Unspoken rules on this website...

[madelinemasoch]

It seems to me that there are a lot of unspoken rules on this website, particularly in regards to tags and categories. I don't do a lot of reading myself, to be honest, I prefer reading philosophy to erotica. But, I would like to know about the unspoken rules or common conventions that have developed on the site in regards to categories and tagging. (For reference, I only write femdom/interracial/cuckoldry stories.)

 

[NotWise]

The odd thing about unspoken rules is that they're umm, unspoken. I'm not sure there are any.

There's a document by Tx Tall Tales (Love Your Readers: Categories) that is useful as a good reference for categorization. It's hardly a secret. Maybe it needs to be updated, but it's still widely recommended.

We don't talk a lot about tagging, and I don't know that there are rules for doing it. Sometimes Laurel will add or delete tags as she sees fit, so there are ways that she prefers to have things done.

I use tags to serve as a search tool. I usually look at the tags cloud for the category I'm posting too to get an idea of what tags are in use (figuring those are the tags readers are mostly likely to use) and use those for most of my tags. Then I add a few tags that are unique to my story.

No rules, though.

 

[madelinemasoch]

The odd thing about unspoken rules is that they're umm, unspoken. I'm not sure there are any.

Part of my impetus for asking is the fact that I've been told my femdom stories (which I put in BDSM) apparently belong in CNC with a mindbreak tag(?) Basically that BDSM as a category is too tame for my style. Also apparently adding any toilet stuff belongs in Fetish and not BDSM ((narcissism of) small differences, mate).

I use tags to serve as a search tool. I usually look at the tags cloud for the category I'm posting too to get an idea of what tags are in use (figuring those are the tags readers are mostly likely to use) and use those for most of my tags. Then I add a few tags that are unique to my story.

I think of tags AFTER I write. It's just a summary of all the stuff that happens in the chapter, so people into various things can all find the same chapter in which they occur. Apparently according to some users I was doing that wrong, too. I think they saw tags more as a subcategorization system? I don't think that makes sense, though. If anything, it makes more sense to include as many different "fetishes" as the story requires as tags–that way more people will find it, and read it...

 

[NotWise]

Part of my impetus for asking is the fact that I've been told my femdom stories (which I put in BDSM) apparently belong in CNC with a mindbreak tag(?) Basically that BDSM as a category is too tame for my style. Also apparently adding any toilet stuff belongs in Fetish and not BDSM ((narcissism of) small differences, mate).

I've not published to BDSM. My understanding is that there are some readers there who want to limit the scope of the category and how stories there are written. It's a group of readers, not a site rule. I've chosen to avoid the category. Most things that might go to BDSM also fit in other categories.

"CNC" isn't a category. I'm not sure how the readers in NonCon react to CNC stories. Also (I guess you can call this an unwritten site rule) NonCon stories usually appear at the bottom of the New list. I think that tends to minimize the views. That's the flip side of contest entries going to the top of the list, which tends to maximize the views.

I think of tags AFTER I write. It's just a summary of all the stuff that happens in the chapter, so people into various things can all find the same chapter in which they occur. Apparently according to some users I was doing that wrong, too. I think they saw tags more as a subcategorization system? I don't think that makes sense, though. If anything, it makes more sense to include as many different "fetishes" as the story requires as tags–that way more people will find it, and read it...

I think the tags commonly are used to list the different sex acts performed in the story. I'm not sure about the "subcategory" idea. Does this come from the BDSM crowd as well?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Part of my impetus for asking is the fact that I've been told my femdom stories (which I put in BDSM) apparently belong in CNC with a mindbreak tag(?) Basically that BDSM as a category is too tame for my style. Also apparently adding any toilet stuff belongs in Fetish and not BDSM ((narcissism of) small differences, mate).


I think of tags AFTER I write. It's just a summary of all the stuff that happens in the chapter, so people into various things can all find the same chapter in which they occur. Apparently according to some users I was doing that wrong, too. I think they saw tags more as a subcategorization system? I don't think that makes sense, though. If anything, it makes more sense to include as many different "fetishes" as the story requires as tags–that way more people will find it, and read it...

Many readers seem to think authors should have some kind of mind-reading ability specifically tailored to their pet squicks, and tags should be used to warn them away from a story. My response to that is, you're on an adult web site, so act like an adult. If you don't like a story, back-click on the damn thing. I don't care what you don't like. That's marshmallow tagging.

Authors, on the other hand, want to promote their stories, and we've only get ten tags, so we have to use them the best way we can. That's telling people what's in the story. Your approach is the right way about it, I reckon.

From what I been able to figure out over the years, many BDSM readers seem to have very fixed ideas as to what they think is "right". It might irk you, but Fetish might be a bit more forgiving.

