Should I throw my baby to the "Loving Wives" wolves?

[electric1]

My entry in this year's Earth Day contest will be about a woman who cheats on her husband with her son's friend. Should I categorize it as Loving Wives or as Mature?

I've heard that stories in the Loving Wives category get brutalized. But is that because of the category, or because of the kind of stories that wind up there?

My story is more focused on adultery than on age-difference. So Loving Wives seems more appropriate for helping readers find what they want. Then again, Loving Wives is such a vaguely defined category, part of me thinks we should abandon it until the administrators give us a clearer place for adultery stories.

Thoughts?

 

[PennLady]

You're right, Loving Wives seems to have a range. I've seen stories in there that are, indeed, about wives who love their husbands. However, I'd bet the majority are about wives who cheat, with or without their husband's permission. I have also seen plenty of Erotic Couplings and even Romance stories that involve one person or both people cheating on a spouse, so I'd say there's nothing wrong with putting it in Mature.

 

[Darkniciad]

Is the husband a part of the story at all? If the husband isn't more than a background character, it doesn't really belong in LW, even if there is cheating. Don't forget the "and their mates" part of the category description.

Unfortunately, you're probably going to get dinged for the cheating no matter where you put it. There are very few genres where you won't when it's "in your face" rather than a background fact.

I've had stories get dinged in Mature for not spelling out that the woman is divorced. Some readers will nail you if they think they smell hints of cheating.

The LW camps aren't fenced in to LW, either. If anything in your title, description, or keywords reveals that it's a cheating story, and one of them finds it to comment...

There's blood in the water and more of them will soon follow.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Dark is right, a cheating story will get dinged anywhere you put it. However, for sheer brutality, nothing tops an LW thrashing.

 

[Stella_Omega]

If she doesn't and up knocked up and diseased, PAYING FOR HER SINNNS THAT BITCH the LW trolls will express a whole lot of displeasure.

 

[AtlantaGirl487]

Hey, Pay No Attention To What The Trolls Say...

If you believe that it belongs in the LW category then go ahead and put it there. For some reason, this category seems to attract the bottom dwellers of this site so you need to learn to laugh at them for the limp noodles that they really are. To refer to them as "Wolves" or "Sharks" (as I've seen here before) really does a disservice to some of the beautiful inhabitants of the animal world. The bottom dwellers that I refer to would be more accurately described as worms or cockroaches who couldn't score in a women's prision with a handful of fifty dollar bills.

Ignore them!

 

[Angellica1612]

If you believe that it belongs in the LW category then go ahead and put it there. For some reason, this category seems to attract the bottom dwellers of this site so you need to learn to laugh at them for the limp noodles that they really are. To refer to them as "Wolves" or "Sharks" (as I've seen here before) really does a disservice to some of the beautiful inhabitants of the animal world. The bottom dwellers that I refer to would be more accurately described as worms or cockroaches who couldn't score in a women's prision with a handful of fifty dollar bills.

Ignore them!

Me likey....may I steal it?

 

[electric1]

I think I've made up my mind with your help, guys. I'm putting it in Mature.

I'm not ducking the trolls. My description will advertise the adultery; I wouldn't want to take innocent readers by surprise.

But Loving Wives is so poorly defined as a category that it just seems pointless to put any story there. And it's a shame. There should be a clearly defined Cheating category. But since there isn't, I may as well put my story in a category that is well-defined and does fit my story.

 

[sr71plt]

I think putting adultery in a descriptor will only be a neon sign to tell all the zappers where to congregate. I don't think any defensive wording in a descriptor helps the story. I suggest you just make them find it themselves.

Mature does sound like a good category for it, though.

 

[JustaSCOUNDREL]

The thing to remember no matter which category you want it in the editors will put it where "THEY" think is most appropriate.

My second story I asked to be placed in Erotic Couplings and they placed it in BDSM. Despite having written the damn thing and read and reread it maybe 50 times to self edit it in this case "THEY" were right.

If you are worried it could or would get beaten down you could turn off voting and make the cockroaches post a comment perhaps with a preface that Any Mouse comments will be deleted. That won't keep all of the worms out but some may be deterred.

Good Luck.

Mike

 

[Cruel2BKind]

The thing to remember no matter which category you want it in the editors will put it where "THEY" think is most appropriate.

My second story I asked to be placed in Erotic Couplings and they placed it in BDSM. Despite having written the damn thing and read and reread it maybe 50 times to self edit it in this case "THEY" were right.

If you are worried it could or would get beaten down you could turn off voting and make the cockroaches post a comment perhaps with a preface that Any Mouse comments will be deleted. That won't keep all of the worms out but some may be deterred.

Good Luck.

