Ratings Bombed or Wrong Category?

[StillStunned]

I can see why. The over-riding theme seems to be a lesbian relationship.

No, it's a one-scene story about trauma, revenge, domination and closure.

What I wrote was a story about humiliation and dominance and semi-forced submission. Which I was told would not have been well-received in that category despite it involving an all female cast. i pointed it out as reason to select the proper category, not try to force a square peg into a round hole and then complain.

My story works perfectly fine in LS, without "loving sex", as you put it earlier.

 

[Gamblnluck]

No, it's a one-scene story about trauma, revenge, domination and closure.

My story works perfectly fine in LS, without "loving sex", as you put it earlier.

Well, just goes to say, I was misinformed, like many here who think a successful LW story has to be a BTB that annihilates the cheating wife.

 

[WCSGarland]

Well, just goes to say, I was misinformed, like many here who think a successful LW story has to be a BTB that annihilates the cheating wife.

Actually, I think many of the AH'ers here think that LW stories are 1-bombed by the BTB crowd if they do not BTB. Didn't you earlier state if infidelity is rewarded with divorce the story will most likely do well? Whether it involves BTB or not? At least that is how your explanation sounded to me.

I think stories that involve humiliation of the cuckolded spouse without the 'cheater' being rewarded by divorce are extremely likely to be 1-bombed. On the other end of the spectrum are the stories about reconciliation. I think some of us believe those stories are not well received either.

For me at least, it's an unreasonable position to take that marriages experiencing infidelity should only end in divorce.

 

[Gamblnluck]

Didn't you earlier state if infidelity is rewarded with divorce the story will most likely do well? Whether it involves BTB or not? At least that is how your explanation sounded to me.

What I tried to say is the readers want justice. If that is a reconciliation, fine. But it has to be earned. NOT, 'but I loved the cheating bitch who kicked me in the balls. and demeaned me.'
Your stories are well received and I read them immediately when I see one pop up. I may or may not comment. And yes that comment my be how your MC addressed the situation. i may agree or not with how you rectified the dilemma.
I'm not being a troll. I am engaged in the story. As an author myself, I love it when my readers invest themselves into the story and my characters. I've had PM's about how one of my characters was so bad and deserved to have her ass kicked.
These aren't trolls. They are my audience.

 

[WCSGarland]

What I tried to say is the readers want justice. If that is a reconciliation, fine. But it has to be earned. NOT, 'but I loved the cheating bitch who kicked me in the balls. and demeaned me.'

Okay, thanks for the clarification. It makes sense now.

 

[RetroFan]

All of the stories I have posted to Loving Wives have attracted comments that they are in the wrong category, and I have seen similar comments on other stories.

For example, one I posted was narrated by a middle-aged Black guy who is looking back to the early 1990s when he was 18 and how he helped a pretty white Mormon girl the same age cheat on her boyfriend, and then helped the girl's mother cheat on her husband, boasting about what he had done and how he never got caught. It attracted a lot of comments that the story should be in Inter-Racial not Loving Wives. Another example was one where the hot trophy wife of a Russian organized crime figure had informed on her husband, his brothers and their associates, and while in witness protection generally makes a nuisance of herself and seduces one of the detectives watching her. This attracted comments that the story should be in Erotic Couplings rather than Loving Wives as the husband and wife had already separated.

Oddest though might have been a LW story set on the Titanic, where I got one comment saying that historical fiction stories should not be posted in Loving Wives. There were no other details apart from this, just this flat and rather cross statement sort of like a high school English teacher giving a bad grade and negative feedback to a student who misunderstood the creative writing assignment and wrote the wrong type of story.

One has to think though; if the authors and site administrators followed the LW rules as strictly as these readers, there would be very few stories for them to read at all.

 

[CreamyPeachyKeen]

I skimmed your story and my two cents is that it's in the most appropriate category.

Thanks for your answer! There have actually been a lot of different philosophical takes in this thread, which I think is cool and interesting. Someone else argued for putting it in the category that will give me the least grief, which is valid, but I feel like you're suggesting to instead evaluate whether the ratings are that big of a deal if I also find the readership I'm seeking--also valid!