 

[SimonDoom]

Your question is not an unreasonable one, because many authors, myself included at times, feel like the explicitly stated and posted rules don't quite summarize everything an author should know.

But this is my recommendation. Instead of soliciting responses in this forum, do your own homework. Read the site's rules. Pay attention to what people say in this forum, but take everything with a grain of salt. Read stories. Figure out what you like. Search for "how to" articles for the kinds of stories you like. Look at the toplists for the kinds of stories you like.

The reality is that the "rules" for you to achieve what you want here may be very different from the "rules" that somebody like me, for example, follows.

 

[Britva415]

Tags are to help readers search for stories of interest.

So, they're for fine-tuning what you find in a category, or else they're for finding works across categories which have the kink of interest. So the only rule would be, make sure your story has the content that matches the tags you put on it. I guess you could consider it "subcategorization" but I wouldn't, myself.

 

[gunhilltrain]

It seems to me that there are a lot of unspoken rules on this website, particularly in regards to tags and categories. I don't do a lot of reading myself, to be honest, I prefer reading philosophy to erotica. But, I would like to know about the unspoken rules or common conventions that have developed on the site in regards to categories and tagging. (For reference, I only write femdom/interracial/cuckoldry stories.)

By the way, it is possible for an erotic story to have philosophical themes in it. Now you're going to ask me for an example that is not one of my own and, for some reason, I'm going to take a pass on that for the moment.

 

[RejectReality]

There's a loud core group of readers within BDSM who have taken it upon themselves to define what BDSM is, and attempt to shame out anyone who doesn't follow their rules. Some of the categories here are very tribal, and BDSM is one of them.

Femdom is dicey on Lit, so if that's your preferred genre, you're going to have to expect a lot of slings and arrows from the overly sensitive. There's absolutely an audience for it, but you have to ignore the peanut gallery screeching and jumping up and down in front of them.

Tags should be used as a tool for people to search. While they are displayed at the top of the front page now, they're behind a tab, and a lot of people haven't noticed that they're available up front. That gives tags limited utility as a secondary method of categorization or method of warning away sensitive readers. The primary thing readers use them for is finding stories more than a week old. Tailor your tags to highlight what parts of the story you believe readers would be interested in.

If Laurel is allowing them to go into BDSM, it means she doesn't believe it crosses the bar as Non-con. That very likely means the readers in non-con would be unimpressed with what people are being offended by in BDSM.

If your submissions are pulling in numbers you're happy with where they are, ignore the people sneering down their noses at you.

 

[LexxRuthless]

You could likewise use the Tags function yourself as a research tool: Plug in the tags you intend to use for your story and see where similar stories are usually categorized.

 

[AlinaX]

Outside Lit, BDSM is a whole community whose core principle is one of clear communication and consent, and of awareness of and respect for limits. Any story that shows someone being pushed past their apparent limits without clear consent is therefore unlikely to sit well in the BDSM category.

I haven't read your stories, but if readers are asking for CNC and mindbreak tags, that doesn't sound like a healthy BDSM scenario.

I've only strayed into BDSM twice, and one of those was an odd one (guns & nudity). I have too much fun ignoring consent for my stories to fit in there.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Femdom is fine. It doesn't have as many readers as man-doms-woman, but I've had no complaints.

Read that Love your Readers doc. Anything with a suggestion of non-consent will go down like a lead balloon outside Non-Con. On the subject of kinks, think about what your local BDSM club allows in public that most attendees don't mind seeing, and what they don't (usually anything to do with blood, piss, choking). Give those private kinks a tag and go to Fetish, if you want to maximize happy readers and reduce the pissed-off ones. Or mention it at the top of a story in BDSM.

Readers in all three categories don't like surprises. Work with that and you'll get more readers and better votes. Or don't.

 

[stickygirl]

The odd thing about unspoken rules is that they're umm, unspoken. I'm not sure there are any.

There's a document by Tx Tall Tales (Love Your Readers: Categories) that is useful as a good reference for categorization. It's hardly a secret. Maybe it needs to be updated, but it's still widely recommended.

We don't talk a lot about tagging, and I don't know that there are rules for doing it. Sometimes Laurel will add or delete tags as she sees fit, so there are ways that she prefers to have things done.

I use tags to serve as a search tool. I usually look at the tags cloud for the category I'm posting too to get an idea of what tags are in use (figuring those are the tags readers are mostly likely to use) and use those for most of my tags. Then I add a few tags that are unique to my story.

No rules, though.

That's a useful read. Pity that these author's nuggets aren't more visible and grouped together like... oh I dunno a sticky index page at the top of AH? Just a crazy idea.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

It seems to me that there are a lot of unspoken rules on this website, particularly in regards to tags and categories. I don't do a lot of reading myself, to be honest, I prefer reading philosophy to erotica. But, I would like to know about the unspoken rules or common conventions that have developed on the site in regards to categories and tagging. (For reference, I only write femdom/interracial/cuckoldry stories.)

