Stories in the Wrong Category

[APilgrimSquare]

Like a lot of you, I write stories that could plausibly fit into numerous categories. Fetish/Group Sex, Mind Control/Horror, Lesbian/Exhibitionist. You can use tags to capture peoples' searches, but ultimately you have to pick one category.

Earlier this year, I wrote a story, "My Eliza," that had BDSM/Fetish/Horror/DubCon/Taboo/Mind Control content. Given the overarching hypnosis mechanics, I opted for Mind Control. It did not do particularly well with readers, whether because of my own limitations or mis-categorization, but one comment has stuck with me:

Was not aware of the darkness of this story. Hated it

Now, there's no accounting for taste, and I'd argue my disclaimers and tags ought to have tipped people off, but it surprised me that a reader might not expect darkness in a Mind Control story. I get that a lot of them are some variety of "i turned my sister into a bimbo with this one weird trick," but isn't there an inherent darkness there?! Is there a tipping point where a Mind Control story is simply better suited for Horror?

How do you handle it when a story could fit multiple categories?

 

[lovecraft68]

Go with the strongest influence or trump category. Normally taboo trumps most things, but taboo crowd also doesn't care for non con or 'dark' things, and they don't care for BDSM, I learned that a long time ago on dark and BDSM in incest

In your case I would have gone with horror, where the genre is broader, but the dark would have held a lot of appeal there.

But most of the time when you have that many varied things in a story no matter where you put it the results will be a mixed bag. A little something for a lot of people but not a lot of the one main thing many look for.

 

[ColtonWrites]

Yeah, I have similar problems. There are certain "trump" categories - if its in any way noncon, it should go into R/NC, even if it features aspects that fit in other categories. If there are trans characters, it goes into Transgender, regardless of whether its also group sex, BDSM, etc. Gay male has to go into Gay Male, same thing.

I have stories that go into multiple trump categories- where does a noncon story with a trans protagonist go?
I put one chapter in R/NC and got negative feedback, so the next chapter went into Transgender, where it has been rated poorly. I can't win. (Honestly my solution to that one is that I will put any future R/NC trans stories up on a different site where they do better, and stick to romance stuff here)

Try not to let a single piece of feedback get you down. Author's notes are your friend when it comes to avoiding nasty surprises, but even then you can't please all the people all the time.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I have stories that go into multiple trump categories- where does a noncon story with a trans protagonist go?
I put one chapter in R/NC and got negative feedback, so the next chapter went into Transgender, where it has been rated poorly. I can't win. (Honestly my solution to that one is that I will put any future R/NC trans stories up on a different site where they do better, and stick to romance stuff here)

I have a novel on this site which, while not actually having a transsexual character as psychology defines it, does have man turn into a woman. It's in R/NC, and did quite well before the one-bomb bombardment. Still doing OK.

--Annie

 

[Bamagan]

Like a lot of you, I write stories that could plausibly fit into numerous categories. Fetish/Group Sex, Mind Control/Horror, Lesbian/Exhibitionist. You can use tags to capture peoples' searches, but ultimately you have to pick one category.

Earlier this year, I wrote a story, "My Eliza," that had BDSM/Fetish/Horror/DubCon/Taboo/Mind Control content. Given the overarching hypnosis mechanics, I opted for Mind Control. It did not do particularly well with readers, whether because of my own limitations or mis-categorization, but one comment has stuck with me:



Now, there's no accounting for taste, and I'd argue my disclaimers and tags ought to have tipped people off, but it surprised me that a reader might not expect darkness in a Mind Control story. I get that a lot of them are some variety of "i turned my sister into a bimbo with this one weird trick," but isn't there an inherent darkness there?! Is there a tipping point where a Mind Control story is simply better suited for Horror?

How do you handle it when a story could fit multiple categories?

I'd caution against over-weighting any individual comment. Every category has a range of story types and tropes, large enough that you're almost guaranteed to find a few folks who like the genre but not one's particular take on it. Dark stuff doesn't tend to do great there, but there's no hard line against horror (that I'm aware of, anyway).