Is writing for the category audience a trend at Literotica?

[TheExperimentalist]

We've had countless threads and discussions in this forum about whether as an author you write for yourself or write for others, or write with multiple purposes. My question--and I'm not entirely sure about my opinion of this--is whether you perceive a long-term trend at Literotica of authors writing for a category audience.

There's no judgment involved. I personally think authors should be free to be guided by the motives of their choosing.

I've been here for a while, but others have been here over twice as long as I have and know the answer better than I do. My tentative sense is that there HAS been some evolution among stories toward writing what readers want, and what readers are likely to reward with high scores. Authors over time become more sophisticated about what a category's readership wants, and they adapt to that.

My sense is that the concern for scores has grown over time. It's always been there, and there were a lot of scoring shenanigans going on shortly before I showed up in 2016, but there seems to be more analysis than ever in this forum about scores and downvoting, and I can't help but wonder if it affects how stories are written in the long-term.

Of course, it's also possible that what I tentatively perceive as a trend toward writing for reader taste is just a reflection of evolving author taste. It seems likely that there would be some evolution over the course of 25 years. There's a whole new generation of Lit writers now that didn't exist 20 years ago.

Sometimes I know in advance what category a story is going to go into (for instance, about half my WIPs are incest), but sometimes I just have a story idea, begin to write it, and see where it goes. Most of my other WIPs contain a mix of different kinks and category expectations, and despite my good fortune of the three stories I've posted so far getting that red H, I'm sure some of them will do "poorly".

For instance, I have one WIP that's mostly characters reconnecting after a long time with some comedic mistaken assumptions that get corrected before they end up acting on twenty years of unfulfilled desire. Sounds great for the Romance category, right? Except that once they finally correct the assumptions and realize how intensely they want each other and how intensely they wish they'd had each other two decades prior, it leads to a lot of primal roughhousing and pain play, along with some facesitting and swallowing of female ejaculate, so the actual sex, despite not being the majority of the story, is much more Fetishey, which is where people on here have previously recommended I put it once done. Do I expect it to do well in either category, or in any particular other one? I don't the heck know. I'm still writing it, though, because it's something I personally would want to read, and I write primarily for myself.

I also have some WIPs that will have both incest and fetishey stuff. I know most T/I readers tend to dislike some of the more extreme fetishey stuff, and most Fetish readers tend to dislike incest. Whatever. I like both. I write what I like.

I was also actually thinking earlier today, before even seeing this topic, about what it would be like to write a story with 'All the Kinks' (possibly giving it that title as well) in which I would include every kink, fetish, and idea that I personally find arousing. Aside from not being sure that I could believably have the characters transition through all those different moods, contexts, and activities, and being COMPLETELY sure that it would have to be extremely long to do so even if I could, it would be the ultimate not-category-pandering. I know how unlikely it is to find readers with EXACTLY the same laundry list of kinks that I have, so every additional one introduced into a story decreases the potential overlap. If I were sure I could write it well though, I'd probably still do so. What category would I put it into? I have absolutely no idea.

 

[alohadave]

Easy to go back to the early years of this board for review. Click page 1524 and work from there.

https://forum.literotica.com/forums/authors-hangout.3/page-1524

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/suzie-samuels-is-correct.10160/

Some things never change.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I agree with that, for sure.
But I'd also say that Lit authors often ask such questions in the sense of ratings they'll gain in a certain category, rather than asking where they'll get the most views or the most comments.

Over the decade and a bit that I've been here, I'd agree there's been a shift towards giving the category cohorts their tropes. Which is why it's always refreshing when writers push back against that slow descent to the same old same old.

I can't think of anything worse than writing the same story as the next guy ----> Yet the readers lap it up and love it.

Mind you, a story received this comment back in 2016, so maybe the sameness was there, back then:

by AMoveableBeast on 03/18/2016

Terrifically original. Unexpected. Well-written and skillfully handled.

I was having a bad night on the site. It can frustrate me at times. It can be ugly and petty and small.

Thank you for reminding me that it can be so much more. You made my night, and a new fan.

 

[Erozetta]

I genuinely don't think I'm capable of writing to a category. My brain just isn't organized enough to do it.