Don't ask how sweeps work and don't look behind the curtain, because nobody sees the wizard, not no way, not no how.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

It seems to me that there are a lot of unspoken rules on this website, particularly in regards to tags and categories. I don't do a lot of reading myself, to be honest, I prefer reading philosophy to erotica. But, I would like to know about the unspoken rules or common conventions that have developed on the site in regards to categories and tagging. (For reference, I only write femdom/interracial/cuckoldry stories.)

Without addressing the quirks of various genres and the readers that favor certain categories, I will speak to some of the unwritten rules that I see perpetuated here in general.

There are numerous "Do it this way or fail" beliefs that some authors attempt to pass off as hard-and-fast rules. Things such as making sure that there is a sex scene within the first page of the story, each chapter must be exactly 3 Lit pages long, no characters in the story can be under the age of 18, and so on.

The simple fact is that there is an audience here for almost anything, and there are very successful writers here who post stories contrary to every one of these "rules", plus many more. That isn't to say that there aren't "best practices" that a writer can adopt that will increase the chances of a story being more successful, but not following them will not result in failure.

 

[Bamagan]

I'm a relatively new writer here, although I've been visiting the site since pretty close to its inception. My observation kind of echoes parts of what some posters above have said, but I believe the issue people are most likely to run into with tags and story categorization is the unstable nature of how kinky people think certain activities are. I don't think there are any unwritten or unspoken rules, other than the vague and obvious 'know your audience.' Some of the categories are basically pure fantasy or wish fulfillment, so the people frequenting mind control or nonhuman may be a more mixed crowd than those who visit categories for which there are active communities of enthusiasts in the real world. As someone above said, actual BDSM groups typically police their members pretty carefully, and while rules may vary from group to group, it's quite logical for them to react negatively to things they don't condone in real life pursuit of their kinks. It's not unreasonable for them to want ways to easily distinguish between a BDSM scene that they could imagine acting out or witnessing in real life and those that might be unfeasible, unethical, or impossible in reality, although I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone on the internet made a reasonable request in an extremely unreasonable way.
So, yeah, it may be nice to consider the requests of the community of people frequenting a category as guidelines for how to tag stories in that category, or to put a disclaimer at the top to let readers know that it crosses over into some other category. It's more a courtesy than a rule, although some people do get downright abusive at times if they feel people are being discourteous to them, which is kind of ironically amusing.

 

[John_Vandermeer]

Your question is very reasonable. I too, have at times, wondered whether there are unwritten rules. I think what I've concluded is aside from Laurel's hard, written rules, no not really. What there is is a whole zoo worth of different writers and readers all of which like, and dislike, different things, though some things are more disliked than others. In the end, just think of it as trying to find you audience. What they call themselves, and where they hang out, does not matter.

As a femdom writer myself I have found Fetish, BDSM, and NC/R all have some kind of femdom favorable audience. Fetish is the most tolerant, and in my view frankly the most enlightened. Pile enough kinks in there, and there really is nowhere else for you to go. The harder edged stuff probably does belong in NC/R, though you should be warned the maledom audience there might still read it and not take kindly to some crueler femdom like cuckoldry. You know, double standards. Experiment a little between the three categories. Even switching mid series is ok, in my view, if you think a chapter leans more one way or another. I've written two chapter novellas that alternate between BDSM and Fetish without any drop in audience as far as I can tell.

Do use all ten tags, and use them as accurately as possible. They will bring you the search customers that you want. Search customers almost always vote 5* if they vote, in my experience. I personally always tag "femdom", "teasing", "humiliation" and "denial" because that is always in my stories. Then I fill the remaining six tags with the most relevant labels possible. One Laurel quirk I have noticed I do not like is if "fetish" is a tag in a Fetish story or "noncon" is a tag in an NC/R story sometimes she will delete those, which is a mistake, in my view. Again, thinking about the search customer...

I do warn you about taking the advice of other authors too seriously. It is advice, and it is usually (not always) well intentioned. But some are a bit dogmatic in their views. So for example, some will say "you NEVER switch categories!" Ignore that. There could be a penalty, but it is not the ironclad rule some will make it sound like it is. Similarly for any absolute sounding kind of statement.

 

[K155]

I always use tags to search, when I'm looking a story to read.

If you think your work is too extreme for the category or has elements that differ while still broadly being in the BDSM category; you could try a disclaimer/content warning. Just pop it at the top of the body of the story, this story contains xxxx and anyone who isn't into that will jog on.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

I always use tags to search, when I'm looking a story to read.

If you think your work is too extreme for the category or has elements that differ while still broadly being in the BDSM category; you could try a disclaimer/content warning. Just pop it at the top of the body of the story, this story contains xxxx and anyone who isn't into that will jog on.

