Switching Horses...

[BobbyBrandt]

I have seen several instances where writers submit multi-part/chapter story series, placing the parts into different categories or genres when they submit.

For example three parts of a series might be posted as 'Romance', but then two or more parts are posted as 'Loving Wives'.

Is there some logical reason for doing this? It would seem to me that the story in its entirety would determine the category rather than individual parts. At least that's the way I've always done it.

 

[SimonDoom]

I have seen several instances where writers submit multi-part/chapter story series, placing the parts into different categories or genres when they submit.

For example three parts of a series might be posted as 'Romance', but then two or more parts are posted as 'Loving Wives'.

Is there some logical reason for doing this? It would seem to me that the story in its entirety would determine the category rather than individual parts. At least that's the way I've always done it.

People do this both ways.

The reason for doing it this way is that it gives readers a better idea what the content of the specific chapter is. Many readers (like me) almost never read novel-length stories at Literotica. I prefer to read stories I can finish in one setting, so if I choose to read a story chapter, for whatever reason, I want to know what the content of that chapter is. I don't want to waste time on it if the content is contrary to what interests me.

 

[RejectReality]

Sometimes stories have a lot of kinks, and they don't all play well together in the same category.

Deviating to Loving Wives from any other category seems somewhat ill-considered, but I digress.

A story like this puts you in a tight spot.

You can risk a "main" category, but many of the categories have narrow focus, and fans of that kink may not like your adventures into other kinks. That can result in low scores and nasty commentary.

You can try bouncing between categories as appropriate for each chapter, but the readerships aren't really that mobile. You lose readers from the original category when you move on to another one, and the readers of the new category may not follow the story when it moves back to the original or on to a third.

You can go with Novels and Novellas, which is broad enough for the wide-ranging kinks, but has a low overall readership.

 

[AvroAnson]

First, authors merely suggest (and have veto power* over) the category, the editor and site owner decides where it goes. She has been doing this for a living for decades and practically speaking is always correct. (From a definitional standpoint this might not be the case but she KNOWS how the majority of readers will react.)

Years ago I wrote longer pieces that had several different things that I found interesting encompassed within them. But the different audiences were not completely pleased. So, I got each muse a separate account, and wrote shorter stand alone stories with recurring characters. Now those simpering little ninnies who enjoy reading about group sex but get squicked out by two guys touching one another don't have anything to whine about.

This is really important in the "trump" categories, because that one mention of familiar or marital relationship, one instance of CNC, or one instance of buggery in four pages that puts the story in a certain category won't satisfy the masses in each category. (The "unwashed" ones -- to quote Bill -- who don't see the T in I/T, or the R in NC/R and say it isn't V and doesn't belong in E-V if you touch.)

It's liberating actually. Because, not being Bob Villa restoring a Victorian, I don't have to do a show about locating the wood molding before taping a show about stripping the old paint from it, painting it and installing it. I can fictionalize last Thursday's events on my laptop today and New Years Eve's events from twenty years ago next week. If you weren't at both, you wouldn't know it was all out of order.

*There are categories I won't publish stories in because of the reactions that I know from experience my work will receive. My writing is sort of E in E-V, and its not cool to involve the unwilling. If the boss thinks it belongs in one of those categories, I will move my tale to a draft status, figure out why it was "moved," and modify the story accordingly before resubmitting.

 

[jehoram]

Me, I just write stories and put them into the best fit for the category. I've written series stories where the chapters aren't in the same category, but I figure that if the reader is interested in the characters, they'll follow their exploits from one chapter to the next without worrying too much about what they're up to.

I've only been dinged once, when a reader suddenly came across some incest in a story where he wasn't expecting it. (The incest happened off-screen, so to speak, but that didn't matter to him.) I followed his comment with an apology and an explanation that sometimes a story will go where it wants to go, and the way "Categories" are structured doesn't lend itself to keeping that from happening.

 

[Hypoxia]

My best-rated series started in Group but a cousin was involved so Laurel moved the first to Incest. I bounced the rest of the series between those two categories, depending on who fucked in each episode. This seemingly worked.

I posted a much earlier series in various cats -- Group, Non-Human, SciFi -- and ratings were poor so I moved all chapters to SciFi and response has picked up a bit. I may combine and update those as a SciFi novella.

Switching cats mid-stream can be risky. I recommend against it, lest the poor readers get confused and touchy.

