Romance category

[gunhilltrain]

Don't screw it!

Don't give up so easily. We were agreeing with you, albeit in somewhat runabout ways.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Excuse me, "roundabout" ways.

 

[BentonVirtus]

Most of y'all on this thread are writers. Sure, you each have your opinions. All to the good. But, keep in mind that the categories are for the readers, not for the writers.

The categories are there to organize content in a way that makes it easier for readers to find stories on topics in which they are interested. The community of readers make their wishes known through ratings and reviews.

It seems to me that this mechanism is where the writers should look for "rules", not through an ad hoc exchange of writers' opinions.

We're all familiar with the disdain which some authors express about reviews that call out mis-categorisation. Yet, I would argue that these represent valuable feedback that can be used to better meet readers' expectations. Better meeting readers' expectations will only result in higher ratings and broader readership.

So, while we all recognize that modern romance is very diverse, it's not the definition of romance that is the question, but rather, what topics the community of readers wants to see in the romance category.

 

[oggbashan]

Most of y'all on this thread are writers. Sure, you each have your opinions. All to the good. But, keep in mind that the categories are for the readers, not for the writers.

The categories are there to organize content in a way that makes it easier for readers to find stories on topics in which they are interested. The community of readers make their wishes known through ratings and reviews.

...

While what you say is interesting, the readers' comments about categories are not consistent. It is difficult, if not impossible, for an author to avoid accusations that a story is in the wrong category because readers' perceptions of what a category should be, vary so much.

Ignoring Loving Wives, which is a minefield for authors, what is Fetish? One person's Fetish is another's WTF. A story might be ideal for a particular subset of fetishists and just incredible or impossible for the majority. If the reader likes silk and satin, fur or nylon is a turn-off. Femdom? So-called and self-identifying 'real men' can respond angrily.

I try hard to decide what category to use for my stories. Some I write specifically for a fetish. For most stories I write it and try to decide which category it should be put in.

Sometimes, too often, I get the category wrong but it is the result of my deliberate attempt to fit what the definition AND what I think the majority of readers expect. I can't be accurate about readers' preconceptions because there are no definitive statistics. All I can go on are the comments and feedback I get - telling me I got the category wrong again.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

BV, while you are of course right that we are writing for readers and need to respect their wishes and expectations, I find myself agreeing with oggbashan et al.

One of the most haunting romance stories in history is that of Héloïse and Abelard in the 1100s. Yet their relationship was anything but conforming to the boy-meets-girl formula for romance stories. Indeed, perhaps the most touching part of the relationship took place after he was castrated and she took the nun's veil. Yet their love story has endured - as a romance - for 900 years.

Is that plot a good choice for a Literotica story? Hardly (OK, LW or Fetish, just maybe). Yet the tale works as a romance.

As another example, consider the claim that cheating has no place in a romance story. Yet, so long as the couple both wind up happy, infidelity is I think no more than a relationship hurdle to be overcome, like student poverty. Used properly, it can contribute much to a romance.

Bottom line to me is that, yes, we are writing for the readers, but so long as they are pleased, it's all good and formulae be damned. To that end, discussion among writers about what works and what doesn't is as valid as a fourth-year honours English Literature seminar.

My 2 kopeks, anyway.

 

[MelissaBaby]

BV, while you are of course right that we are writing for readers and need to respect their wishes and expectations, I find myself agreeing with oggbashan et al.

One of the most haunting romance stories in history is that of Héloïse and Abelard in the 1100s. Yet their relationship was anything but conforming to the boy-meets-girl formula for romance stories. Indeed, perhaps the most touching part of the relationship took place after he was castrated and she took the nun's veil. Yet their love story has endured - as a romance - for 900 years.

Is that plot a good choice for a Literotica story? Hardly (OK, LW or Fetish, just maybe). Yet the tale works as a romance.

As another example, consider the claim that cheating has no place in a romance story. Yet, so long as the couple both wind up happy, infidelity is I think no more than a relationship hurdle to be overcome, like student poverty. Used properly, it can contribute much to a romance.

Bottom line to me is that, yes, we are writing for the readers, but so long as they are pleased, it's all good and formulae be damned. To that end, discussion among writers about what works and what doesn't is as valid as a fourth-year honours English Literature seminar.

My 2 kopeks, anyway.

I see a lot of merits in both sides of the discussion.

There seems to be a bit of a tendency to pigeon hole readers who favor particular categories. That's understandable to a degree.

I have only published in Novels and Novellas and Romance. Novels and Novellas is, obviously, an anything goes category regarding content and subject matter, defined, as it is, by form. I had some trepidation about publishing in Romance, though, because I kept reading comments about how hard it was to please the readers there, and how demanding they can be about authors adhering to the "rules" of the genre.

I am writing a long series that is, basically, a traditional romance, but I have just gone about my way without giving much thought to genre convention. As I mentioned earlier, I received some criticism for getting to the sex too fast. But the response wasn't "You suck!" or "Your main character is a whore!" It was "Nice story, I'd have preferred they slow down." Some of the people who gave me that critique are still following the story. They were willing to read along, despite some early reservations.

In my experience, what Romance readers want, more than anything else, is story. I think a lot of readers gravitate to the category because they think it's where they will get detailed narrative about relatable characters. They like sex in their stories the way they like spice in their food.

 

[8letters]

As another example, consider the claim that cheating has no place in a romance story. Yet, so long as the couple both wind up happy, infidelity is I think no more than a relationship hurdle to be overcome, like student poverty. Used properly, it can contribute much to a romance.

In the prior thread, authors who had read hundreds of Romance novels, who had read market research on Romance novels, who had gone to conventions about writing Romance novels all said that cheating is something Romance readers don't want in their stories.

