I naively published in Loving Wives! OUCH

[WhenPreNut]

Well thanks everyone who has created and contributed to the threads explaining what Loving Wives (LW)'s peccadilloes are!

Wow!!! ?

I now know what BTB (Burn the Bitch) and RAAC (Reconcile At Any Cost) are.

From what I experienced and others have said they experienced too one cannot take the category description at face value. Who would've guessed !? Clearly naive (with hindsight).

So now I appreciate that those 'in' LW are largely in the BRB or the RAAC to the extent that everything posted and not in 'my camp' is wrong and deserves bombing. There's a third group it seems who I might define as just here for the chance to read a story that 'floats their boat(s)'

Well I'm slightly wiser now.

My story is bouncing around 2.75.
Low enough to have surprised me
WHILE
'follows' & 'favourites' are much higher than previously - also a surprise - (I haven't been contributing long enough to have a 'normal' yet).

'Swings and roundabouts' then.

Lower score higher engagement!

One Lit menu page says I've got 3 comments. For the last 24hrs they aren't accessible. Now I've got 1 readable "would be promising if it wasn't <completely wrong assumption!>"

Some interesting (speculative?) insights in the K threads I've now understood further is the subculture running through at least the LW category about multiple aspects of community in a digital space, also those with a interest or disinterest in aspects of the community platform they moderate, those who inhabit the space and use or abuse its facilities for their own sense of worth and enjoyment.

I guess a small microcosm of life!

 

[Seurat]

I would say that things in the LW category are based around one word: retribution. The BTB crowd is okay with a reconcile if the retribution exceeds the crime. The RAAC crowd is usually okay if it doesn't. The NTR crowd doesn't really want the retribution at all, since that seems antithetical to the NTR theme. The LW Description purists say that polyamory shouldn't be a detriment is both parties are accepting. The problem comes along when your story 1) really pisses off one of the groups, BTB being the most vocal; 2) Tries to be all things (nobody is going to like it) by doing something like posting four different endings; and 3) ends before people feel it should, not explaining which category it falls into. There are probably many other categories that I am missing, but those appeared at the top of my brain.

Taking a look at the recent one you posted in LW, I think it would probably fare better in BDSM or fetish. It is missing the angst/desire regarding the SO's extramarital affairs that is usually prevalent in an LW story.

As for comments. anonymous comments are often held up while reviewed.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

LW - what municipal sewers want to be when they grow up.

 

[Belegon]

I'm still undecided as to whether I'm actually goin to enter the maelstorm that is LW... part of me thinks that perhaps hitting every category EXCEPT that one is perfectly acceptable and maybe even a silent comment on the whole thing.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I am legally required to link the essay here.

 

[WhenPreNut]

legally required to link the essay here

I'll settle down for a long read later
Thnx

I notice in a skim that you mention other categories like novella - is there (meaningful) guidance anywhere about how to pick categories?

I've been a reader for a long time and I only ever used tags to find topics for interest. I've never as a reader used categories at all but as a writer I'm forced to select one when that never makes sense to me and none of them seem to fit.

My stories are emerging to have repeating themes; light restraint, willingness & respect by all parties to enjoy them selves and each other, multiple partners, a woman with multiple often anonymous men, accepting tattoos and piercing, some 'obvious' power exchange with the giver of the body being the subtle exchange beneficiary of the emotional/ mental 'carnal power' , and older

I read through Lit's category titles and two line descriptions. Nothing embraces that range, I write in chunks so have used the series facility where each story then gets a category.

Without much understanding of the concept and none of the sub-culturals (to my mind 'destructive stupidity') I've used more than one.

The lit interface for authors seems to have a huge amount of friction. For example I don't see a way to move category and there definitely isn't a way too polish those little niggles I ALWAYS find after publication. I've only tried to amend story once. It took 6 weeks for the update to appear by which point it had 99% of the readings that it has acquired in total - So wasn't worth it.

On basically the same topic - the emergence of digital community is a topic of some interest and Lit’s seems to me that it would make a number of case studies and PhD theses

Ciao

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'll settle down for a long read later
Thnx

I notice in a skim that you mention other categories like novella - is there (meaningful) guidance anywhere about how to pick categories?

There is a good guide somewhere - I don't know where, but someone will post a link.

I've been a reader for a long time and I only ever used tags to find topics for interest. I've never as a reader used categories at all but as a writer I'm forced to select one when that never makes sense to me and none of them seem to fit.

My stories are emerging to have repeating themes; light restraint, willingness & respect by all parties to enjoy them selves and each other, multiple partners, a woman with multiple often anonymous men, accepting tattoos and piercing, some 'obvious' power exchange with the giver of the body being the subtle exchange beneficiary of the emotional/ mental 'carnal power' , and older

Probably BDSM for some of that, Group for bits of the other.

I read through Lit's category titles and two line descriptions. Nothing embraces that range, I write in chunks so have used the series facility where each story then gets a category.

The best guidance for any story is to identify the predominant theme and categorise to that. Category hopping within a single story with multiple chapters isn't the best idea. Many category aficionados don't read much outside their category of choice, so they'll read their kink chapter but won't bother with the rest.