For one thing, it requires planning to some degree and I'm the type of writer who just sits down and writes to see what happens, no plan,no plot, no idea, just free form words that eventually become a semi-coherent tale.

And then I work out the categories it could fit into and I sometimes quite literally roll a die or flip a coin to decide its placement.

I'm basically an example of how not to do things if your goal is as many fans and kudos for your work as possible.

As to whether it's a trend, well, yeah. It's the default for most writers and they aren't wrong for it.

 

[Bazzle]

I have reached out to authors of certain genres and asked their advice about my story and the category.

90% of my work is very much fetish. So I am comfortable in that catagory. When the creative juices produce something unfetish like, I need help!

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Here's another way to look at it. Readers see a particular type of story doing well and realise "here is a ready made audience for the type of stories I've always wanted to write". In which case it's the audience that brings in the writers not the writers adapting to the audience.

This was definitely the case with me. Previously, I'd struggled to come up with a plot that would meet the word length requirements for traditional publishing (80k+). Then, I found Literotica and discovered (thanks to onehitwanda, bicathy, careythomas, Salish, Salandar et al) an audience that seemed to love 20,000 word lesbian romances, which is what I wanted to write. Yet that audience had been been created by those writers and others. I'd love to know if that audience was what drew others writers in LS to Lit.

Maybe I'm pandering to that audience. Or maybe that audience is why I'm here and my stories are now part of a corpus sustaining that audience for future writers.

Writing popular tropes isn't automatic pandering, and I never meant to say that. I mean, statistically speaking, a decent number of authors are bound to be the ones who like writing the exact type of story that's popular.
Authors are readers as well, so it makes sense that a number of them would be motivated to write that same popular type of story - because they love reading it.

But there are a number of authors who tailor their writing towards whatever is popular within a group of readers, and not because they truly want to write that type of story, or because they love reading such stories, but because they crave the praise and recognition from readers, and possibly the recognition from their peers on the forum. For what it's worth, I don't see you as one of those authors.

Again, I wouldn't say that's such a big deal, but I do believe it goes against art in general. If authors focused on writing what the crowd desires, then the writing, the stories, and the themes would never evolve beyond what's currently popular.

 

[redgarters]

Here's another way to look at it. Readers see a particular type of story doing well and realise "here is a ready made audience for the type of stories I've always wanted to write". In which case it's the audience that brings in the writers not the writers adapting to the audience.

This was definitely the case with me. Previously, I'd struggled to come up with a plot that would meet the word length requirements for traditional publishing (80k+). Then, I found Literotica and discovered (thanks to onehitwanda, bicathy, careythomas, Salish, Salandar et al) an audience that seemed to love 20,000 word lesbian romances, which is what I wanted to write. Yet that audience had been been created by those writers and others. I'd love to know if that audience was what drew others writers in LS to Lit.

Maybe I'm pandering to that audience. Or maybe that audience is why I'm here and my stories are now part of a corpus sustaining that audience for future writers.

Yes, that's me too. I was a reader in LS, where I found the kind of sfories I loved and connected with. Then I moved to writing stories like that. Writing stories that I want to write or stories I think/know the audience in that category like? Both can be true at the same time.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Same here, but I feel like I've seen a lot of "You want ratings? Write for X category."

I think that's less common, actually. I'd say the most common advice is "you want views? Write I/T", followed by "you want comments? Write Loving Wives."

But mostly the advice is about what to do with a story that's already done or in progress. "I have this story about an interracial wife-swapping gangbang with forced crossdressing; where do I put it?" Those threads get a lot of attention and comments.

 

[Bramblethorn]

My sense is that the concern for scores has grown over time. It's always been there, and there were a lot of scoring shenanigans going on shortly before I showed up in 2016, but there seems to be more analysis than ever in this forum about scores and downvoting, and I can't help but wonder if it affects how stories are written in the long-term.

I agree that there seems to be more discussion about it here than there used to be. What I can't gauge is how far (or even if?) that affects what's happening on the story side of the site. The people who like to spend a lot of time discussing the recipe for a successful story are not always the same people actually publishing stories.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I can see how the observation of a couple of decades worth of voting behavior could have changed that emphasis.

I think also the world in general is more SEO-obsessed than it was 20 years ago and that probably influences writers as much as anybody else.

