Opinions Sought

[Jamie_and_Lisa]

(Boy we are leaving ourselves open there.)

We have a 45.000 word rough draft of a story that will grow before it is published. (Right now the sex scenes and a couple of other scenes are single to five-word entires)

We were wondering how to finish and submit it for maximum readership.

A short synopsis is two young women have graduated from high school start a business instead of going to college. The non-sexual story arc that is basically existent continues with the pair being successful in running a small business, being shaken down by corrupt government officials...

(This part is an anonymized and toned-down but 100% true recount of the author's own experience with an employee of the Federal Aviation Administration who was privately involved in a multi-million dollar real estate partnership with a competitor to the author's aviation business and used their FAA authority to damage that business. The author won money damages in court. The corrupt official was promoted to a position where they had no authority to repeat their felonious activity.)

The pair deal with the harm this does to their business, restructure to minimize the damage and eventually grow the business even larger.

The primary romantic / sexual relationship is between the two MCs, but through the years they add other partners both male and female and explore multiple 'kinks' liking some and being ho-hum to others.

Our QUESTIONS are:

Submit as one long story with multiple tags or as several chapters, and...

PLACEMENT: Lesbian would be easy, but the MCs have multiple male lovers (sometimes at the same time). Group, except sometimes its the just the two MCs or one MC and... Breaking the chapters up and placing different 'kinks' in separate chapters, except that worked very poorly in the past for us. Romance, we sort of think of it as a romance, but there are 'kinks' that others may think shouldn't be in this category. We even considered E-V by telling it from the viewpoint of a detective trying to obtain 'dirt' on the pair. Starting with the conflict, moving quickly to the pre-conflict through interviews and the the post-conflict by direct voyeuristic observation. I guess we could make them twins instead of school chums and put them in i-T, but there is a "this is cool because it's forbidden" element that would be lackng.

FINAL QUESTION (and thank you for not leaving): How much sexual content? Being older gals with lots of experience we could go into great detail and create a 90,000 word story that was 50/50. But having that experience is a double edged sword, sometimes we just toss out an outline to let others fill in the details from their experience or fantasies.

A big thank you to everyone who has read this far and an even bigger one for all opinions that do not include suggestions that quote Harry Chapin (Mr. Tanner - 1973).

"Full time consideration of another endeavor ... might ... be ... in ... order."

 

[Voboy]

I'm on record as preferring and supporting longer stories, but 45k is at the outer range of my own attention span. If you're going to do lots of sex (and why not, really), I usually budget 3-4k words per scene, so factor that in as well; I'd probably end up breaking up the story, and I don't say that lightly. I find something around 30k words, total, is a good sweet spot; with this, I'd probably present it as two long chapters, each of which could stand alone. Just because I cordially dislike chapters. If my bias is not yours, just post in however many chapters you wish.

Category? Figure out the dominant sexual characteristic of the most important sex scene and put it there. BUT! Pay attention to the niceties of the various categories, as far as viewership and voting patterns. There happens to be a current thread on that. I forget the name and don't want to find it and link it, but it's got a title about maximizing views.

And if you're writing about disgraced government officials doing white-collar shenanigans, do make sure it's VERY randomized/anonymized.

Good luck.

 

[NotWise]

FINAL QUESTION (and thank you for not leaving): How much sexual content? Being older gals with lots of experience we could go into great detail and create a 90,000 word story that was 50/50. But having that experience is a double edged sword, sometimes we just toss out an outline to let others fill in the details from their experience or fantasies.

I can't help with the first question. There are pros and cons both ways.

On the final question, it sounds like you have an opportunity to load it up with sex. I'm not sure my readers have ever complained about "too much sex" in a story. My limitation is that my eyes glaze over if I write too much sex, and it gets repetitive. I actually took a couple sex scenes out of one of my recent stories. There was still a lot left.

Find a point that seems like a good balance for you. The readers seem to like more rather than less.

 

[SimonDoom]

Some thoughts:

1. As far as how much sexual content: there's no right answer to this, and it's not the right question to ask. Resist the urge to feel you need to pack in too much into one story. You can always write another story.

2. Category: Sounds like Lesbian sex or novel to me. It will be about 12 Lit pages, and it seems to cover a lot of kinks. So I'd probably say publish it as a long standalone story in one of those two categories.

