What category?

[Mister_Chris]

As a relatively new writer on Lit, I have difficulty choosing the right category for my stories; it usually seems that there are at least two categories they might fit in, and possibly more.

For example, I'm working on a story in which the mature male protagonist seduces the 18 year old girl next door using a novel sex toy. Mom finds out, confrontation ensues; he seduces Mom using toy in daughter's presence. Mom/daughter/guy three way sex ensues. Mom calls husband, he shows up and joins in the fun, having sex with his daughter while protagonist has sex with mom. Possibly more people show up; haven't plotted that out yet. But you get the idea.

So, incest; and group sex; and inter-racial, depending on what color I paint them; and lesbian sex in the mom/daughter portion of the story; and loving wives, considering the swinging going on; and mature, given that a 50 year old guy is seducing the 18 year old girl next door; and toys & masturbation...

Hell, given my writing skills, it might even qualify as non-erotic.

How do YOU decide what category to submit a story under?
>MC

 

[JackLuis]

Yeah there ought o be a place/category for "Cluster Fucks".

 

[soflabbwlvr]

In general, any time incest is a major theme, then incest is the category.

 

[RejectReality]

How long is it going to be?

If it's going to break 5-6 Lit pages (20k words or so ) then I'd say Novels & Novellas. You simply have too much family sex in there for most categories, and too many couplings without blood relation to do very well in Incest.

Novels is a slow category, but if it's long enough, it seems the best fit. Tagging it properly will help pick up incest readers who don't mind additional players. If you go multiple chapters, then utilizing your description line to call out the family relations will go a long way to doing that as well.

Incest is a "trump" and trying to put it ( or any chapter that contains it ) in any other category may land it there anyway. Novels is broad enough to keep your chosen category, but anything else is a crapshoot of whether it will stay where you place it.

That's the "least offense" solution, resulting in a likely higher score. If you're willing to sacrifice that, it will get read more in Incest. You'll probably get a few snide comments about the non-blood couplings and lose a lot of readers by starting with one, but the vast popularity of the category will still garner a lot of reads despite that.

If you go chapters, and a certain chapter has an overwhelming theme, you can put individual chapters into appropriate categories. Mature sounds likely for the first with the age difference theme. I honestly think you lose more readers by going with the multiple category thing than you do with picking one that fits best, though.

Depending upon where the stuff you haven't plotted yet goes, you could dilute the Incest enough to kill your reads there, though. If the non-blood sex overwhelms the family fun, it could languish even in Incest.

 

[Mister_Chris]

thanks

Thanks, RR - you put a lot of thought into that response, and gave me some good advice. It's really helpful, and - well, thanks.

I think I'm going to modify the plot line so that the protagonist is closely related to the 18 year old daughter; possibly an uncle. That will allow a legitimate incest claim from page one, and keep the wolverines from snapping at my nuts.

Re length - personally, as a reader, I hate lengthy stories... but I also hate "fun with the family chapter XXXXX". I don't think there's a good solution here. You either (1) make it into a novel, which costs you many readers; or, (2) you break it up into individual stand alone stories which must, in order to stand alone, repeat essential story framework elements, which really pisses off the people that want to read all the stories; or (3) you write it as chapters, which really pisses off the people who searched for a term and got "fun with the family chapter XXXXX".

Probably I'll choose option 3.

Research on the web tells me that novel word count varies widely, but is usually no less than 50,000 words and up to 180,000 words. Novellas much less.

I most recently put a 12,000 word story 'milk and cookies' into Incest... it contains a ton of incestuous sexual tension building through the story, but only a tiny amount of actual dad/daughter sex, and that doesn't happen until nearly the end. I got a lot of positive comments on the story, but it is, by far, my lowest score to date. So your point about scores is well taken; if you drop a story into incest, you'd better have incest rocking by paragraph three. If you're not right off the firing line people get pissed off, and vote it down without finishing it. (But those who did finish it, loved it.)

I probably should have put that story into Romance, where it would have died a silent death. And the stories I read in Romance seemed to be rapid fire bunny fucks anyway, so it wouldn't have fit well even there. It's too bad, because that story is my favorite story to date. And there isn't really a category for it.

However, 'Milk and Cookies Chapter 2' is pending, and that does have a ton of dad/daughter sex in it, from the very beginning to the very end. So, I might do better with that.

Thanks again for your advice.
>MC

 

[RejectReality]

I wouldn't say you need to have the sex rocking early on in Incest. Slow burn stories can do very, very well there. The thing is that you need an established fanbase in the category to do that.

The category gets a lot of low voting from people trying to discourage the category from existing, and the more votes you have, the more likely you are to have people vote 4. You have to have quite a few loyal readers casting 5s to overcome that, or just blow people away with a story, which naturally isn't easy.

Lovecraft68 is a good example of how well slow-burn stories can do in Incest.

A brief sex scene may very well have hurt you, though. Those slow burn stories tend to require a big sex payoff at the end to truly do well.

