Why is LW category so hard to please?

[Lifestyle66]

Reading this thread, I'm tempted to go into the LW category and vote 5 on the stories that got 1-bombed. I know you're not supposed to do that, but it's tempting, just to frustrate these idiots.

Ratings in LW are rather meaningless due to those triggers and opposing views.

I'd rather you READ the whole story and give me your honest opinion, good or bad. That's the only way I'learn anything, rather than just patting myself on the back and proclaiming my own greatness with Red-Hs. If I wanted those 5's, I could add them in myself.

 

[iwatchus]

The one thing about LW is that you do get lots of comments. Some of them are useful. In that same analysis, 8letters found that more than 1% of the LW views led to comments, easily the highest ratio. I will say my lone LW entry has almost twice as many comments as any other story of mine. Categories like E&V or EC have really frustratingly low rates of comments.

 

[CherieSin]

I've been publishing stories on LitE for five years. Of my 73 stories, 54 of them are in LW.

Six of my LW stories are rated over 4.0. Most of the others are between 3.0-4.0, with a five below 3.0.

Quality of writing and eroticism aside, in general, the LW audience prefers stories in which the husband is NOT a weak or passive victim watching the wife having extra-marital sex. Even a strong husband in charge who wants to just watch his wife with another man will be slammed as a weak cuck.

The husband should be portrayed as a strong, in-charge type who gets as much or more extra-marital sex as his wife. The wife can get her pleasure, but the husband needs to at least get as many or more extra partners.

That's tough to do if you are publishing your stories in a series. And if it's only about the husband wanting to watch his wife being fucked, then that story arc in general will likely average well below 4.

Of my six LW stories rated over 4, the closest I came to the "husband watches his wife being fucked" is in:
"A Dare at the Nude Resort"
"Husband watches his horny wife and her boy-toy in a restroom."

They are a swinger couple, and the husband dares his wife to seduce a younger man. Then he watches the other guy fuck her, and the husband gets "sloppy seconds" fucking her immediately after the first guy. The husband doesn't go down on her, and the other guy is very respectful of the husband. The end has the wife setting up a follow-up meeting for a week later, where she and the other guy's wife are going to do an FMF with the husband, and the other guy knows it's going to happen but can't be there due to his job.

So, in general, for successful, non-BTB LW stories you need strong, in-charge husbands, respectful loving wives, don't focus solely on the husband's voyeurism, have all other men respectful of the husband, and see that the husband gets at least as much (number wise) as the wife. And don't introduce other triggers such as inter-racial, BDSM, incest, or Bi-sexual male-on-male scenes which draw attacks from those subsets of readers who might hate them. One such small piece of the story will trigger a disproportionate negative response from the subsets of haters.

EDIT: When I say the husband gets the same amount of sex as the wife number wise, that means if they go to a party and the wife takes on five other men, then the husband must get five or six other women. There are 1-bombers who will blast the story if the husband is worn out after fucking a third or fourth woman. It's not realistic or fair. But that's what an author should expect with the LW audience.

That’s really good insight into the LW category, I appreciate it. I’d also like to hear your opinion on how my miniseries should continue, though I’d prefer to talk about that in PM if that’s fine with you. Don't want to spoil the entire plot in here.

 

[DarkCosmos]

Maybe this speaks more to me as a human being than it does as a writer, but I'm going to be posting my first LW series on Lit soon fully expecting it to get bombed. The way I see it, the louder the trolls scream, the more people will come over to see what all the fuss is about. And if you can manage to pull an insightful or flattering comment out of the toxic cesspool that is the LW comments section, then that just means the reward will be all the sweeter. If the commentors start arguing and screaming about whether or not your work is trash or not, even better I say. Stir up the beehive and grab that honey anyway like the honeybadger you are.

 

[Lifestyle66]

That’s really good insight into the LW category, I appreciate it. I’d also like to hear your opinion on how my miniseries should continue, though I’d prefer to talk about that in PM if that’s fine with you. Don't want to spoil the entire plot in here.

You're already off to a potentially low rating average if the wife is texting with the stranger about finishing.

If you want to head off the 1s, maybe have the wife think about her loving husband, and have her delay her affair then set up a girlfriend to reciprocate the handjob for her husband. The GF could even suggest to husband that they go further, and the wife sees if he's honest enough to tell her.

Since you're telling this from the wife's POV, the more you can make her the "loving FAITHFUL wife, the more it will appeal to those readers who dealt with their own cheater. She might eventually seal the deal with that stranger. But don't make her the conspiratorial, cheater. Have the husband cheat in secret first, and she gets revenge with her own.

My story "Going Down Together" has an innocent, faithful wife getting revenge on her cheating husband. It's rated 3.88. but I added a suggested lesbian follow-on, which acts as a 1-bomb magnet from a subset.

 

[WCSGarland]

It is important to make the distinction between a chaptered story and a series.

Loving Wives readers appear far less tolerant of chaptered stories than readers in other categories. There are some successful series within the category, but those are complete stand-alone stories that share a common theme, not merely parts of a whole.

If you are going to publish pieces of a story, try to get all the pieces to publish as close together as possible.

Maybe you could explain why my series did okay for the first 5 episodes/chapters, but by the time I got the the next 3 in, the ratings ended up half of what the others were. I mean, if the majority of readers weren't tolerant of episodic/chaptered stories, then I should think that every episode/chapter after the first would have been bombed big time.

EDIT: Oh, and my one stand alone in LW... about half the comments are people asking for a follow up story.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Maybe you could explain why my series did okay for the first 5 episodes/chapters, but by the time I got the the next 3 in, the ratings ended up half of what the others were. I mean, if the majority of readers weren't tolerant of episodic/chaptered stories, then I should think that every episode/chapter after the first would have been bombed big time.

EDIT: Oh, and my one stand alone in LW... about half the comments are people asking for a follow up story.

Look through the top lists of LW stories to see how many are titled "Story - Chapter #" versus ones with obvious series titles, such as "The Shack - Blah blah", followed by "The Shack - Yack yack" or similar.

In your case, I suspect a couple of factors contributed.

First, it isn't until the 5th installment that your reference the episode being part of the "Untethered Hearts" series, calling them chapters, which is more what they read like to me. The association of one to the other isn't clear unless someone visits your stories page and sees the series info.

Second, from the first episode to the latest, more than 10 months has passed. This plays to my recommendation to publish associated chapters or episodes as close together as possible so that readers don't lose interest. This holds true for most categories.

Readers requesting a sequel to a stand alone story can mean that either they became so invested in your characters that they want to read more about them, or that your story left them somehow incomplete/unresolved. I haven't read your story, so I'll leave it to you for the determination.