 

[RetroFan]

I try to write stories that appeal to particular audiences, but always try to come up with an interesting premise and to entertain the readers.

Some of the Incest-Taboo fans I find frustrating in this regard, constantly complaining that stories are boring because there is more to it than sex, or because it is an IT combination that doesn't come up very often, such as half siblings with a large age difference or triplets.

As just some examples with some of my stories posted to the category, they don't like to go on holidays (especially to Australia), they don't like comedy, they don't like urban exploring, sports, historical stories, mysteries, the paranormal/supernatural, voyeurism, stories that are tailored to fans with particular fetishes, nor ideas that vary from the norm, such as a young man who is turned on by his devoutly religious female cousins because they are virgins or a third party narrator seeing odd things between a twin brother and sister he is friends with and pondering just how close they really are.

It takes imagination to write these stories, but you wonder if some of them are more impressed by stories that begin 'So one day my sister and I were home alone together, and I asked her if she wanted to have sex with me, and she said yes.'

 

[TheExperimentalist]

I try to write stories that appeal to particular audiences, but always try to come up with an interesting premise and to entertain the readers.

Some of the Incest-Taboo fans I find frustrating in this regard, constantly complaining that stories are boring because there is more to it than sex, or because it is an IT combination that doesn't come up very often, such as half siblings with a large age difference or triplets.

As just some examples with some of my stories posted to the category, they don't like to go on holidays (especially to Australia), they don't like comedy, they don't like urban exploring, sports, historical stories, mysteries, the paranormal/supernatural, voyeurism, stories that are tailored to fans with particular fetishes, nor ideas that vary from the norm, such as a young man who is turned on by his devoutly religious female cousins because they are virgins or a third party narrator seeing odd things between a twin brother and sister he is friends with and pondering just how close they really are.

It takes imagination to write these stories, but you wonder if some of them are more impressed by stories that begin 'So one day my sister and I were home alone together, and I asked her if she wanted to have sex with me, and she said yes.'

I read (and write) a lot of incest. There are some premises/combinations that I like more, some less (highly dislike relationships with power dynamics unless it's the one with less power initiating, for instance), but the thing I like MOST is believable build-up and dialogue. I agree with you that there's way too much "Hey Sis, I'm horny, are you?" "Yeah, I guess I am." "Cool, let's fuck." "Okay, but first I'm gonna suck you off, and then after we fuck the usual way, we'll do anal, kay?" without any real emotion behind it.

I think I'll check out some of your stories, it sounds like they might be up my alley. At least this particular T/I reader doesn't want formulaic.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

I try to write stories that appeal to particular audiences, but always try to come up with an interesting premise and to entertain the readers.

Some of the Incest-Taboo fans I find frustrating in this regard, constantly complaining that stories are boring because there is more to it than sex, or because it is an IT combination that doesn't come up very often, such as half siblings with a large age difference or triplets.

As just some examples with some of my stories posted to the category, they don't like to go on holidays (especially to Australia), they don't like comedy, they don't like urban exploring, sports, historical stories, mysteries, the paranormal/supernatural, voyeurism, stories that are tailored to fans with particular fetishes, nor ideas that vary from the norm, such as a young man who is turned on by his devoutly religious female cousins because they are virgins or a third party narrator seeing odd things between a twin brother and sister he is friends with and pondering just how close they really are.

It takes imagination to write these stories, but you wonder if some of them are more impressed by stories that begin 'So one day my sister and I were home alone together, and I asked her if she wanted to have sex with me, and she said yes.'

I read (and write) a lot of incest. There are some premises/combinations that I like more, some less (highly dislike relationships with power dynamics unless it's the one with less power initiating, for instance), but the thing I like MOST is believable build-up and dialogue. I agree with you that there's way too much "Hey Sis, I'm horny, are you?" "Yeah, I guess I am." "Cool, let's fuck." "Okay, but first I'm gonna suck you off, and then after we fuck the usual way, we'll do anal, kay?" without any real emotion behind it.

I think I'll check out some of your stories, it sounds like they might be up my alley. At least this particular T/I reader doesn't want formulaic.

Following up to add a "What the fuck???"