3. As you progress on and finalize the story, I'd suggest concentrating on what the focus of the story is. Maybe it's just me, but I think erotica is better with a focus. What's the most IMPORTANT story in this story -- focus on that. Build everything around that.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

My thought on categories is that you've described it as a primarily lesbian romance, so I would put it in "Lesbian Sex." That's where readers will go to read a story about two women who are romantically involved. Since there are readers of that category who do not want to read stories with heterosexual sex in them, I would put a notice that heterosexual content was in the story.

I would suggest writing the sex scenes in ways that reflect what is going on with the story at that point and move the story forward in their own way. I think that lends itself to more detailed sex scenes that the readers will enjoy. I don't think every sex scene has to be detailed, but I do think that most people who read erotica are looking for the author to paint the picture for them. Otherwise, they could be reading a regular romance and just fill in the details in their own mind.

Have you considered breaking the story up into chapters? I'm terrible at math, but I think that what you've already got is going to be around 11 or 12 Lit pages. It might be nice to find (or engineer) some breaking points for chapters so the reader has a natural place to take a break to eat, sleep or work!

 

[yukonnights]

My thought on categories is that you've described it as a primarily lesbian romance, so I would put it in "Lesbian Sex." That's where readers will go to read a story about two women who are romantically involved. Since there are readers of that category who do not want to read stories with heterosexual sex in them, I would put a notice that heterosexual content was in the story.

I would suggest writing the sex scenes in ways that reflect what is going on with the story at that point and move the story forward in their own way. I think that lends itself to more detailed sex scenes that the readers will enjoy. I don't think every sex scene has to be detailed, but I do think that most people who read erotica are looking for the author to paint the picture for them. Otherwise, they could be reading a regular romance and just fill in the details in their own mind.

Have you considered breaking the story up into chapters? I'm terrible at math, but I think that what you've already got is going to be around 11 or 12 Lit pages. It might be nice to find (or engineer) some breaking points for chapters so the reader has a natural place to take a break to eat, sleep or work!

I agree with EoN about the Lesbian Category. Just a thought on the "heterosexual content warning"; If the hetero content is not spread over the entire story, I think a 'warning' just before any potential offensive content is enough. Something that just politely informs the reader they may want to skip over the next "x" number of paragraphs — but also promise a synopsis at the end which will keep them abreast of any major story elements w/o the sex scene, etc. I doubt many will skip the paragraphs but at least you can say; "I warned you."

My only thought about the actual writing/content of the sex scenes; Don't focus primarily on the physical, but also write about the emotions, fears, doubts, exultation, etc. There is a wealth of info to be mined that contribute to fully developed characters here. In real life a lot of sexual satisfaction and enjoyment are primarily "all in the head".

In regard to length; I think my longest story is about 30k words. It's found it's audience and has a decent rating. I've also received comments on other stories thanking me for breaking a story into chapters. I can't offer any concrete advice on this one — but I think I'd beak it into chapters That said; I would also suggest that you complete all chapters before submitting #1 … and let the readers know upfront that all chapters are finished and have been submitted. As you may know, if you do that Lit will dole them out in sequence every 2 to 4 days apart.

 

[Sextified]

I agree with EoN about the Lesbian Category. Just a thought on the "heterosexual content warning"; If the hetero content is not spread over the entire story, I think a 'warning' just before any potential offensive content is enough. Something that just politely informs the reader they may want to skip over the next "x" number of paragraphs — but also promise a synopsis at the end which will keep them abreast of any major story elements w/o the sex scene, etc. I doubt many will skip the paragraphs but at least you can say; "I warned you."

My only thought about the actual writing/content of the sex scenes; Don't focus primarily on the physical, but also write about the emotions, fears, doubts, exultation, etc. There is a wealth of info to be mined that contribute to fully developed characters here. In real life a lot of sexual satisfaction and enjoyment are primarily "all in the head".

In regard to length; I think my longest story is about 30k words. It's found it's audience and has a decent rating. I've also received comments on other stories thanking me for breaking a story into chapters. I can't offer any concrete advice on this one — but I think I'd beak it into chapters That said; I would also suggest that you complete all chapters before submitting #1 … and let the readers know upfront that all chapters are finished and have been submitted. As you may know, if you do that Lit will dole them out in sequence every 2 to 4 days apart.

Extremely well said and directly on point!

My "too early and too unprepared" posting, of the first chapter of my total re-write, finally got the delete I had asked for. I really hated having that abomination up so long!

I am two months into ripping it to shreds, and reconfiguring it into the style I personally like to write in. It is so out of place when compared to the follow up novels of the series.

