KillerMuffin
Seraphically Disinclined
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2000
- Posts
- 25,603
When you submit a story at Literotica, you have to come up with a few things other than the story itself. A title, a description line, keywords, and a category. One of the harder things is what to put in the description box.
The description is the little "blurb" that appears next to the Title of your story on the index pages. It has a heavy duty job to do. First, it has to describe your story in a few words. Then, it has to entice someone to open the story. Finally, it has meet size requirements.
There is a length requirement for descriptions at Literotica. Unfortunately, there's no set number of characters so you have to sort of play it by ear. Essentially, the Title and the Description should all fit on one line when viewed in the story archive index. It's not always met because it's not easy to guage how long the title and the description are together until it's too late. If you click on the attachment below you can see a portion of the story archive list and examples of correct and incorrect fits. As you can see, Training My Young Stud Ch. 02 and Travel Log fit correctly: everything on one line. Transformation to Agression and Tumultous Times at St. James Ch. 01 are incorrect: the description dips down to the next line. This is one of the reasons why descriptions you might type in are altered by the editor at review. A general rule of thumb: Long Title, short description; Short Title, long description.
The description is there to entice someone to open your story. It's information and a teaser rolled into one. Most movies you see advertised come with what they call "tag lines" that are designed to get you to want to see it. For example, Gone With the Wind's tagline is "The most magnificent movie ever!" This is what descriptions are supposed to do (only better we hope!). When you write a description, keep that in mind. Many people use the description as an extension of the title. While there is nothing wrong with doing this, the descriptions will be converted to sentence case rather than title case and they do not show up in the story when it's clicked open. Additionally, descriptions are subject to change by the editor upon review. Something you might consider doing is scrolling through a few of the archive index pages in the category you're submitting to, to see what others have put in. You can get a feel for what's been done, what's boring, and what's interesting when you do this. For example, "She gets more than she bargained for" has almost become cliche in the non-consent category.
The description's primary purpose is to tell the reader what your story is about. If you submit to the fetish category where a variety of different subjects are handled, you might want to let people know what's in your story in the description. For example, if your story is about a panty lover's wet dream you can use the description to tell the readers that it's about a man who loves sniffing panties. Remember that you're also trying to entice readers with your description!
One final option left to you is to just leave it blank. Yes, you can do that! The editor will put something in there for you. The problem with this is that this winds up being the luck of the draw. You could catch her on a good day and she comes up with a stroke of genius for you. Or you could catch her on a bad day and get something a little too bland for your tastes. It's best if you can come up with your own.
Finally, a word about formatting and conventions in the description. The description will be written as a sentence with capitals and punctuation accordingly. Ellipses Marks (. . .) are usually removed. Dashes are usually removed as well since a comma or semi-colon will have the same meaning with less space. Generally, descriptions such as "A young woman" will be changed to "she." For example, if you submit the description as "A young woman meets the man of her dreams." it will be changed to "She meets the man of her dreams." Additionally, if your story is written in second person (where you write to "you"), the description will be written to reflect that. For example, if you have a second person story and you submit it with a description like "She gives him a sensual massage" it will usually be changed to "She gives you a sensual massage."
The description is the little "blurb" that appears next to the Title of your story on the index pages. It has a heavy duty job to do. First, it has to describe your story in a few words. Then, it has to entice someone to open the story. Finally, it has meet size requirements.
There is a length requirement for descriptions at Literotica. Unfortunately, there's no set number of characters so you have to sort of play it by ear. Essentially, the Title and the Description should all fit on one line when viewed in the story archive index. It's not always met because it's not easy to guage how long the title and the description are together until it's too late. If you click on the attachment below you can see a portion of the story archive list and examples of correct and incorrect fits. As you can see, Training My Young Stud Ch. 02 and Travel Log fit correctly: everything on one line. Transformation to Agression and Tumultous Times at St. James Ch. 01 are incorrect: the description dips down to the next line. This is one of the reasons why descriptions you might type in are altered by the editor at review. A general rule of thumb: Long Title, short description; Short Title, long description.
The description is there to entice someone to open your story. It's information and a teaser rolled into one. Most movies you see advertised come with what they call "tag lines" that are designed to get you to want to see it. For example, Gone With the Wind's tagline is "The most magnificent movie ever!" This is what descriptions are supposed to do (only better we hope!). When you write a description, keep that in mind. Many people use the description as an extension of the title. While there is nothing wrong with doing this, the descriptions will be converted to sentence case rather than title case and they do not show up in the story when it's clicked open. Additionally, descriptions are subject to change by the editor upon review. Something you might consider doing is scrolling through a few of the archive index pages in the category you're submitting to, to see what others have put in. You can get a feel for what's been done, what's boring, and what's interesting when you do this. For example, "She gets more than she bargained for" has almost become cliche in the non-consent category.
The description's primary purpose is to tell the reader what your story is about. If you submit to the fetish category where a variety of different subjects are handled, you might want to let people know what's in your story in the description. For example, if your story is about a panty lover's wet dream you can use the description to tell the readers that it's about a man who loves sniffing panties. Remember that you're also trying to entice readers with your description!
One final option left to you is to just leave it blank. Yes, you can do that! The editor will put something in there for you. The problem with this is that this winds up being the luck of the draw. You could catch her on a good day and she comes up with a stroke of genius for you. Or you could catch her on a bad day and get something a little too bland for your tastes. It's best if you can come up with your own.
Finally, a word about formatting and conventions in the description. The description will be written as a sentence with capitals and punctuation accordingly. Ellipses Marks (. . .) are usually removed. Dashes are usually removed as well since a comma or semi-colon will have the same meaning with less space. Generally, descriptions such as "A young woman" will be changed to "she." For example, if you submit the description as "A young woman meets the man of her dreams." it will be changed to "She meets the man of her dreams." Additionally, if your story is written in second person (where you write to "you"), the description will be written to reflect that. For example, if you have a second person story and you submit it with a description like "She gives him a sensual massage" it will usually be changed to "She gives you a sensual massage."