I just came across your story Sexy Stuck Up Sister Sophie and read the title, description, and intro, and feel like I wandered into an alternate universe. The story I just resubmitted after it was stuck in pending for two weeks involves... A brother and sister named Ben and Sophia (okay, not Sophie, but very close) who... have trouble getting along. The circumstances and premise are very very different: not separated at birth, American rather than UK/Aussie, not twins, their parents are sending them to therapy to try to work it out (no, it's not the pervy therapist trope, but I digress), a bunch of other major differences, but holy heck, I'm weirded out.

 

[Djmac1031]

When I first started, I just wrote a story then had to decide which category it fit in.

And it's pretty much the way I still operate. I don't intentionally choose what category my story will be published in then write it to fit.

That said, most story ideas are pretty easy to identify where they will wind up fitting in. So sure as it progresses you're gonna be adding things you know work well in said category. I don't see that as pandering, I see it as knowing your audience.

I tend to write a lot of EV stories, at least early on I did. Why? Because those were the kinds of stories I liked. And so i put the kinds of things from those stories I liked into MY stories.

Again, not pandering or playing to the crowd. Its writing what I enjoy and hoping to find an audience that enjoys those things too.

 

[RetroFan]

Following up to add a "What the fuck???"

I just came across your story Sexy Stuck Up Sister Sophie and read the title, description, and intro, and feel like I wandered into an alternate universe. The story I just resubmitted after it was stuck in pending for two weeks involves... A brother and sister named Ben and Sophia (okay, not Sophie, but very close) who... have trouble getting along. The circumstances and premise are very very different: not separated at birth, American rather than UK/Aussie, not twins, their parents are sending them to therapy to try to work it out (no, it's not the pervy therapist trope, but I digress), a bunch of other major differences, but holy heck, I'm weirded out.

I've come across some of these odd coincidences before, and its interesting that you mentioned alternate universes because I've actually got a story series in progress at the moment about a young man who slips out of the 'normal' world and into an alternate dimension where his family are incestuous and his cousin Jamie, an annoying boy in the real world, is a hot girl in the alternate one where there never was a 9/11 among many other changes.

Some other odd ones outside of Incest Taboo are a story called 'Grumpy Humphrey's Easy Wife' and a sci-fi story called 'Cindy's Close Encounter'. What I didn't know when I wrote the 'Grumpy Humphrey' story was that there was a famous pet called 'Grumpy Humphrey' - a small dog - and while not as famous as the late Grumpy Cat in the 2010s still has a significant fan following online. I just hope no wholesome families looking up amusing Grumpy Humphrey videos online came across my story, which is a mean-spirited and highly explicit tale about horrible people doing horrible things to each other.

The 'Cindy's Close Encounter' story - set at Halloween in 1959 whereas the Grumpy Humphrey story was set at Halloween in 1960 - is much nicer, with the narrator a pretty and pleasant-natured all-American girl named Cindy, who at age 18 is a cheerleader in her senior year of high school. The story is set in a fictional town in Connecticut, but what I didn't know was that in the year 1959 Connecticut and other New England states were struck by a hurricane which is very unusual that far North. And the name of the hurricane in question? She was called Cindy.

 

[PennameWombat]

I think also the world in general is more SEO-obsessed than it was 20 years ago and that probably influences writers as much as anybody else.

This entire thread can be encapsulated in the mainstream advice "write to market."

Anywhere that aspiring writers gather to attempt to drink from the wells of wisdom offered by "successful" writers, these latter almost always state that bromide about writing to market. To be excessively literal with an example, that would tell an aspiring mainstream writer "go Romantasy, young'un, thar be gold in them thar Romantasy hills" (see Top Kindle bestsellers discussion). Just as much advice here for authors is to aim for I/T or LW, as those are where "the engagement" or "the market" is. And much commercial erotica is also focused around "taboo."

Some "experts" do leaven the "write to market" advice with "find where your interests intersect with what genres are popular" and write there.

As my interests don't much intersect with what's "the market," I mostly just write what I write and accept that I'm never going to achieve mainstream notice. But I will admit, for the Categories that I find are my "homes" (EH, SF&F, NonHuman, E&V, Mature), I don't intentionally avoid the specific tropes that might be popular. But they're tweaks, and mostly at the level of whichever tags have larger typefaces. And my NonHuman stories are definitely not the primary tropes for that Category.

