Landmines you should avoid in a category

[jehoram]

It can be done through the edit process.

I'll give that a try. Thanks!

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'll give that a try. Thanks!

You could try a PM to Laurel, giving her the story link and advising what tag(s) you want to add. It might be a bit quicker than an Edit.

 

[jehoram]

It looks like an edit is indeed the only way to do it on this site. Laurel is busy enough, so I won't worry about adding a tag.

 

[CarmineBlancheJr]

I'm the opposite. If the plot and characters are really engaging, I often find myself skimming the sex scenes as I just want to find out what happens next!

I am this way with more mainstream work. For example... I recently read the Outlander series and found the sex scenes to be completely unnecessary. Yes, they played a part, but the story would have stood on its own if they had truncated those scenes. Maybe it's hypocritical of me since I write this stuff, but I just felt that those stories did not gain anything from her descriptions of the sex between Jamie and Claire.

 

[AngelaSaxon]

Thing is safe and sane are fluid, my idea of either might not be your idea. As long as the people involved are aligned have at it. Consent is needed and not just BDSM, but anywhere. Without consent you have rape and there's a category for that.

I'm one of the readers-well when I bothered there-who would call out the people posting rape and abuse stories and calling it BDSM. I live the lifestyle, so I find it offensive when its portrayed as rape. Otherwise, whatever.

I'm the literal opposite - I really dislike stories in noncon/reluctant which are actually stories of subs finding happiness with their doms and in truth everyone's enthusiastically consenting and it only appears otherwise because people don't understand BDSM and it's broader world - I mean, there's a category for that...

 

[AngelaSaxon]

I would not go that far. It's not that there's little love for those types of stories; it's just that there's a lot of hate for them. It's a fine-line distinction, but it matters.

As you pointed out, you'll pick up bad scores, angry comments, and probably lots of followers. OlympusMons90, for example, writes almost entirely cheating stories that end with some form of reconciliation and focus a lot on the actual, you know, sex part of the "extramarital fun." Their first story in LW came out in early 2022, has one red H in the category (a "moving on" story with no kind of burn at all) and several outside, and just shy of 800 followers.

I will also say that everything you said about possibly going commercial is true. If you want to write cuckolding/hotwife stuff, it's 100% the best place to build an early fanbase.

I was starting a Loving Wives story where the twist is that no reconciliation is required, not because the husband doesn't care what the wife does, but because he judges what either of them do in different terms, on the basis that loving someone should involve wanting them to have the best life they can have, which will be a constantly developing thing involving at least occasional experimentation.

Do you think that might upset some of the Loving Wives readers?

 

[NoTalentHack]

I was starting a Loving Wives story where the twist is that no reconciliation is required, not because the husband doesn't care what the wife does, but because he judges what either of them do in different terms, on the basis that loving someone should involve wanting them to have the best life they can have, which will be a constantly developing thing involving at least occasional experimentation.

Do you think that might upset some of the Loving Wives readers?

Yes, it will upset some. But it will also likely find a following if executed well. “You can’t please everyone” is doubly true in there, but you’ll pick up some fans.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I was starting a Loving Wives story where the twist is that no reconciliation is required, not because the husband doesn't care what the wife does, but because he judges what either of them do in different terms, on the basis that loving someone should involve wanting them to have the best life they can have, which will be a constantly developing thing involving at least occasional experimentation.

Do you think that might upset some of the Loving Wives readers?

There will always be some upset any time a husband remains with a wife when they are not monogamous.

In my latest story "His Vixen" (12.3k words), I made it very clear that this was a second marriage for both (clearly not virgins when they met), the husband can easily attract females, and the plain wife was very excited by the fact a guy in the bar made a pass at her. They've been monogamously married for 23 years. So, the husband allows her a one-time fling to get it out of her system. In the end, they've turned it into a game of mutually tasking each other to pick up some in a bar for a fling once every few months, the husband has exactly the same number of pickups as the wife (six), and the wife doesn't tell him she's gotten it out of her system and isn't into it anymore as she sends him off with his number six.

This scenario of equally sharing each other and proving their dedication to each other goes over better than some of my other stories (rated 3.87/166 after one month with my overall average about 3.45.) But there are still a few 1s and only about 4 out of 13 comments as negative. So, the audience in LW is becoming a little more tolerant.

EDIT: One of the 4 negative comments was due to racism, because I threw in the BBC trope. I deliberately did that to head off the haters saying, "Wait until she tries a BBC, then she'll never go back to her husband!" I have her showing her disdain for such arrogant attitudes, as she goes back to her husband.

 

[Tomh1966]

There will always be some upset any time a husband remains with a wife when they are not monogamous.

In my latest story "His Vixen" (12.3k words), I made it very clear that this was a second marriage for both (clearly not virgins when they met), the husband can easily attract females, and the plain wife was very excited by the fact a guy in the bar made a pass at her. They've been monogamously married for 23 years. So, the husband allows her a one-time fling to get it out of her system. In the end, they've turned it into a game of mutually tasking each other to pick up some in a bar for a fling once every few months, the husband has exactly the same number of pickups as the wife (six), and the wife doesn't tell him she's gotten it out of her system and isn't into it anymore as she sends him off with his number six.

This scenario of equally sharing each other and proving their dedication to each other goes over better than some of my other stories (rated 3.87/166 after one month with my overall average about 3.45.) But there are still a few 1s and only about 4 out of 13 comments as negative. So, the audience in LW is becoming a little more tolerant.

Loving Wives
A couple things I noticed. Him getting some, too clearly would help your score.
Your writing ability is well above the norm. Stories that read like "I was walking down the street and my wife fell on a dick." tend to get hit hard.

They still hate the wife doing anything cheating without divorce and preferably some burn. I've seen a few stories 4.2+ with simply awful spelling, grammar, and cartoonish plot do well just because of violence done against the cheating wife. (okay its all cartoonish, call it extra cartoonish where I am waiting for the guy to pull out an RPG and ride into battle in an attack helicopter.)

Reconciliation is bad.
That being said. I have 3.9+ on a reconcilation story. I think the writing is decent and she is apologetic and was manipulated.

Humiliation stories tend to get hit.
Both spouses getting being even in their extracurriculars tends to up the score. IE he is getting some, too.

You will ALWAYS get at least one vicious comment in LW that is not a big burn on a cheating wife. I used to wince. Now find it funny. I recently had an absolutely evil comment against me and I thought, "oooh! Good one!" LOL

I tend to hate hotwife stories so I do this weird thing: Skip them, dont rate and don't comment.
Also. I don't mind swap stories (IE they are even) and added 'His Vixen' to my read list on my spreadsheet. Yes I have a spreadsheet of what I read and what I want to read)

 

[Trionyx]

I was starting a Loving Wives story where the twist is that no reconciliation is required, not because the husband doesn't care what the wife does, but because he judges what either of them do in different terms, on the basis that loving someone should involve wanting them to have the best life they can have, which will be a constantly developing thing involving at least occasional experimentation.

Do you think that might upset some of the Loving Wives readers?

In a word, YES. It will upset them. I wrote a story (since pulled) in which the husband and wife agreed to allow each other two opportunities per year for a no strings sexual encounter while out of town (both traveled occasionally for work). It worked well, both always came home to the spouse and in the final scene, they were still together and looking back happily at their ten years of monogamish living. The comments were less than kind, to put it mildly.