Landmines you should avoid in a category

[Helgamite]

I'm compiling this list specifically for authors new to Literotica, especially those who fret over comments and scores. Maybe I'll clean it up and post this later as reviews/essays. Idk. Let's see how this goes.

Feel free to criticize or add your experience while reading/writing in various categories on Literotica.

Hopefully, someone agonizing over their scores finds this useful.

I'll start with the (in)famous one: Loving Wives

There's little love for cheating wives, cuckolds and redemption themed stories in Loving Wives. The most vocal commenters and voters are, almost always, toxic and vile. Expect a few comments to be about self-inserting readers who would've done a better job if they were the protagonist.

There's also a significant commercial market for this genre. People who like reading these categories are just as many as the haters - maybe not as vocal. They pay good money for complete works.

So, if you're someone who enjoys writing these sub-genres here, keep a few things in mind:

Loving Wives, as a category, gets a lot of views compared to its sister categories like Group Sex or Fetish. If you're thinking about submitting in a different category to avoid the toxic crowd, think twice.

More views means more potential followers. More followers means if you ever decide to sell your work, these humble perverts will be the first buyers of your work in a saturated market.

If you have a thick skin impervious to insults, submit in Loving Wives, regardless of your decision to monetize your stories.

But if you're someone who prefers peace and quiet and don't mind the occasional tumbleweeds in the comments section, you can skirt the rules and post in sister categories like Fetish and Group Sex. Less hate and vitriol, but also less engagement.

You're free to choose.

There have been authors who posted well-loved stories like Requital and The Private Party, but their scores hover at an average of 4.50-4.55. There's a higher scored Katie's Massage (4.66 as of today) which is also one of the most read stories on Lit at 4.6 million views (I personally think older stories [circa 2000s] are more immune to 1-bombs as the 4s and 5s they've accumulated all these years offset any malicious votes)

Edit; There was also a story in the Erotic Couplings' Hall of Fame about a married woman sleeping with her coworker. It received a score north of 4.85 and a lot of positive comments. Unfortunately I can't find that story or its links anywhere. This shows a good story will receive attention regardless of its category.

Anyway, here's a meme to sum it up:

View attachment 2323862

"There's little love for cheating wives, cuckolds and redemption themed stories in Loving Wives. The most vocal commenters and voters are, almost always, toxic and vile. Expect a few comments to be about self-inserting readers who would've done a better job if they were the protagonist."

I found the best way to deal with these IF you wanna comment on it, is to say to this effect. "if you think you can do better, then be my guest and write a story. just send me the link so i can read it when it gets published and I can monitor the comments as well. then we will see how your character survives the comments compared to mine."

don't give them any grief, or vitriol. they will receive enough themselves with their own story to make your own vengeance a happy one.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I'll start with the (in)famous one: Loving Wives

There's little love for cheating wives, cuckolds and redemption themed stories in Loving Wives.

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.

 

[RetroFan]

It's not a landmine per se as I've done really well in this category, but some Romance readers don't seem to like stories that brush with the supernatural. I've got two in this category where this happens, one where a main character is revealed to be dead all along, and another where a young man and woman out for the day seem to experience a time slip and the events of these missing hours appear to come back to the man (by this time elderly) many years later in a dream on the same day the woman dies.

In both cases, there is no definitive supernatural themes, and these are left up to the readers to decide whether there is something other worldly at play or if there is a more rational explanation, but regardless I did get some negative feedback on both.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I have a new landline…

Don’t write 9.2k words across two chapters of a Lesbian Sex story with the only sex being masturbation (albeit the FMC thinking another other FMC) and hetero (between the FMC and her husband). Who’d have guessed ?

And - more importantly - why do I have such a death wish?

Emily

 

[gunhilltrain]

Anal in a Mom / Son incest story.

Apparently this is huge no no.

Perfectly fine to fuck your own mother.

But butt stuff is icky.

Yet it's perfectly okay to get Mom pregnant. Sis too. A threesome helps. And Dad can join in too. Would DNA samples resolve the paternity questions?

Did you ever see that old Joe Blow incest cartoon from R. Crumb?

 

[gunhilltrain]

Yep, the Joe Blow cartoon is online, but it looks like you have to subscribe to a site to see the whole thing. I have a book of R. Crumb cartoons that has it, but I also saw that one years ago somewhere.

1969 for the Blow family: R. Crumb was a cartoonist, not a writer, but he was decades ahead of Lit on almost everything. Incest: yeah, he covers that completely. A strange contradiction, because he was both "radical" and "politically incorrect" at the same time. Yet he would veer off into almost any topic. This video wasn't created by him, but he drew all of the visuals. I doubt he ever met Joni Mitchell, but I'm sure they heard of each other. The details in these drawings are amazing in their accuracy.

 

[CarmineBlancheJr]

I predict apoplectic rage.

Pegging with a little reach-around for good measure.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Anal in a Mom / Son incest story.

Apparently this is huge no no.

Perfectly fine to fuck your own mother.

But butt stuff is icky.

Does is count if mom is pegging her son with a massive dildo? Inquiring minds and all that...

 

[alohadave]

Story title: Mom's Poophole Loophole

And it's published: Mom's Poophole Loophole

 

[THBGato]

Don’t write 9.2k words across two chapters of a Lesbian Sex story with the only sex being masturbation (albeit the FMC thinking another other FMC) and hetero (between the FMC and her husband). Who’d have guessed ?

You say that, but the first basically describes Chapter one of Nanny Sarah and the second describes Chapter one of A Girl Named Mitch (ok, boyfriend rather than husband, but same thing). Both are incredibly popular stories (150k+ views and 4.8 or higher rankings). So, it can be done.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Make this happen. Please. I beg you.