 

[Paul_Chance]

My question--and I'm not entirely sure about my opinion of this--is whether you perceive a long-term trend at Literotica of authors writing for a category audience.

No. I don’t observe or perceive any changes in the trend line. Here’s my principal challenge to the question: The question hinges on the motivation and approach of other people, which I have no access to.

Of all the writers whose work comprises the body of Literotica, a handful of them, percentage wise, come here to the AH and volunteer their approach.

These approaches fall into three very broad categories - some decide the category and then write the story, some write the story then decide on the category and finally, some alternate their approach.

I don’t see that as having changed, one way or another.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

I've come across some of these odd coincidences before, and its interesting that you mentioned alternate universes because I've actually got a story series in progress at the moment about a young man who slips out of the 'normal' world and into an alternate dimension where his family are incestuous and his cousin Jamie, an annoying boy in the real world, is a hot girl in the alternate one where there never was a 9/11 among many other changes.

If you mean "Incest in Another Dimension", I think seeing that title right above Sophie in your stories list may have influenced my phrasing right there. But anyway, that sounds really interesting.

Somewhat relatedly, may I DM/PM/Insta/Inbox/Whisper/Personal/Conversation/Whatever-term-is-used-for-one-on-one-communication-here you to discuss more rather than derailing this thread further?

Some other odd ones outside of Incest Taboo are a story called 'Grumpy Humphrey's Easy Wife' and a sci-fi story called 'Cindy's Close Encounter'. What I didn't know when I wrote the 'Grumpy Humphrey' story was that there was a famous pet called 'Grumpy Humphrey' - a small dog - and while not as famous as the late Grumpy Cat in the 2010s still has a significant fan following online. I just hope no wholesome families looking up amusing Grumpy Humphrey videos online came across my story, which is a mean-spirited and highly explicit tale about horrible people doing horrible things to each other.

The 'Cindy's Close Encounter' story - set at Halloween in 1959 whereas the Grumpy Humphrey story was set at Halloween in 1960 - is much nicer, with the narrator a pretty and pleasant-natured all-American girl named Cindy, who at age 18 is a cheerleader in her senior year of high school. The story is set in a fictional town in Connecticut, but what I didn't know was that in the year 1959 Connecticut and other New England states were struck by a hurricane which is very unusual that far North. And the name of the hurricane in question? She was called Cindy.

Ouch. Those sound pretty unfortunate. It's similar to why I keep frustratedly coming back to the thread about googling character names... I keep coming up with names that end up being famous people (or, I guess in this case, aligning with a story someone else already wrote...)

 

[Britva415]

mostly the advice is about what to do with a story that's already done or in progress. "I have this story about an interracial wife-swapping gangbang with forced crossdressing; where do I put it?" Those threads get a lot of attention and comments.

I agree!

And a lot of those advices recommend some particular category based on reactions rather than on content.

 

[StillStunned]

One of the first non-fantasy stories I published here was about a voyeur stalking their neighbour. The story was told as a confession - perhaps a letter - in which the narrator talked about standing in the neighbour's garden and spying on her.

Obviously, to my mind, E&V was the perfect category. After all, it was about a voyeur, wasn't it? Well, it's my only E&V story without a red H. "Disturbing as fuck" was a repeated comment. Which - yay me! - was what I'd intended when I wrote it.

But the thing was that it wasn't what the average E&V reader was expecting. There are descriptions of sex, and the narrator talks about getting off while watching. But it's not sensual, it's not arousing.

This was the first time I realised that the category readerships might have expectations when they click on a story. And fair enough, why shouldn't they? It's a site for sex stories, after all. By default, most stories here will be intended to arouse the readers.

But even so, the score wasn't too bad - it's at 4.32 right now (damn, just a few weeks ago it was 4.4!). So despite the gulf between what I wanted to write and what the readers wanted to read, there's plenty of appreciation. Readers aren't bombing the story out of sight just because it doesn't match their expectations.

And by the same account, you can write something that ticks all the boxes for a category's established tropes and still come up with a low rating. It might be too trite, or your writing might be difficult to read, or you might pick up a troll, or it might be a particularly wet February, or whatever. We've all seen it happen: a story that should do well but doesn't.