 

[TamLin01]

My attitude has always been that if you can justify putting it into a popular, high-traffic category with a lot of readers, then you should. After all, you wrote it hoping people would read it, so make it as visible as you can. But readers sometimes complain when you do this, arguing that the story actually "belongs" somewhere else. So another standard could be simply, where is the story least likely to be read by those who don't want to see it?

A story about two men having sex could be filed under Erotic Couplings or under Anal or any number of other categories, but a good many readers of those categories probably don't want to read about two men having sex, or else they'd be readers of Gay Male instead. Not gonna lie, part of me feels like that's their problem, but even so, you've got to market yourself to the right crowd. So who are your ideal readers? Where are they most likely to be looking for stories? And where are your non-ideal readers least likely to look?

In the end, it's going to be an inexact fit no matter what: the categories are necessarily more narrow than almost any story in them. I think people probably spend too much time on questions like this. Your first instinct is almost always right.

 

[Hypoxia]

I have Incest stories do quite well even with fair amounts of non-incestuous couplings and groupings. Fuck a lot, just always bring it back home, and it's Incest. I also have Group Sex and LW stories with a bit of incest, but not as a major theme, just for flavor.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Fucking Furious

When a story is "reported" for being placed in the wrong catagory, why isn't the author involved in moving it? I have a 6 chapter BDSM story that has had 4 chapters moved to Non-Con, 1 left in BDSM, and now one in Fetish (wtf?). I really don't want my story chopped into pieces, and I'm kind of tired of people being mad that my story is in what they think is the wrong area. (Granted, my story is all over the road topic-wise because I'm wholly incapable of coloring between the lines.)

Seriously though. If you didn't like the first chapter, stop reading.

Why does this site even have catagories if it also has a tagging system?

 

[Hypoxia]

Why does this site even have catagories if it also has a tagging system?

That's reportedly one of those thangs that'll get fixed Real Soon Now. Just await the update. Hold not thy breath.

 

[AwkwardMD]

How soon is now?

 

[Hypoxia]

How soon is now?

Judging by past performance, I'd say the 12th of Never.

 

[Never]

As I understand it, if two women have sex, it's Lesbian. If they're related, it's Incest. If one rapes the other, it's Non-con. If she rapes the other while in werewolf form, it's Non-Human. If she hunts down the other one and then rapes her in werewolf form, it's Erotic Horror. If she hunts down the other one and then rapes her in werewolf form while in a magical setting, it's Sci-Fi & Fantasy.

Judging by past performance, I'd say the 12th of Never.

I'd better hurry up and get to my 12th one then.

 

[sr71plt]

That's reportedly one of those thangs that'll get fixed Real Soon Now. Just await the update. Hold not thy breath.

I hope that "fixed Real Soon Now" was posted with your tongue firmly in your cheek.

 

[Hypoxia]

I hope that "fixed Real Soon Now" was posted with your tongue firmly in your cheek.

Context, context. You haven't read much Jerry Pournelle nonfiction, then? Real Soon Now means yeah, sure, that'll happen, right...

BTW one of my fave Pournelle lines concerns catastrophic self-destruction, especially by incompetence or insanity, removing oneself from the genepool -- the Darwin Award paradigm: "Think of it as evolution in action."

 

[sr71plt]

Jerry Pournelle

Who?

nonfiction

What?

 

[Mister_Chris]

Nice to see Jerry Pournelle mentioned

Jerry was a good friend, and we traded a number of emails back and forth. We couldn't have been further apart politically - I'm far left, he's to the right of Attila the Hun - but he was kind enough to publish several of my articles on his website. We fell out of touch while I was in hospital for around six months, and during that time Jerry was being treated for brain cancer... and, you know, you get out of your routine. We fell out of touch. Several years later I tried sending him a few emails, but never received a response.

I think of him from time to time, and hope he's doing well. I know that he was quite despondent following the 2012 election; I suspect he'll be considerably more pleased with 2016.
>MC

 

[Hypoxia]

I ran into Jerry at a couple of computer cons, back in the day. Drunk and arrogant, usually. But hey, he's an author, so it's okay.

 

[Mister_Chris]

Jerry Pournelle

I've never met Jerry in person; but we traded a few emails. Typically he would publish one of my left leaning political diatribes on his site, meticulously demolish it line by line... and refuse to publish my rebuttal. Which of course was his right, given that it was his site. He also published several of my science commentaries, and occasionally agreed with me. I miss those days.

I did run into Larry Niven in an elevator at a con; and I had actually brought a copy of the original Ringworld printing - the one in which the Earth is spinning backward - in hopes of getting him to sign it. But he was busy trying to invite a VERY young girl - at least 14, perhaps slightly more - up to his suite... and I just chose not to ask him to sign it, after all. Sometimes it's best if you don't meet your heroes. (The girl turned him down, too.)

Hell. It was at least 30 years ago. If you wait long enough, nothing really matters.
>MC