I'm thinking about it now.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I think this is an urban legend. If you click on the "Mother" tab in I/T, "Anal" is the 13th most common secondary tag. Most of the ones above it are to be expected in a mother-son story - "Son", "Incest", "MILF", "Mom", "Taboo", "Mother son incest", "Older woman", "Mother son sex", "Younger man". Looking at the stories with both the "Mother" and "Anal" tags, I see mostly red H's.

"Impregnation" is way down the list of tags occurring with "Mother".

I agree with LC68 that noncon is unpopular. Similarly, I think full-blown BDSM is unpopular. Mild BDSM like spanking and hair-pulling is fine.

MM sex is unpopular. FF is sex is very popular if it's part of a MFF threesome. I don't know if female-only stories would be unpopular, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Watersports is unpopular. I'd guess a lot of fetishes would be unpopular.

Kinda what I was thinking, because I have anal in the last incest story I did, and I think every chapter is at least rated 4.0 or higher. There's anal with his stepmom and bio mom.

 

[Djmac1031]

I'm thinking about it now.

actually saw @alohadave beat you to it, published today.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

actually saw @alohadave beat you to it, published today.

Yeah, just saw that. I just found this thread 15min ago, lol.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

Kinda what I was thinking, because I have anal in the last incest story I did, and I think every chapter is at least rated 4.0 or higher. There's anal with his stepmom and bio mom.

My M/S series in I/T has anal in most of the later chapters and they're all rated above 4.5. This one feels like a myth, to me...

 

[bi_cathy]

I have a new landline…

Don’t write 9.2k words across two chapters of a Lesbian Sex story with the only sex being masturbation (albeit the FMC thinking another other FMC) and hetero (between the FMC and her husband). Who’d have guessed ?

And - more importantly - why do I have such a death wish?

Emily

My entire Lesbian catalogue would beg to disagree - at least with just the masturbation part. Most of my stories are just teasing with zero to very-very little actual sex, and it's all been positively received.

Though I've kind of found myself a niche in the Lesbian category. I usually stop right before the actual sex, because I'm not interested in reading sex scenes (I often skip them when reading erotica) so I'm not interested in writing them. A fun predicament for an erotica writer, hah! So I like taking people on a journey, more than showing them the destination. And the most frequent comments I get are "you must continue" "you can't stop here" "another chapter" etc...

Anyway, my point is, you can write Lesbian stories without sex and still get great ratings. It's not easy, but it's super fun. And I like that it forces me to be super creative about my stories and settings.

 

[CarmineBlancheJr]

Anyway, my point is, you can write Lesbian stories without sex and still get great ratings. It's not easy, but it's super fun. And I like that it forces me to be super creative about my stories and settings.

Agreed—it's true in all areas, too. It's all about delivering good content in the story: likable characters, believable dialogue, and giving the reader a reason to like the people you have created.

Once you accomplish that, sex or no sex, you have a captive audience. Then you can work on the "Slow Burn" build-up so that you have a twelve-page story, but only the last two pages are the juicy stuff.

I guess you could call it good "lexigraphical foreplay".

 

[KeithD]

Agreed—it's true in all areas, too. It's all about delivering good content in the story: likable characters, believable dialogue, and giving the reader a reason to like the people you have created.

And luck in the mix of readers you get for the story.

 

[CarmineBlancheJr]

And luck in the mix of readers you get for the story.

True.

It makes me think of the people who read the stories, skip through all the buildup, and get right to the sex. I suppose it's no different than people that watch a porn, and skip the "story" and go right to the pumpy-licky-squirty action.

 

[THBGato]

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!

 

[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!

Exactly.

I try really hard to create stories that fill that role. I like writing sex and buildup scenes, but I like for my characters to have some life, personality, and depth (no pun intended). Further, I like there to be a story... some REASON that they are there, in that place, at that time, and getting ready to do what they are doing.

Don't get me wrong, I like the stupid stuff too. I am still trying to think of some compelling "Stuck and Fucked" stories... similar to the "Locked in the Trunk" I wrote when I first started here. But even it had a story that hooked people's attention for more than the sex.

 

[jehoram]

The only adverse comment on content was in the last installment of my story "The Yearbook Girl."
The five part story was mostly about first-time and erotic couplings, but ended with some incest that left at least one reader uncomfortable with the outcome. If I had to add a tag to the story, it would be this. Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to add tags to the story without re-publishing it.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

The only adverse comment on content was in the last installment of my story "The Yearbook Girl."
The five part story was mostly about first-time and erotic couplings, but ended with some incest that left at least one reader uncomfortable with the outcome. If I had to add a tag to the story, it would be this. Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to add tags to the story without re-publishing it.

It can be done through the edit process.

 

[LessThanAWord]

Cheating in a dub/noncon story.

Coercion? Duress? Deception? Enslavement? Drugs? Blackmail? Kept in a dungeon? Brainwashed by cultists? Isn't there someone you forgot to ask?

 

[lovecraft68]

Cheating in a dub/noncon story.

Coercion? Duress? Deception? Enslavement? Drugs? Blackmail? Kept in a dungeon? Brainwashed by cultists? Isn't there someone you forgot to ask?

Cheating everywhere.

You described all manner of NC scenarios people-who enjoy the kink-are fine with-but she cheated on her partner by being raped? Reeeeeeeee

But its like this everywhere. Incest-you can screw your son, but if Dad's around its wrong.

Any category that features some type of infidelity no matter how it comes about will draw the attention of a faction of trolls that seem to be able to sniff them out no matter where they're published.

I know there is an off group of rather conservative porn readers and writers, but the last few years the 'cheat' parenthesis as this is all fiction are a growing vocal and frothing lot of 'men' and again, they have a weird radar to find this material.