They'll still bitch that there's something in there they don't like. If what I see in the fanfic community bares any wieght; you could do that and slide in a "here's that part I warned you about in the begining", right before the part- they'd, or at least some would still bitch.

 

[yowser]

By the way, it is possible for an erotic story to have philosophical themes in it. Now you're going to ask me for an example that is not one of my own and, for some reason, I'm going to take a pass on that for the moment.

Kierkegaard features in both California Conference Connections and A is for Anal, Augustine in Infernal Fornications. So far, House of Doors is the only Lit story with the tag 'ontology.'

 

[JaxRhapsody]

So, yeah, it may be nice to consider the requests of the community of people frequenting a category as guidelines for how to tag stories in that category, or to put a disclaimer at the top to let readers know that it crosses over into some other category. It's more a courtesy than a rule, although some people do get downright abusive at times if they feel people are being discourteous to them, which is kind of ironically amusing.

But where would it end? Tagging and disclsiming every trivial little thing for readers to beware? I don't even believe in trigger warnings(because this is basically what's being requested) like that and there's not enough tag space to do that, when one is trying to cover all basis to get people to read the work, there's no tag room to warn people to avoid the work.

I had one stupid reader demand such, once. One of my incest stories, the siblings hasn't had sex in the current time of the story, but what they're going through is result of them having sex(took place before story events), user bitched and moaned because she had sex with a black dude, because he was black, demanding I tag the story interracial over her ONS- no. That scene isn't even important, what the sex causes, is what's important. The story is a slow burn, so they're going to be having sex with other people. I'm not wasting tags, or warning that there is anything that happens once, or briefly, that's ultimately trivial. Them having sex with others isn't plot, it just moves and carries it. I would think it obvious because it isn't tagged. Just like if I wrote a bdsm story, I wouldn't tag the one vanilla sex scene.

 

[Bamagan]

But where would it end? Tagging and disclsiming every trivial little thing for readers to beware? I don't even believe in trigger warnings(because this is basically what's being requested) like that and there's not enough tag space to do that, when one is trying to cover all basis to get people to read the work, there's no tag room to warn people to avoid the work.

I had one stupid reader demand such, once. One of my incest stories, the siblings hasn't had sex in the current time of the story, but what they're going through is result of them having sex(took place before story events), user bitched and moaned because she had sex with a black dude, because he was black, demanding I tag the story interracial over her ONS- no. That scene isn't even important, what the sex causes, is what's important. The story is a slow burn, so they're going to be having sex with other people. I'm not wasting tags, or warning that there is anything that happens once, or briefly, that's ultimately trivial. Them having sex with others isn't plot, it just moves and carries it. I would think it obvious because it isn't tagged. Just like if I wrote a bdsm story, I wouldn't tag the one vanilla sex scene.

It ends wherever the writer feels like it transitions from courtesy to obligation, I suppose. It'll be different for everyone. I'm new enough that I haven't yet had to deal with many trolls, luckily, so I don't know where the line falls for me, much less anyone else. I'm sure I'll find out sooner or later.

 

[Leglover1234]

There are no rules in the Political thread. That place is lawless

 

[Britva415]

Besides Tags being used by searchers to find what they want via the Search feature, it's helpful (this is not an unwritten rule, it's more of a helpful hint/practice) to spell out the tags at the beginning of the story.

Because, not everyone looks at the Tags on the top of the story's first page, many don't even know that you can, or how to, so, the people asking you to tag a certain way are the ones who already know how to see the tags before they start reading.

So, including the tags list at the beginning in the body of the story content, in the same place where a lot of authors put an out-of-universe, fourth-wall-breaking introductory paragraph will help to inform readers who aren't already deliberately looking for them before they start reading. This is the only way for readers to negatively filter with tags. Searching matches tags positively, they can't search for "stories without this tag." So this helps out those readers who have to open potential story matches and then decide whether to proceed with reading it or back-click.

This probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: You want them to back-click. You don't want them to read until "surprise content" squicks the fragile little flowers.

As far as the very specific and possibly controversial ones which certain BDSM readers are asking you for, that's up to you whether to go along with what they're saying or not. You only get ten tags, and I think we should prioritizing using them to match readers, not filtering out uninterested readers.

Though, another nice thing about the story intro is that you can put more there than just the ten "official" tags. You can even put plain-English sentences. The point would be to communicate to your potential readers, and to those who would just as soon nope out before they start reading.

 

[TxRad]

I've been writing here for a hell of a long time. The tags used to be at the end of the story. I write my story the way I want to write it and then use tags that apply to it. I don't worry about who reads tags and who don't. You want the major unwritten rule of writing? Write for yourself and let the chips fall where they may.