Which mostly means they don't give a toss about your carefully crafted story, your superbly presented characters, you very clever plot. They just want their favourite sex.

Which is a bit depressing if you let it worry you, so don't.

Without much understanding of the concept and none of the sub-culturals (to my mind 'destructive stupidity') I've used more than one.

You'll learn over time.

The lit interface for authors seems to have a huge amount of friction. For example I don't see a way to move category and there definitely isn't a way too polish those little niggles

You can ask for a category change, but it takes a while. Once you know the categories better, it won't matter.

Submit the best possible text you can, first time, and accept that glitches and goofs always happen, but again, don't worry about it. I've got goofs in stories that I'll never fix, it's not worth the bother. And unless your writing is a complete fuck up, technically, readers are forgiving. Just get the basics right, otherwise you're the one who looks like a goose, no-one else will care much.

I ALWAYS find after publication. I've only tried to amend story once. It took 6 weeks for the update to appear by which point it had 99% of the readings that it has acquired in total - So wasn't worth it.

Correct. Do the job right in the first place, problem solved. Edit well, and make sure the basic fundamental stuff is down right.

Also, think long term. 99% of your reads won't happen in the first release. If you're good, you'll get far more readers over time.

On basically the same topic - the emergence of digital community is a topic of some interest and Lit’s seems to me that it would make a number of case studies and PhD theses

Ciao

There's at least one academic study been done that I'm aware of. Someone will know where it is.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I've been a reader for a long time and I only ever used tags to find topics for interest. I've never as a reader used categories at all but as a writer I'm forced to select one when that never makes sense to me and none of them seem to fit.

https://www.literotica.com/s/love-your-readers-categories is a pretty good guide to it.

Personally, I have my own theory of choosing main themes. What's the one theme, that if you took it out would most change the story? Find the corresponding category, you're set.

 

[ElectricBlue]

https://www.literotica.com/s/love-your-readers-categories is a pretty good guide to it.

Personally, I have my own theory of choosing main themes. What's the one theme, that if you took it out would most change the story? Find the corresponding category, you're set.

That's the one, thanks.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I have only published three stories in the Loving Wives category:

A Valentine's Day contest entry that clearly went over a lot of readers' heads. The MFC comes off as a cheating slut until we learn at the end that her yearly rendezvous has always been with her husband on their anniversary dates.

Another cerebral challenge for many readers. The lifelong emotional toll from her infidelity wasn't enough for the BTB crowd.

Here, the hubby outsmarts the predator before he can make his move. Disappointing to many, the wife never had any interest in straying.

Each of these clearly, in my mind at least, belong in this category. While they all rank among my lowest rated stories, the engagement is above average. Unlike what some others have seen, there has been no negative impact on any of my stories in other categories due to some reader(s) not fully embracing the ones in Loving Wives.

 

[Imstillfun]

I focus on writing LW a lot. I write mostly wife sharing stories, some cuckold. 47 out of 90 stories. After the initial 1* bombers my scores settle at around 4.4 these days. I just looked at the numbers. Out of 47 LW stories 32 are 4.5 or above. My newest story is currently at 4.12 after starting in the low 3s.

I think the scores are lower these days because they don’t get as many views. My latest only has 63k after 2. Weeks. I’ve found when they switched the format my readership went down. I think the stories don’t stay on the front page as long.

There is a group of people who target my stories for 1* bombing. I’ve seen an older story go from 4.7 to 4.48 in a matter of days.

I no longer check scores. I just looked up these numbers for this thread. I look at followers and favorites. After a new story drops I get about 50 new followers in the first week. My stories average about .12% -.16% favorites of total views. I use followers as the main measure of my success. (Not bragging but for those who don’t know me, to lend some gravitas to my opinion, I am the #9 most followed author on the site)

Ignore the LW scores. For individual stories look at favorites/views x 100. My lowest scoring LW story at 4.11 has one of the higher favorite ratios at .18%. For overall look at your overall followers.

Remember, anything above 3.0 means more than 1/2 your readers liked your story.

Last, enjoy the comments. Even the bad ones are fun. Think about it this way. If you made a reader mad enough to comment, your writing hit an emotional response. Isn’t that really what the writing is about? If your writing was good enough to trigger a response, it can’t be that bad.

For fun, check out the comments on my story ‘you only think you’re in control’. I was 1* bomber trolling. It was fun.

 

[sirhugs]

I started my writing "career" posting in LW before it became a sewer, because those were the stories I had to tell. Then after I branched off to explore other kinks, i did not go back a long time, but it still has a special has a special place in my heart. And my return to the category in Not Another Loving Wives Tale! , though on purpose lampooning some of the conventions, and including a twist, is my most commented story, so well worth it. Plus it helped me learn how to explore my tentacle monster kink, which has generated my highest rated story.

Just have to keep your sense of humour.

 

[Ianus4]

I would say that things in the LW category are based around one word: retribution.

Not really. It’s much more about whether trust can be restored. About how plausible is it that cheating won’t happen again.