Once it's ready, I'll be moving my reworked opening of my first book to the novel section instead of BDSM, or switching each chapter to the most appropriate section. I am currently working on breaking up the 30 planned rewritten chapters into logical installments of three or four chapters each.

I am planning on staying two installments, fully edited, ahead of the 14 days between releases for approval.

On my other website, the final ok was rather a rather predictable three days. So I always strived to hit the "go" button on a Monday or Tuesday, so my fans could have it to read on Friday night, or do it over their weekends.

The sexual focus in my books ranges wildly, depending on the characters involved in a particular scene. So I started putting standardized sex description tags at the beginning of each chapter, as a warning. But I have small generic opening statement of each posting that states that I will sort of recap any important details that get revealed during sex, after the clothes get put back on, or the kinky action stops. But I think there is a much easier way to do that.

About six years ago I developed the habit of relegating serious plot developments to occur either during foreplay or the pillow talk afterwards. That way, interested readers could just enjoy the sex scene, as much as possible. Eventually the fans of the books got used to that, and could trust they could just "bleep" over any of the sex that made them too uncomfortable. I took a while to get that part figured out, but it seemed to work well for both me as a writer, and my fans as readers.

I write from one partner's viewpoint, and concentrate on their feelings, emotions, doubts, pleasures and joy, then find a natural break, and switch to the other person(s) views. It has so much more intimacy that way! Also, when its done right, you get to move both the plot and action along so much faster.

Much easier said than done though!

 

[Sextified]

We were wondering how to finish and submit it for maximum readership.

- - - -

FINAL QUESTION (and thank you for not leaving): How much sexual content? Being older gals with lots of experience we could go into great detail and create a 90,000 word story that was 50/50. But having that experience is a double edged sword, sometimes we just toss out an outline to let others fill in the details from their experience or fantasies.

I do have a concrete suggestion for anyone with longer stories, especially those that do require chapters, or those that are planning on posting lots of stories. Sometimes we just don't know where to put all of our ideas. Quite often that can lead to very cluttered and confusing lists of stories, making it hard for readers to follow your work in chronological order.

What I have done in the past is to create a second Nick that references the Main account. I keep the longer works separate, and to build up traffic for them, I would write Stroke stories in the same universe. I was always careful not to include any spoilers for the main work.

Let's say that you have a secondary character that seems to float around in your main work. You already know quite bit about them, and might even have a good bit of background ideas set in your imagination. At that point, it's usually easy for most authors to come up with a short scene, off-camera, so to speak.

Then at the end of the Stroker, I would put a little blurb that said something like: For more scenes or longer stories like this, please consider reading "Main Work" and I'd give them either a link and/or the main author nick.

I added a lot to my readership that way.

Other authors used to just cut out the sex scenes from their novels, and post them as separate short stories, but I found that quite awful? At least in this case. If someone did like the stroker, and started to read the entire main story, the spoiler effect bothered too many readers.

I had one person only mentioned in passing as one of the main characters first lesbian lover. So as a legitimate tease, I wrote a story about one of THEIR adventures, in a similar vein and style. That woman never entered into the main book, but the Stroker did get me some views and favoriting out of it. No real damage was done to the main storyline at all.
_ _ _ _ _

On the second point, write it like you want to. One of the reasons I started writing was because I couldn't find the kinds of stories that I wanted to read, without the obligatory violence and abuse.

Too often there were deal breakers, after spending pages and pages of getting to the point. If a husband suddenly turns viciously on his wife, divorces her, then utterly ruins her life? Just because she finally made his fantasy a reality, that he had hounded her about for years?

Include the level of detail on the subjects that YOU would like to read. Your experience is really useful there, and you might want to pass that kind of thing along to your readers. What mistakes did you make? What would you do differently now? What did you always wish would have happened instead?

I've found that you need to set the scene, keep the readers engaged with emotions and reasons, and let their own imagination fill in the amount of detail they need from their own backgrounds. If you describe a character that looks like a famous movie star, so vividly with your words, then that will be all your readers will be able to think of.

A cute blonde with a pixie-ish face and mischievous smile, toying with the zipper on her blouse? It could and should be anybody from the reader's minds. An old girlfriend? A classmate that never gave them a second look? Their next-door neighbor's wife? A recently divorced coworker?

Use the level of detail you need to ignite your reader's imagination, not paint them into a corner they can't get out of!

Good luck!

Please remember to post back here in this thread when your story finally goes online!