Bottom line to me is that, yes, we are writing for the readers, but so long as they are pleased, it's all good and formulae be damned. To that end, discussion among writers about what works and what doesn't is as valid as a fourth-year honours English Literature seminar.

I've seen posts on the AH where the author's attitude seems to be "Stupid Romance readers don't know what a real romance is. I'll show them." I'd guess their real romance wouldn't receive a warm reception.

On the other hand, if you deliver the type of emotional experience the readers of a category are looking for, you have a lot of flexibility in how you deliver it. As MelissaBaby pointed out, she had sex right away in her Romance series and it doesn't seem to have effected its reception. My highest-rated incest story "My European Summer Vacation" starts out as a plain-vanilla romance and it isn't until the top of page four that the main character discovers that the woman he's fallen for is his half-sister. But the rest of the story is his struggle with being madly in love with someone he knows he shouldn't be in love with, that's the thing I/T readers are looking for, so it has received a very warm reception.

 

[SimonDoom]

While what you say is interesting, the readers' comments about categories are not consistent. It is difficult, if not impossible, for an author to avoid accusations that a story is in the wrong category because readers' perceptions of what a category should be, vary so much.

Ignoring Loving Wives, which is a minefield for authors, what is Fetish? One person's Fetish is another's WTF. A story might be ideal for a particular subset of fetishists and just incredible or impossible for the majority. If the reader likes silk and satin, fur or nylon is a turn-off. Femdom? So-called and self-identifying 'real men' can respond angrily.

I try hard to decide what category to use for my stories. Some I write specifically for a fetish. For most stories I write it and try to decide which category it should be put in.

Sometimes, too often, I get the category wrong but it is the result of my deliberate attempt to fit what the definition AND what I think the majority of readers expect. I can't be accurate about readers' preconceptions because there are no definitive statistics. All I can go on are the comments and feedback I get - telling me I got the category wrong again.

What you say is true, but to follow up on BentonVirus's comments, the inconsistency of readers' opinions is a problem for writers, but not readers, so in the bigger scheme of things it's not a problem at all. Readers don't care that writers are put out by bad comments and downvotes, and it's the readers that matter to the site, not writers (at least, not nearly as much). To a reader, "fetish" is a very useful category, even if, as you say, it encompasses people with conflicting and incompatible fetishes. I see no way around this issue, and I think writers just have to adapt to it.

 

[oggbashan]

What you say is true, but to follow up on BentonVirus's comments, the inconsistency of readers' opinions is a problem for writers, but not readers, so in the bigger scheme of things it's not a problem at all. Readers don't care that writers are put out by bad comments and downvotes, and it's the readers that matter to the site, not writers (at least, not nearly as much). To a reader, "fetish" is a very useful category, even if, as you say, it encompasses people with conflicting and incompatible fetishes. I see no way around this issue, and I think writers just have to adapt to it.

Adapt to it?

Writers can't adapt to meet 'conflicting and incompatible'.

What I can do as a writer is shrug my shoulders and just accept that my stories won't please everyone, will annoy some, and make some incandescently angry. That's their problem, not mine. I write to entertain. If you don't like the story? There are many more stories on Literotica.

Perhaps - but Literotica needs to deal with other issues first - as well as favoriting a story or author there should be a way of 'hating' a story or author that isn't the comment or a 1 vote.

 

[SimonDoom]

Adapt to it?

Writers can't adapt to meet 'conflicting and incompatible'.

What I can do as a writer is shrug my shoulders and just accept that my stories won't please everyone, will annoy some, and make some incandescently angry. That's their problem, not mine. I write to entertain. If you don't like the story? There are many more stories on Literotica.

Perhaps - but Literotica needs to deal with other issues first - as well as favoriting a story or author there should be a way of 'hating' a story or author that isn't the comment or a 1 vote.

Writers can't completely avoid the problem, but they can take steps to minimize it, by carefully selecting the category to post to and using tags and story titles and taglines to give notice to readers of the content of the story. Some hate will come forth anyway, but these steps will stem the flow of it somewhat.

The principle way to adapt is simply to ignore the negative and focus on the positive. If you submit stories that draw plenty of readers who mark your story as a favorite and give it good comments and feedback, who cares if a few bad eggs draw down the score a few fractions of a point?

 

[oggbashan]

I try to avoid problems. I have even made it obvious in the title that the story won't appeal to everyone yet I still get abuse from people who hate any story in the category.

I try hard to select the right category but I know I get it wrong sometimes. I get positive comments including 'but the category was wrong'.

 

[KeithD]

Most of y'all on this thread are writers. Sure, you each have your opinions. All to the good. But, keep in mind that the categories are for the readers, not for the writers.

The categories are there to organize content in a way that makes it easier for readers to find stories on topics in which they are interested. The community of readers make their wishes known through ratings and reviews.

It seems to me that this mechanism is where the writers should look for "rules", not through an ad hoc exchange of writers' opinions.

We're all familiar with the disdain which some authors express about reviews that call out mis-categorisation. Yet, I would argue that these represent valuable feedback that can be used to better meet readers' expectations. Better meeting readers' expectations will only result in higher ratings and broader readership.

So, while we all recognize that modern romance is very diverse, it's not the definition of romance that is the question, but rather, what topics the community of readers wants to see in the romance category.

Sure, if there are only three readers on Literotica. There aren't. There are tens or hundreds of thousand readers on Literotica, covering the whole spectrum of likes/dislikes and what they think the "rules" are. Very few of the readers comment at all. Letting the "perceived"" readers interest control what you write in search of high ratings is an exercise in futility (not to mention a tug at vanity).