Modern Urban Fantasy Novel?

[atenai]

Okay, yeah, I know this isn't like the other story ideas here for one-shot stories. I started writing a novel a couple years back that has a strong urban fantasy setting, but there's a lot of adult content. I only wrote the first four chapters or so because I was getting contradictory critique and feedback from the site it was posted on, which wasn't designed for erotica. It's not even that explicit (at the moment), but it was still pushing a lot of people's boundaries. I expect that if I posted it on Lit, it would need to be elaborated. I'm going to start working on the first chapter to see what I can do with it (there's no erotica in Ch 1 yet) but I figured asking for tips would be good, too.

The concept is that basically a supernatural pandemic spreads (not full on zombie apocalypse, don't worry) and the female lead meets the male lead before she gets infected, only, she doesn't get any of the other symptoms. He doesn't know what to do about her, so he pulls her out of the local quarantine and takes her to his own facility, where they know more about the supernatural side of the disease and can attempt to tackle it that way. It becomes very much fantastical by chapter three, but I'm not sure if it'll really do well as either solid fantasy or solid erotica. Since I stopped working on it, I've gone back to read it over several times and I still like the idea, I just don't really have a convenient target audience to pitch it to.

Is this something that anyone would read? Is there too much fantasy to put it on an erotica site? I don't know the site population as well as I used to, so maybe I'm wrong. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I may post the first chapter once I add some more flavor, but it usually takes a while to get things through the submission process, and I would appreciate thoughts from people before then.

Thanks,
~Atenai

PS - The link in my signature goes to the stories I've written before, which are all pretty standard vanilla sex. This novel is completely outside my zone on literotica, so your help is much appreciated

 

[Sean Renaud]

My first impression is that I like the idea. Sure it's a lot more cliche than you're making it sound but it's still a stellar idea.

My second impression is "Dear fucking God. Why is there always someone too stupid understand that people who have a disease but show no symptoms are carriers and much more dangerous than people who show symptoms?! Will someone kill this stupid fuck? (Seriously that's why I hate 28 Weeks later. Had standard protocol of a bullet to the skull for anybody outside the wall been kept, and had it been doubled down on when they realized she was a carrier we would have been worlds better off. And the after credits ending suggests that had the military suceeded in killing our heroes the world would have been spared but our dumbasses had to save an innocent child at the expense of anywhere you could run from mainland Europe.

My third impression is to let you tell us more. The set up sounds interesting.

 

[slyc_willie]

I had a very large series on here called Beyond The Veil. It centered around a small strike team whose job was to hunt down various fantastic creatures such as zombies, trolls, giant spell-casting serpents, etc. It had a pretty good following before I pulled it. All of the views were in the tens of thousands with more than a hundred votes on each of the six chapters. One of the chapters was even a monthly contest winner.

There is an audience for everything. No matter what you write and post, there will be those who share an attraction to the genre.

 

[GorgeousGeekGirl]

There are 3 people who give feedback: audience, other writers, and critics. Unfortunately, all 3 are human and driven by their own agendas, so a truly objective analysis is impossible. I will use myself as an example. I find taboo practices to be absolutely disgusting, and will not read a story about taboo, even if it had a perfect 5 star rating. If lit had a tag block button, I would use it for this. On the other hand, because I've had a lifelong crush on Spock (Nimoy or Quinto), I'll read (or attempt to read) any given piece of drek with Spock (unless it's a /Kirk).

As far as the sex scenes, don't feel the need to "porn them up" for a Lit audience. Write your best, don't write to pander. My 2 stories include a lot of non-sex content which the commenters said made the stories better than just listing various methods penises are being inserted into random body cavities.

Your best bet is follow basic writing rules:

1. Use your spell check and grammar check.
2. Have someone review before submitting.
3. Does the story have a logical flow?
4. Avoid run on sentences and bulky paragraphs.
5. Keep tenses and point of view consistent. If there needs to be a shift, then make it clear there is a shift and why.

Good luck!

 

[atenai]

There is an audience for everything. No matter what you write and post, there will be those who share an attraction to the genre.

I suppose my question was more if there was an audience for it on Literotica, a website devoted to erotica. This novel is probably "adult fantasy" at best placement, not true erotica. I can submit it as "SciFi & Fantasy", or I could submit it as "Novels & Novellas", but whatever I do with it, it's hitting under the mark for erotic content, I guess.

As far as the sex scenes, don't feel the need to "porn them up" for a Lit audience. Write your best, don't write to pander. My 2 stories include a lot of non-sex content which the commenters said made the stories better than just listing various methods penises are being inserted into random body cavities.

That's how I write, period. However, when a chapter is posted with no erotic content at all, that's a different story. The story is not centered around sex, nor is there consistent sex. I'm wondering if that makes them less likely to be suitable on Literotica.

Maybe I'm just worrying too much, and should stfu and just post it already. That could be true too.

 

[slyc_willie]

I suppose my question was more if there was an audience for it on Literotica, a website devoted to erotica. This novel is probably "adult fantasy" at best placement, not true erotica. I can submit it as "SciFi & Fantasy", or I could submit it as "Novels & Novellas", but whatever I do with it, it's hitting under the mark for erotic content, I guess.

If you go with the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category, readers are more likely to overlook a lack of explicit sex for the sake of experiencing your vision. In fact, some could even argue that too much sex would take away from the story itself which, for categories such as SF and Non-human, are very important to the readers.

Do it your way. As you suggested yourself, shut the fuck up and write it.

 

[atenai]

If you go with the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category, readers are more likely to overlook a lack of explicit sex for the sake of experiencing your vision. In fact, some could even argue that too much sex would take away from the story itself which, for categories such as SF and Non-human, are very important to the readers.

Do it your way. As you suggested yourself, shut the fuck up and write it.

Thank you much, slyc_willie, for confirming my guess. Chapter one I submitted about twelve hours ago, so we'll have to see what happens.