So here's my conclusion: write your story just the way you want it. Because that's the only way to guarantee you'll have at least something to make you happy.

 

[MelissaBaby]

We've had countless threads and discussions in this forum about whether as an author you write for yourself or write for others, or write with multiple purposes. My question--and I'm not entirely sure about my opinion of this--is whether you perceive a long-term trend at Literotica of authors writing for a category audience.

There's no judgment involved. I personally think authors should be free to be guided by the motives of their choosing.

I've been here for a while, but others have been here over twice as long as I have and know the answer better than I do. My tentative sense is that there HAS been some evolution among stories toward writing what readers want, and what readers are likely to reward with high scores. Authors over time become more sophisticated about what a category's readership wants, and they adapt to that.

My sense is that the concern for scores has grown over time. It's always been there, and there were a lot of scoring shenanigans going on shortly before I showed up in 2016, but there seems to be more analysis than ever in this forum about scores and downvoting, and I can't help but wonder if it affects how stories are written in the long-term.

Of course, it's also possible that what I tentatively perceive as a trend toward writing for reader taste is just a reflection of evolving author taste. It seems likely that there would be some evolution over the course of 25 years. There's a whole new generation of Lit writers now that didn't exist 20 years ago.

I write what I write, and don't give category any thought, besides the obvious; stories about lesbians go in Lesbian Sex, lowborn romantic stories of in Romance. Nearly everything else puts me in a quandary trying to figure out where they go, which explains why so much of my stuff ends up in Novels and Novellas. There's nowhere else to put them that seems appropriate.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I genuinely don't think I'm capable of writing to a category. My brain just isn't organized enough to do it.

For one thing, it requires planning to some degree and I'm the type of writer who just sits down and writes to see what happens, no plan,no plot, no idea, just free form words that eventually become a semi-coherent tale.

And then I work out the categories it could fit into and I sometimes quite literally roll a die or flip a coin to decide its placement.

I'm basically an example of how not to do things if your goal is as many fans and kudos for your work as possible.

As to whether it's a trend, well, yeah. It's the default for most writers and they aren't wrong for it.

I plan a great deal, but we end up in the same place.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I agree!

And a lot of those advices recommend some particular category based on reactions rather than on content.

That's because, usually, the content can go in several different categories but the story can only go in one. 'Interracial wife-swap gangbang with forced crossdressing' could live, based on that description and the implied content, in how many categories? Interracial, Loving Wives, Group Sex and Crossdressing at least, and maybe Fetish, BDSM and/or NCR. April's Fool is about a girlfriend giving her ex-girlfriend to her boyfriend as a present to satisfy their mutual threesome and butt-stuff fantasies; it can live in Anal or Group Sex or Erotic Couplings and there's really no wrong answer. Plugged In is about a budding romance between a white man and a Japanese woman with a high heel fetish that happens to be initiated with butt-stuff; it could live in Erotic Couplings, Anal or Romance (but not Fetish, unless I wrote the story differently). So when content doesn't provide the answer (if two men have sex with each other, it goes in Gay Male, always), we turn to other factors, because ultimately each single published story has to be assigned to one, and only one, category.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I've realized that in the Mature category, where most of my stuff goes, readers are are pretty simpatico with my own tastes. So I have that confidence going in when I post a story.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

That's because, usually, the content can go in several different categories but the story can only go in one. 'Interracial wife-swap gangbang with forced crossdressing' could live, based on that description and the implied content, in how many categories? Interracial, Loving Wives, Group Sex and Crossdressing at least, and maybe Fetish, BDSM and/or NCR. April's Fool is about a girlfriend giving her ex-girlfriend to her boyfriend as a present to satisfy their mutual threesome and butt-stuff fantasies; it can live in Anal or Group Sex or Erotic Couplings and there's really no wrong answer. Plugged In is about a budding romance between a white man and a Japanese woman with a high heel fetish that happens to be initiated with butt-stuff; it could live in Erotic Couplings, Anal or Romance (but not Fetish, unless I wrote the story differently). So when content doesn't provide the answer (if two men have sex with each other, it goes in Gay Male, always), we turn to other factors, because ultimately each single published story has to be assigned to one, and only one, category.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the single-category-per-story system...