More advanced questions about stories

[Tomh1966]

Many thanks for those who helped me 3 months ago. So I have been writing a lot and have more specific questions now.
My story is mostly E&V but carries a very strong romantic theme.

1) What are the traffic levels of E&V vs Romantic? I am guestimating about 2:1 E&V is higher?
2) Relative tolerance levels of Romantic elements in E&V vs E&V elements in romantic?
3) Both categories tolerance for character development sections. I'm writing a story and the first E&V element is about 5000 words in. The story starts off telling the stories of the main characters and who they are.

4) Which section has the least trolling and general tolerance? Yes I know I will absolutely get a few "I hate you." comments regardless.

5) The story is a series and is VERY long. Is there any chance someone actually reads a late chapter 200K words total later across multiple submissions in the series?
6) With a story this long, how long timewise do I have to write before huge portions of the audience give up? I know I am still looking at JohnBergin 3 months later hoping he does another story. Maybe that is just me tho.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Romantic stories are usually about the build up, the climax of the story is when they make love for the first time. They don't tend to include any threesomes, sex with others for either characters must take place before they become involved, and it should be about a loving couple that are slow to consummate their love. Side steps in anything that puts a permeant dent in the relationship should be avoided.

Whereas, in EV you can just about write anything and have the romance still present. At least, that's how I see it.

Remember, there are no rules, but only suggestions.

 

[8letters]

1) What are the traffic levels of E&V vs Romantic? I am guestimating about 2:1 E&V is higher?

See this for traffic levels of different categories. E&V gets almost twice as many views as Romance, but Romance gets more favorites, a higher average rating, and more than twice as many comments. Some of that is because Romance stories are longer on average (2.8 vs 1.6), and longer stories get more responses than shorter stories.

 

[SimonDoom]

If you have a story that combines romance and E&V, my recommendation would be to post it in E&V. As 8Letters says, on average it gets more traffic. Plus, I think a good general guideline is if you have a choice, all things being equal, go with the kinkier category. E&V readers will like romance more than Romance readers will like e&v.

I have published many stories in E&V and have found that its readership tends to be fairly open-minded about including elements of other categories. It's not a punitive or nasty readership.

On the issue of length and timing:

1. If your story is good, and especially if it hooks readers with a good start, they will keep reading it. There are plenty of long series of 200K words or more that have done well. Recommendation: make your chapters at least 10,000 words long.

2. The longer you wait between publishing chapters, the more reader attrition there will be. If possible, publish them about a week apart. Maybe you should write a few chapters before submitting anything. Then submit them about a week apart.

 

[rescatooor]

I think it might be smart to have a regular-ish schedule for the chapters coming out. People will then feel more comfortable about picking it up. A lot of people kind of give up on a series and I'm sure that frustrates some people.

I've posted in both categories. More eyes in E&V but not all that much engaged. I'm also wondering if that category has kind of reduced in popularity since one of my recent stories has only about 5k views (Distancing). Maybe the issue is with the story title or description but I do find it a bit odd when my previous stories had around 20k views.

 

[SamScribble]

The interweb is teaching us all to ‘read it short’. If you want anybody to read 200k words, you had better be a writer in the top point-one percent of your trade.

As a general rule, the readership of multi-part stories declines with the arrival of each part. And few of the readers who join at ‘chapter’ 17 will bother to go back to the beginning.

As a professional writer and editor with almost 60 years of experience, one of the most frequently-occurring errors I see in ‘first drafts’ is the boring preamble. ‘First, dear reader, I want to tell you all about my carefully-crafted characters.’ But the reader isn’t particularly interested in your ‘homework’. The reader wants to know what happens next? Tell her. And then tell her what happens after that. And, along the way, the characters will reveal themselves.

Good luck.

 

[rjordan]

5) The story is a series and is VERY long. Is there any chance someone actually reads a late chapter 200K words total later across multiple submissions in the series?
6) With a story this long, how long timewise do I have to write before huge portions of the audience give up? I know I am still looking at JohnBergin 3 months later hoping he does another story. Maybe that is just me tho.

"Timewise", like any other story, you have the time it takes to read the first couple paragraphs, MAYBE the first page if you're established, before huge portions of the audience give up.

That's one reason why multi-chapter stories score so well. You attract a relatively large readership on the first chapter. The voting is probably representative with votes of 2-5. With each new chapter you lose more marginal voters leaving only your most interested readers to vote 4s and 5s.

Speaking only as a reader, a multi-chapter effort takes a large time commitment on my part. It better be DAMN GOOD, as good as the material I pay for, before I read past the first 3 or 4 pages. It's a conscious decision: do I want to bail now and read something else or continue?

I have dozens of kindle books by well-known authors (in some fields) that I've only been able to get through a single chapter before tossing it aside.

All the data mining and number crunching so popular on Lit will not guarantee readers for a stinker, least of all a long one.

rj

 

[Tomh1966]

Many thanks to all for the solid suggestions. I have about 25K words at like 95% done and formatted. The backstory really is a story and not 5K words of description about the character.

The basic premise is a woman in her early 30s is cheated on and divorces. Some fun stuff like posing in art classes and nude in public happen after the first 5K words. 25K words MOL. She recovers her life. 95% done

A man goes through the same thing. 25K words MOL. Has a few flings and recovers his life. They meet at the end of "his" chapter. 80% done. Needs a few more hooks to keep people interested.

The next works are about 60% done. They become an item and eventually marry. Some stories and situations etc. More exhibitionism in the larger sense. Some nudism... etc (Technically an exhibitionist is someone who gets a sexual charge out of exposing themselves to unwilling people. = the narrower sense)

Another 25K words at about 80% done. Pretty complete and decent punctuation.

A ton at about 60% done with story nearly complete but with a ton of missing punctuation and context missing. etc.

I write the story because I'm having fun doing it.

I'm not expecting 100K readers.

I'm trying to avoid some things I see in some stories. Story starts strong then suddenly ends and I'm like "what?" There, Their, They're, Two, To, Too.