 

[Andreas_Kreuz]

I think LW is just another example of Lit's decline through neglect by @Manu and @Laurel.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I think LW is just another example of Lit's decline through neglect by @Manu and @Laurel.

You'll need to expand on this comment.

 

[devtek]

I no longer check scores. I just looked up these numbers for this thread. I look at followers and favorites. After a new story drops I get about 50 new followers in the first week. My stories average about .12% -.16% favorites of total views. I use followers as the main measure of my success. (Not bragging but for those who don’t know me, to lend some gravitas to my opinion, I am the #9 most followed author on the site)

And I'm definitely one of your fans.
When I read that a story is written by "Imstillfun," I don't look at the title or the description; I read it without thinking twice, and I've never been disappointed.

 

[Andreas_Kreuz]

You'll need to expand on this comment.

It would be easy to split the category. Consensual non-monogamy vs non-consensual cheating. This is the way that the more attentive story site https://erotxt.me/explorer does it. It has a primary category, facets, and then tags + warnings. So one can find interesting stories much more easily.
So you can go to the consensual non-monogamy category and then look for cuckolding or hotwife. Or go to cheating and the BTB vs RAAC. And it uses a 3-dimensional rating system: heat/writing/characters. This discourages one * bombing.
All these concepts have been discussed here for years, but no one cared to implement them.

 

[NoTalentHack]

LOL "Let's just divvy up 50K stories from the last 25 years into three categories, along with implementing a new tagging and rating system, and bolt it onto the existing infrastructure for hundreds of thousands more! Super easy! Barely an inconvenience!"

Erotxt is able to do it because there are no stories and no readers there. No one's going to notice if they screw something up, and, especially with the decision to not include some of the most popular categories from Lit, along with their mealymouthed approach to AI usage, it's unlikely to ever gain said readers and stories.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

It would be easy to split the category. Consensual non-monogamy vs non-consensual cheating. This is the way that the more attentive story site https://erotxt.me/explorer does it. It has a primary category, facets, and then tags + warnings. So one can find interesting stories much more easily.
So you can go to the consensual non-monogamy category and then look for cuckolding or hotwife. Or go to cheating and the BTB vs RAAC. And it uses a 3-dimensional rating system: heat/writing/characters. This discourages one * bombing.
All these concepts have been discussed here for years, but no one cared to implement them.

Both the benefit and the practicality are lost on me.

Almost every category on the site could be further broken down by sub-genre types. It won't stop the trolls or readers who seek out dis-satisfaction in what they read.

 

[Imstillfun]

I have trolls who follow me to other categories to 1* bomb me and leave nasty comments about how I can’t write in any category. Again. Think of them as fans. Who would make that much effort except someone your writing really touched. They’re so consistent I can even name names.

 

[sirhugs]

It would be easy to split the category. Consensual non-monogamy vs non-consensual cheating. This is the way that the more attentive story site https://erotxt.me/explorer does it. It has a primary category, facets, and then tags + warnings. So one can find interesting stories much more easily.
So you can go to the consensual non-monogamy category and then look for cuckolding or hotwife. Or go to cheating and the BTB vs RAAC. And it uses a 3-dimensional rating system: heat/writing/characters. This discourages one * bombing.
All these concepts have been discussed here for years, but no one cared to implement them.

Not even remotely likely to happen. It's not a matter of caring. It's a policy decision.

 

[Imstillfun]

It would be easy to split the category. Consensual non-monogamy vs non-consensual cheating. This is the way that the more attentive story site https://erotxt.me/explorer does it. It has a primary category, facets, and then tags + warnings. So one can find interesting stories much more easily.
So you can go to the consensual non-monogamy category and then look for cuckolding or hotwife. Or go to cheating and the BTB vs RAAC. And it uses a 3-dimensional rating system: heat/writing/characters. This discourages one * bombing.
All these concepts have been discussed here for years, but no one cared to implement them.

Isn’t this what tags do? The BTB fanatics go out of their way to read other stories so they can pretend to be outraged because they’re mad at themselves for being turned on by what happened to them in real life.

 

[IWroteThis]

Isn’t this what tags do?

Kind of, but not really. You can't see the tags until after you click into a story. Category is displayed with the title and description to help you decide whether or not to click.

 

[EmilyMiller]

LOL "Let's just divvy up 50K stories from the last 25 years into three categories, along with implementing a new tagging and rating system, and bolt it onto the existing infrastructure for hundreds of thousands more! Super easy! Barely an inconvenience!"

Erotxt is able to do it because there are no stories and no readers there. No one's going to notice if they screw something up, and, especially with the decision to not include some of the most popular categories from Lit, along with their mealymouthed approach to AI usage, it's unlikely to ever gain said readers and stories.

It’s such a missed opportunity.

 

[Imstillfun]

Kind of, but not really. You can't see the tags until after you click into a story. Category is displayed with the title and description to help you decide whether or not to click.

Interesting. When I’m in the mood to read I start at the tags. I find it’s the best way to look up stories that might interest me. Maybe they should put the tags search above the categories search?