 

[KeithD]

It's all specific-case dependent. Sometimes the point of the work is to highlight wildly separate categories in separate sections. Such was the case with my account name sr71plt entry of the five-part Tuscan Twilight series (https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/tuscan-twilight-ch-01), the parts of which were set in widely separate categories (gay male, lesbian, group sex, erotic coupling). That was the point of the work, moving into totally different categories as it moved along. Laurel apparently "got it," as she gave four of the five parts her green E, editor's pick, award.

So how to categorize the parts depends on what you are trying to do. In general, I keep all parts under one category, but one of the great things about creative fiction is how many different ways you can approach it with a work.

 

[yowser]

One oddity, perhaps anomalous to LW, is that the variation in 'scoring' can vary widely depending on which category a chapter is lodged. Same characters, same plot-line, (same writing) but a different focus on activities, and the scoring can be quite different.

One LW series I did got uniformly low scores for LW chapters (low of 3.95) but a high of 4.67 with a chapter in GS. Others likely have similar experiences.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I still don't get it...

Maybe I'm an odd bird (okay, there's no 'maybe' about it), but I think that I am the best judge of how my stories should be categorized, and I have never had Laurel or anyone change my selection.

Although many of my stories are broken into chapters or parts due to the length, and some of the content in one of those submissions might subjectively 'fit' into a different category, it is still the whole story that tells that tale, and that is what determines the category IMO.

If someone is submitting chapters or parts of their story as they write them, that might make a difference, but once a story is complete the genre should be crystal clear.

Could you imagine a printed story being treated the same way as Literotica stories? Even if published in a magazine in multiple parts, it would be nothing but confusing. First part gets published in Penthouse, next part gets published in Cosmo. Then again, what in life isn't confusing?

 

[oggbashan]

I don't usually have the problem of 'trigger' categories, so I use Novels and Novellas for longer works...

 

[HappySpouse]

Could you imagine a printed story being treated the same way as Literotica stories? Even if published in a magazine in multiple parts, it would be nothing but confusing. First part gets published in Penthouse, next part gets published in Cosmo. Then again, what in life isn't confusing?

I remember helping my brother track story arcs across several different comic books. That seems fairly similar.

Personally I prefer the different categories that fit the chapters, and think it must help get more readers to them. If I want the whole story, I’ll click on your name. Otherwise, I’m looking for stories with tags or categories that I like. Further, if I search for tags and your chapter comes up with a category I’m not in the mood for, I will likely dismiss it. It might have been the perfect lesbian scene that I was looking for, but because you labeled your whole story “incest”, I’ll just scroll by.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Well, one long series I did was submitted in, I think, nine different categories. Why? I was new to writing here and experimenting - nothing more than that. It may have cost me or lost me and that's fine either way. I like to think that I learned from it and that's what matters most to me.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

My one series was mainly in Gay Male but had some heterosexual sex scenes. I dealt with the first two by splitting chapters and putting parts in Erotic Couplings, where I got more readers and some quite good ratings, but no uptick in readers for the rest of it. I got the impression the small number of readers who liked the story didn't object to heterosexual sex, but preferred chapters of 3-4 pages rather than two.

Also that readers came from the tags and description and very few read the whole thing even if they liked later chapters - some late chapters got twice the readers of chapter 2...

 

[SamScribble]

Switching Horses!? Bestiality is prohibited on Lit!

 

[eroticstoryspinner]

I have seen several instances where writers submit multi-part/chapter story series, placing the parts into different categories or genres when they submit.

For example three parts of a series might be posted as 'Romance', but then two or more parts are posted as 'Loving Wives'.

Is there some logical reason for doing this? It would seem to me that the story in its entirety would determine the category rather than individual parts. At least that's the way I've always done it.

I have bounced between Incest and Non-con. Because my stories involve judicial enslavement the overall category is non con. that said I rolled the dice and posted the first chapter of one of my story series as incest because a lot of incest was in the story. It was well received. The third chapter I moved to non con because there was no incest in that chapter.

I picked up some followers who would not have not normally looked at a story in the non con category. I also had a follower who loves my penal slavery series but thanked me for warning about the incest because she does not care for that category at all. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Blind_Justice]

It's easy for me. I approach stories with a "genre first" mentality. It's Sci-Fi or fantasy first, porn second. As such, my readers have to deal with the sexy content being on the unpredictable side. I've had vanilla, gay/lesbian, tentacles, threesomes - sometimes all in one story. It DOES help that my preferred haunting ground has rather open-minded readers.

 

[RejectReality]

It's easy for me. I approach stories with a "genre first" mentality. It's Sci-Fi or fantasy first, porn second. As such, my readers have to deal with the sexy content being on the unpredictable side. I've had vanilla, gay/lesbian, tentacles, threesomes - sometimes all in one story. It DOES help that my preferred haunting ground has rather open-minded readers.