 

[PennameWombat]

(Boy we are leaving ourselves open there.)
<snip>
Our QUESTIONS are:

Submit as one long story with multiple tags or as several chapters, and...

PLACEMENT: Lesbian would be easy, but the MCs have multiple male lovers (sometimes at the same time). Group, except sometimes its the just the two MCs or one MC and... Breaking the chapters up and placing different 'kinks' in separate chapters, except that worked very poorly in the past for us. Romance, we sort of think of it as a romance, but there are 'kinks' that others may think shouldn't be in this category. We even considered E-V by telling it from the viewpoint of a detective trying to obtain 'dirt' on the pair. Starting with the conflict, moving quickly to the pre-conflict through interviews and the the post-conflict by direct voyeuristic observation. I guess we could make them twins instead of school chums and put them in i-T, but there is a "this is cool because it's forbidden" element that would be lackng.

I put a detective story in E&V because, well, it wasn’t a perfect fit anywhere and that was the best. It’s done meh, but unclear the category or the story. Novel might’ve been better.

That said, I did a three-chapter serial, each went in a different category (EC, NonHuman and SF&F). It took a long, long time but ratings climbed slowly and they’re now all ‘H’. I also did a three-part serial in E&V (all highly-rated) then the four-part (and growing) follow up in SF&F. I think I lost lots of momentum.

I also did a single, 70,000 word SF&F story that’s done fine (‘H’ at the moment). But SF&F seems to not mind long works as much as some others. I usually aim for 15,000-30,000 words per submission.

I’ve never submitted to Lesbian so can’t say anything. I’ve written lesbian scenes but the overall stories were better fits elsewhere. And they indeed also usually had heterosexual sex so didn’t seem like good fits anyway.

Anyway, sorry to drone on. If you have ‘break points’ then release as chapters (just not like I do, with months between ). But, I’d highly suggest keep all in one category.

FINAL QUESTION (and thank you for not leaving): How much sexual content? Being older gals with lots of experience we could go into great detail and create a 90,000 word story that was 50/50. But having that experience is a double edged sword, sometimes we just toss out an outline to let others fill in the details from their experience or fantasies.

Put all of the sex in. But.

Keep some scenes explicit but like you mention let others be outlines or implicit or somewhat off-stage or just the aftermath. That’ll break them up a bit and you can adjust the overall flow without a sudden multi-thousand sex scene when you’re building suspense for a plot reveal.

A big thank you to everyone who has read this far and an even bigger one for all opinions that do not include suggestions that quote Harry Chapin (Mr. Tanner - 1973).

"Full time consideration of another endeavor ... might ... be ... in ... order."

From a couple of comments my stories have received... I think the commenters wished that opinion on me. But not one I’d pass on!

Good luck making sense of all of our conflicting suggestions! And good luck on the story when it’s released.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

Splitting a story across different categories costs readers. Someone who reads group sex may not venture into mature. Put it all in one category that covers the primary theme and use tags to differentiate teh stories.

I did the multichapter thing with a story. It did poorly. I deleted it and put it in one category and added/changed tags. Most chapters went hot while it was new.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I defer to the others about category and chapter vs one story, but I hope the PBY gets a mention.

***edit - actually, FWIW my summer lovin story is a 44k interracial (I really hate that description) romance, running to 13 Lit pages. It has four likes, twelve people have voted, and 1400 views.

In one day...

Guess my advice is to post in one story. Maybe tie it to a competition?

 

[Jamie_and_Lisa]

I defer to the others about category and chapter vs one story, but I hope the PBY gets a mention. ...

"Mitch had a line on a Consolidated 28-5ACF, basically a Standard Catagory PBY with a clipper bow, no blisters, and extra exits so the freight could climb out if we had to ditch in between our normal water landings. The plan was to pick it up in Bradenton Florida and fly it to Cancun. He would register it in Mexico where he had connections, then take it down to Panama where we would use it to haul supplies for the fishing fleets off the coasts; they harvested fifteen varieties of marketable fish. We could buy the fish in international waters and then transport them to Panama City, for transshipment to the United States, or any one of a dozen markets within the Cat’s operating range."

 

[TarnishedPenny]

'Lesbian' would work, but my first thought was 'Romance'. That covers a lot of ground and you wouldn't have to worry about the no-penis rule some readers hold by. 'Novel' would also work, based on length.

As to how much sex, well, this is an erotic site, yes? I wouldn't worry about too much, provided there's at least some sort of plot to hold it all together.