Mike

Grr. I hate it when they do it. I was pretty used to the 'catch-all' aspect of gay male, so when I put a story in 'first time' I was pretty pissed when they shunted it over to noncon. I personally don't think that there was even a noncon aspect in that story anyway. She was a little nervous the first time, but that was it.

They also changed a scifi/fantasy story to nonhuman.

 

[DG Hear]

Just write the story and put it in the proper category. If it's LW, you may get bit a bit depending on how the story goes. Cuckold stories take a beating. Some remorse or revenge may do quite well One thing no one has mentioned is the number of views. LW will give you three times the readers as mature.

So I guess it's what you want to have. A higher score or more readers. It still all comes down to the story. LW also has a tendecy to receive more comments although from anonymous. I have dozens of LW stories so I am speaking from experience.
Best of luck
DG

 

[Darkniciad]

Just write the story and put it in the proper category. If it's LW, you may get bit a bit depending on how the story goes. Cuckold stories take a beating. Some remorse or revenge may do quite well One thing no one has mentioned is the number of views. LW will give you three times the readers as mature.

So I guess it's what you want to have. A higher score or more readers. It still all comes down to the story. LW also has a tendecy to receive more comments although from anonymous. I have dozens of LW stories so I am speaking from experience.
Best of luck
DG

Going to have to disagree with you on the number of readers. I average 50k views on Mature stories and I've broken 100k several times in contests, on top of several stories breaking 1000 votes in 24 hours.

The readership of Mature is nothing to sneeze at. Certainly not 1/3 of LW.

 

[electric1]

Wow ...! You guys weren't kidding about those Loving Wives trolls!

As promised, I entered my Earth Day story advertising the adultery, even though I put the story in a more clearly-defined category. And as I was warned, the Loving Wives trolls found me. In less than one day, the story racked up more negative comments than all my other stories put together!

I knew it was coming -- you all warned me -- yet I'm still shocked. Really? Stories about adultery draw more anger and hatred than stories about incest or rape? There is something very wrong about that.

Thanks, estragon for dropping by with some words of kindness.

 

[estragon]

Electric, welcome to the beachhead. The trolls were dug in and waiting. Your storyline was interesting, the woman's POV was well-drawn, I thought; but any adultery story seems to bring out the trolls irrespective of category.

I'm interested in Dark's analysis of categories, as to number of views, number of faves and comments. A lot of discussions seem to be anecdotal and impressionistic. Hard numbers would be enlightening, and Dark's the man to do it, if he can spare the time from his own work.

 

[Darkniciad]

No, owlwhisper was the one to do that. Unfortunately, we've lost that valuable resource.

Dealing with the views, comments, and faves would require a bot scraping each and every story on the website, anyway. That's the only place that information is available in a recently up-to-date form on a widespread basis. It just presents too many problems, and would take a hella long time.

The only way I can see getting the data for those kind of hard numbers is if it's provided by the website. They could easily query the database and deliver averages for anything.

Electric, welcome to the beachhead. The trolls were dug in and waiting. Your storyline was interesting, the woman's POV was well-drawn, I thought; but any adultery story seems to bring out the trolls irrespective of category.

I'm interested in Dark's analysis of categories, as to number of views, number of faves and comments. A lot of discussions seem to be anecdotal and impressionistic. Hard numbers would be enlightening, and Dark's the man to do it, if he can spare the time from his own work.

 

[bashfullyshameless]

It's not necessarily even about the cheating. I honestly think it's more about gender perceptions.

Once upon a time, I did really well with the votes and the comments with a series about a guy who, to cut straight to my point, had a magically awesome girlfriend who happily and magically threw other hot chicks into his bed. I got hardly a bad comment.

I have a similar story with the gender roles reversed. The magic S.O. is a male genie, the normal one is a woman...and the first time she took advantage of the freely-offered Extra Booty, I had readers complain and call her a slut. It was mild compared to the LW beatings, but there it is. It's entirely possible that I simply did a bad job of creating suspension of disbelief where it came to jealousy issues, but I tried to address that and thought I had done a good job. But when I pointed out the double-standard, I still had guys who essentially said, "No no no, it may be a double standard, but it's justified because of biology" and such.

Mileage varies, I guess.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm experiencing something interesting now with a Loving Wives contest entry. I entered one in the Christmas contest four years ago, which did quite well then ("Fading Star")--finishing around 4.8 in the contest and only slowly coming off that over the years. And at the time it got no backlash from anyone. But in just this week, it has been hit by two of the Loving Wives vigilantes--like they've only just now discovered a story that's been sitting there under their noses for four years.

I say write the story you want to write and put it in what seems to be the best fit for it, regardless of what usually wins in a contest. The contests here are fun sharing exercises among the authors, but they are jokes as far as being legitimate contests of anything much concerning the quality of the content of the stories.