I'm feeling a lot better about it today after getting some shockingly pleasant comments, and I think I'm more inclined to chase comments over ratings for now. I can always kick it into novellas later. But if there are doubts about the category now, I do think the later chapters will remove them.

Cheers!

 

[CreamyPeachyKeen]

Burn the Bitch. It's a theme in LW where the female main character is broken by the end of the story.

Divorced, financially destitute, life ruined, etc. lt's a revenge fantasy that some in LW want to see happen to women who cheat on their husbands.

Welp. My guess was that we were burying her instead of burning her, but I'm so sad my first guess was right on the money haha.

I'm surprised I haven't come across any of these yet, actually. Probably because my partner isn't into them, and I find most of my recs through him. I've seen a lot more idiot cuck husbands blissfully unaware of his wife's antics or being too useless to stop her. Maybe a little humiliation kink for some of those folks. It's fascinating how different people can crave similar tropes for totally different reasons!

 

[CreamyPeachyKeen]

AH is sometimes like preaching to the choir or a political rally. You get those who convince themselves what they say is true because somebody else said so

That, unfortunately, is just a description of humans on the internet! We love nothing more than for our biases to be confirmed. It's very hard to stop yourself from doing it. When I'm feeling impatient with others I see doing it, I try to reminds myself there are probably areas of my life where I'm doing it too.

You mentioned you a are reader and like to tell stories you want to read. As you go along here, you will see some authors admit they do not read. They write to be read or 'for themselves'. Which is fine. But then they complain if they fail to reach the audience they claim they have no interest in reaching.

I hear you though. That's been a part of every writing community I've ever been part of it. It's too bad because, although I get that everyone has something to say, I've always found it much for satisfying both to read and to write when it feels like a conversation between audience and writer, even if a very slow one.

Though I don't think every single one of my stories has to be for the entire audience. I've got a piece in the works that will be much easier to pitch than this one, and that's okay. I'm writing this one anyway. Just trying to give it the best fighting chance I can for what it is.

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[CreamyPeachyKeen]

Hi Creamy,

Hi dirk, this was a really kind comment, thank you!

I've definitely seen a few successful consensual cuckholding stories in LW, and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the category. It's probably not the biggest sub community in that category, buuut so far I've been pleasantly surprised by the comments I've received. They're definitely in there, and so far they have been coming out of the woodwork to leave nice comments. Maybe that's enough!

I briefly considered fetish, but it would feel like a better fit to me if there was more of a humiliation kink about being cucked, and that isn't going to be present here.

 

[CreamyPeachyKeen]

Yeah, I tend to agree, the "Happy, happy, let's go screw around and pretend (or even believe) their marriage is as strong as it once was is going to get about a mid-range 3. Most of the readers refuse to accept that casual sex outside of the marriage is not going to impact it. Even more so if that screwing around is all one-sided where it is the hotwife who goes out, has sex and then returns to hubby like she just used a dildo.

Too many of those same stories, have the lover moving in, the cuckold humiliated, and the wife happy because she is getting hers and the hubby gets whatever sex she deigns to let him have.

It's so ironic, because successful real-life swinging can look exactly like that. But of course, the fantasies that fascinate, confuse, and get people going don't have to be realistic at all!

I do think stories need some kind of drama or tension to work, so too happy can be a killer. But also, people LOVE slice of life in their manga, manhwa, anime, and fanfic! For some people, I think happy is the unachievable fantasy.

I'll say I don't plan to have my character's other lovers move in. She already has a boyfriend, after all. I'm also looking forward to showing how much he's getting out of it in return. But I can totally see how I'm not serving the kind of drama many LW readers crave with this story...and I'm kind of okay with a mid-three score to tell this story the way I want to, tbh. I'll have plenty of other stories to bring the Drama.

 

[CreamyPeachyKeen]

IME, most readers have a small number of preferred categories and rarely read outside those categories. If you post Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 in different categories, many people who read Chapter 1 won't see Chapter 2 and many people who see Chapter 2 won't read it because they never read Chapter 1.

That's the sense that I get too. Thanks for confirming I'm not crazy to want to avoid doing that!