed on all editing passes, like "his eyes" when I should have had "her eyes" or "the stop sign changed to green" - harmless, but a reminder to focus on stuff like that more or get an editor for something particularly important or complicated.
• Feedback that the plot wasn't clear enough, the event triggering the story didn't make sense. It seemed obvious enough to me, but two different people had comments to that effect, so I want to make my and the characters' thinking clearer next time.

Later stories in the series have had lower numbers but similar trends, including some different constructive criticism.

Obviously the BTB crowd sucks. "Rude" doesn't begin to cover it; some comments have made me wonder about their sanity and/or the safety of people around them. But I don't see what I can do about that, and that reflects on them, not me or my writing. The tradeoff is the rest of this comment.

 

[Actingup]

It’s like Aristotle taking to Socrates, Plato, and Thales .

Emily, in case you need any more help getting over the line, here are some stats for my just published LW, at 22 hours old, alongside the four previous stories. Now I know they're not all like this - the experience varies widely. But this one looks like it connected. Over 1000 votes in 22 hours, which is more than the previous four stories combined, and way, way more than poor old 'Change Management' in Erotic Horror (which is a better story IMHO). I haven't had any Anon comments through yet (stuck in the queue?), but the named comments so far are generally very supportive and often quite critically constructive, sometimes at length. In those circumstances, the score doesn't matter too much. Would I write again for LW based on this? Absolutely.

 

[PennyThompson]

Emily, in case you need any more help getting over the line, here are some stats for my just published LW, at 22 hours old, alongside the four previous stories. Now I know they're not all like this - the experience varies widely. But this one looks like it connected. Over 1000 votes in 22 hours, which is more than the previous four stories combined, and way, way more than poor old 'Change Management' in Erotic Horror (which is a better story IMHO). I haven't had any Anon comments through yet (stuck in the queue?), but the named comments so far are generally very supportive and often quite critically constructive, sometimes at length. In those circumstances, the score doesn't matter too much. Would I write again for LW based on this? Absolutely.

View attachment 2573195

That level of voting engagement is absolutely bonkers

The comments you're getting are interesting too, some are shockingly constructive, and any honest writer would feel fortunate to get them.

And then there are a number of just overtly angry bitter guys who seem to be objecting to any ending that doesn't involve misery and revenge.

I don't think I could handle being in the same room as those guys, I wouldn't want to provide them with an opportunity to tell me what they think should happen to women

 

[Actingup]

That level of voting engagement is absolutely bonkers

The comments you're getting are interesting too, some are shockingly constructive, and any honest writer would feel fortunate to get them.

And then there are a number of just overtly angry bitter guys who seem to be objecting to any ending that doesn't involve misery and revenge.

I don't think I could handle being in the same room as those guys, I wouldn't want to provide them with an opportunity to tell me what they think should happen to women

Yes, your quirky, inclusive characters might find it a hard slog, and some of that would come back at you - some commentators really are pricks. But I do also want to pick up what @Lifestyle66 said earlier:

Some authors here insist the haters in LW are "misogynistic incels".

But I've read enough of the LW stories and all of their comments to see the pattern. They don't hate women, they hate cheaters, whether it's the husband or wife! There are those readers in LW who insist on monogamy and faithful adherence to wedding vows which they ASSUME means no sex with anyone else. So, if they read any story with extra=marital sex, they1-bomb it. And if one of the couple cheats on their spouse, those readers want repercussions against the cheater.

I'm guessing those types of LW haters may have been burned by a cheating spouse in a divorce, with the cheater getting away with half of their marital assets and living happily ever after. The "innocent" spouse is forever tormented with a feeling of injustice, now divorced and lonely. They search out stories in LW and reward those Burn-the-Bitch" ones with a 5.

(my emphasis on the cheaters) I agree with this. If there was a hypothetical (just a thought experiment - don't panic) Penny story that had a Rosa or a Scout being cheated on (heaven forbid), I would guarantee that a large slice of the audience would be totally behind them, even if they had struggled a bit more to identify with the characters. I know this because my top rated LW story has a female MC (Catherine - you met her in the Jade story) who is being cheated on and there isn't a single comment suggesting that she did wrong by sending her husband, his lover and his cousin to a Bad Ending. Of course, there are some who suggest that she's a scary woman and they wouldn't trust her, but they just have to suck it up.

 

[Lifestyle66]

(my emphasis on the cheaters) I agree with this. If there was a hypothetical (just a thought experiment - don't panic) Penny story that had a Rosa or a Scout being cheated on (heaven forbid), I would guarantee that a large slice of the audience would be totally behind them, even if they had struggled a bit more to identify with the characters. I know this because my top rated LW story has a female MC (Catherine - you met her in the Jade story) who is being cheated on and there isn't a single comment suggesting that she did wrong by sending her husband, his lover and his cousin to a Bad Ending. Of course, there are some who suggest that she's a scary woman and they wouldn't trust her, but they just have to suck it up.

In my "Book Club" LW series, Book 3 is: "Going Down Together" "Beware the wrath of a woman scorned."

Book 4 is: "Cheated Wives' Club" "Cheating husbands might be surprised how we spend our time."

These are some of my better rated LW stories at 3.83 and 3.96. I think the wives having their own extra-marital sex even when justified as revenge is still a downer for many LW readers. But when there's a cheating husband who prompted it, I'd guess it's a 2-bomb instead of a 1 to some of them. I still get 1-bombers in those stories, just not as many as in other stories.

 

[Dark_Logan_]

A High read rate
Ambiguous content expectation
Low scores
And an inevitable vitriolic comment from 26thNC

What’s not to love about Loving Wives?

I did once drop a BDSM story into Loving Wives completely by accident the ice cube in a deep fat fryer reaction was very worth the honest mistake.

One day I’m going to write a perfect tale of romance and love between a dutiful wife and her doting husband and drop it into LW just to be amused how it gets 1 star bombed by trolls the minute it publishes (assuming it gets published given the black holes around here)

It does constantly amuse me that readers of this category can be so triggered by matters like adultery that they’ll without any sense of irony scrutinise every word of every paragraph to only declare BtB

Take everything in that arena with a generous pinch of salt and crack on is my mantra