Yep. It's not as much of a problem when you're in the "not real world" categories. You have an overarching theme that doesn't pigeonhole you into any particular sexual kink. Because of that, the readership is used to a wide variety of kinks, and don't balk as much as might happen elsewhere.

 

[eroticstoryspinner]

Yep. It's not as much of a problem when you're in the "not real world" categories. You have an overarching theme that doesn't pigeonhole you into any particular sexual kink. Because of that, the readership is used to a wide variety of kinks, and don't balk as much as might happen elsewhere.

I gave some very serious thought to posting my stories in SF Fantasy because when you get right down to it they are SF alt history. I don't remember who, but somoni told me that unless it was sword and society or other clear fantasy, that the slavery theme would not be well received.

 

[RejectReality]

I gave some very serious thought to posting my stories in SF Fantasy because when you get right down to it they are SF alt history. I don't remember who, but somoni told me that unless it was sword and society or other clear fantasy, that the slavery theme would not be well received.

I think someone underestimated the readership of the category. If you're worldbuilding, as you would be in an alt history story, you're tapping into a good segment of the readership.

It doesn't all have to be swords and sorcery, phasers and photon torpedos.

I did a short alt-history piece myself, and Gift of Eternity did reasonably well. 4.68, 177 votes with nary a battle or spell anywhere. It's got more votes than a half dozen or so of my full-on fantasy stories as Les.

 

[MColton84]

If you're worldbuilding, as you would be in an alt history story, you're tapping into a good segment of the readership.

It doesn't all have to be swords and sorcery, phasers and photon torpedos.

I agree. The show Fringe is just as much a piece of science fiction as Star trek. A story doesn't require wood elves and dragons to be fantasy. Nor does a science fiction story require starships and aliens. Both just require their distinctive differences from the reader's reality. I am sure that there's more to it than what I've said, but that's just my two cents.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Maybe I'm an odd bird (okay, there's no 'maybe' about it), but I think that I am the best judge of how my stories should be categorized, and I have never had Laurel or anyone change my selection.

Although many of my stories are broken into chapters or parts due to the length, and some of the content in one of those submissions might subjectively 'fit' into a different category, it is still the whole story that tells that tale, and that is what determines the category IMO.

I agree that it's generally best to keep a story in a single category, but it can get iffy if your story opens with content that's likely to be a squick for readers in the chosen category - e.g. if the story is "female protag is brutally raped by a guy, but then finds healing in a romantic lesbian relationship", you probably wouldn't just want to put it in Romance or Lesbian without flagging that content to readers.

 

[KeithD]

That leads to the question of whether you index a controversial issue in the keywords for chapter one when the issue won't come up until chapter nine. It's not going to mean much for a while, but any accommodation for the reader who has invested reading eight chapters of a romance to suddenly find crossdressing water sports romping across chapter nine?

 

[Bramblethorn]

That leads to the question of whether you index a controversial issue in the keywords for chapter one when the issue won't come up until chapter nine. It's not going to mean much for a while, but any accommodation for the reader who has invested reading eight chapters of a romance to suddenly find crossdressing water sports romping across chapter nine?

I had basically this issue with my current series. It starts out with a romance-ish premise but there's a BDSM theme that develops several chapters in, including CNC play. I mentioned that aspect in a note at the start of Chapter 1, because it's not everybody's cup of tea.

 

[Athalia]

So far, I've had stories that had chapters in different categories, with no ill effects on readers that I could discern.

And only one of my stories was assigned to a different category than I'd intended. That story was "The Path of Pain"

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-path-of-pain

In the story, the MC tortures herself to the point of an orgasm. Because it was about pain, I thought that the best fit was "BDSM" but when the story was published, Laurel had changed the category to "Fetish." I had no problem with that; it was Laurel's site, Laurel's rules.

 

[LexxRuthless]

I have seen several instances where writers submit multi-part/chapter story series, placing the parts into different categories or genres when they submit.

For example three parts of a series might be posted as 'Romance', but then two or more parts are posted as 'Loving Wives'.

Is there some logical reason for doing this? It would seem to me that the story in its entirety would determine the category rather than individual parts. At least that's the way I've always done it.

Another reason, which RR touched on briefly, is to increase the visibility and readership of your series. Some categories simply have a much smaller readership (Romance, Novels & Novellas) than others (I/T, LW). If there is a reasonable premise for your ongoing series to dip into a more popular category, it can bring more eyeballs onto your ongoing series.

Going from Romance to LW may risk your scores taking a beating, but it could also triple your "views."