 

[Darkniciad]

I'm experiencing something interesting now with a Loving Wives contest entry. I entered one in the Christmas contest four years ago, which did quite well then ("Fading Star")--finishing around 4.8 in the contest and only slowly coming off that over the years. And at the time it got no backlash from anyone. But in just this week, it has been hit by two of the Loving Wives vigilantes--like they've only just now discovered a story that's been sitting there under their noses for four years.

There are a couple of commenters ( or one with multiple alts ) who start somewhere on a random page in LW and comment on every story straight down the line. It's been happening for a while.

I actually only lost about .01 in score when one of them hit both of mine ( with 1s, naturally ), but gained about 5k views, 20-30 votes, and half a dozen positive comments ( actually related to the story *gasp* ) each in a few days on stories 3-4 years old.

After the 1 was swept, they actually went up in score on top of that.

The troll actually improved all the numbers in the long run *laugh*

 

[sr71plt]

There are a couple of commenters ( or one with multiple alts ) who start somewhere on a random page in LW and comment on every story straight down the line. It's been happening for a while.

I actually only lost about .01 in score when one of them hit both of mine ( with 1s, naturally ), but gained about 5k views, 20-30 votes, and half a dozen positive comments ( actually related to the story *gasp* ) each in a few days on stories 3-4 years old.

After the 1 was swept, they actually went up in score on top of that.

The troll actually improved all the numbers in the long run *laugh*

Yes, I found it amusing that between the two "I gave it a *1 [using the same "*1"]" comments (one of which is signed), is a "favorite story" vote. After four years.

I also didn't notice until tonight how systematically "someone" has been going through my list and knocking off the red Hs--like that's going to make me split and run.

 

[tiggerlilly]

I must confess as a literotica virgin that the LW category has mystified me for some time. I have really only seen the reviews and never dared to actually read a LW story. Literally I suppose LW should be about a monogamous couple enjoying sex after the years have taken their toll.
However if you are going to write anything above a pure stroke story you need a bit of plot and some sort of conflict usually works for me when i write. what better than adultery which may or may not resolve itself happily.
I very nearly put one of my lesbian stories in LW as the heroine forgave her errant lover who got knocked up by her own brother (again). I eventually put that episode in 'incest' and got mauled by a troll.
Why do they always end their criticism with personal insults?
Unfortunately I have a very thin skin.
Now I stick to novels/ novellas although they do not get read much. Ho hum.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

I must confess as a literotica virgin that the LW category has mystified me for some time. I have really only seen the reviews and never dared to actually read a LW story. Literally I suppose LW should be about a monogamous couple enjoying sex after the years have taken their toll.
However if you are going to write anything above a pure stroke story you need a bit of plot and some sort of conflict usually works for me when i write. what better than adultery which may or may not resolve itself happily.
I very nearly put one of my lesbian stories in LW as the heroine forgave her errant lover who got knocked up by her own brother (again). I eventually put that episode in 'incest' and got mauled by a troll.
Why do they always end their criticism with personal insults?
Unfortunately I have a very thin skin.
Now I stick to novels/ novellas although they do not get read much. Ho hum.

Try gay male. I have never had a troll there.

 

[Stella_Omega]

the heroine forgave her errant lover who got knocked up by her own brother (again).

That's...

I dunno where that would go. Fetish maybe. it's not incest, since the fantasy of incest genre is that the family members are happier fucking each other.

And wow, way to insult the lesbian readership! You'd have to handle that so very carefully. I have no idea who could get away with that particular plot. John Irving might try it but he would get hammered.

 

[estragon]

No question that it hurts to get hammered, but of course don't quit. That would mean the trolls had won. Unhappily, writing anything but fairytale strokers attracts the one-bombers.

The contests are fun to follow and handicap; I find that most of the recent ones have had quality winners. Of course, some deserving work has gotten less than its due; it goes with the territory.

 

[GobletHolly182]

Fun fact, the German loving wives category (Sehnsüchtige Hausfrauen - Geschichten von abenteuerlustigen verheirateten Frauen & ihren Gefährten) translates as 'longing housewives - stories of adventurous married women and their companions.' Well, Gefährte could also be translated as 'partner' or 'mate'. Anyways, the Spanish and French translation of 'loving' is 'affectionate'.

I think cheating wives can fit under Loving Wives. The thing with categories is that they're sort of like genres -- mostly marketing.

Maybe I'll write a story about middle-aged polyamorous lesbian half sisters with kinky fetishes; one is half black-half latin and the other is half black-half asian. One is married to a guy, they have a threesome together with the one husband, and it includes anal. On a distant planet. The husband turns out to be secretly gay, but was brainwashed into marrying one of the sisters; he spends all his time spying on gay male sex in the BDSM club next door. In a horrific twist, he loses his anal virginity when he's raped by a cross-dressing ghost with a dildo. It's a multi-chapter epistolary novel, with illustrations. And audio.

lol