Loving Wives

[Syzoth]

Every story in the "Loving Wives" category used to get review-bombed and rating-bombed no matter how good they were; is that still happening? Because I just browsed "Loving Wives for the first time in a while, and the ratings appear... normal.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

You didn't look around this forum, did you? Everyone who posts there talks about being one-bombed (malicious posting of 1 ratings), but also getting great engagement from commenters.

My own stories haven't been to that category as of yet.

 

[Syzoth]

You didn't look around this forum, did you? Everyone who posts there talks about being one-bombed (malicious posting of 1 ratings), but also getting great engagement from commenters.

My own stories haven't been to that category as of yet.

To be honest, I didn't look too closely at the postings here. I simply posted after seeing that all the recent LW stories were all 4.00 and above, which really surprised me.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Dont know when you looked but its back to the usual sub-3 scores on most stories right now.

 

[Andreas_Kreuz]

The main problem with LW for me is that it is the category where writing good prose is absolutely irrelevant.

 

[consistentlyrepudiated]

The main problem with LW LE for me is that it there is the no category where writing good prose is absolutely relevant.

There, fixed that for you.

 

[THBGato]

Every story in the "Loving Wives" category used to get review-bombed and rating-bombed no matter how good they were; is that still happening? Because I just browsed "Loving Wives for the first time in a while, and the ratings appear... normal.

I had a story go live there on Saturday. Seven 1* votes in the first 15 minutes - it was 13k words, so no way they'd read it. They just saw the tags and bombed it. It's hovering around 3 at the minute

But you don't post in LW for the scores, so **shrugs**

(To be honest, this one I mostly put in Loving Wives because a) @PennyThompson dared me to and b) to warn my normal readers than this wouldn't be a normal THBGato story - I was basically using the category to foreshadow things would soon be turning to shit.)

 

[PennyThompson]

I had a story go live there on Saturday. Seven 1* votes in the first 15 minutes - it was 13k words, so no way they'd read it. They just saw the tags and bombed it. It's hovering around 3 at the minute

But you don't post in LW for the scores, so **shrugs**

(To be honest, this one I mostly put in Loving Wives because a) @PennyThompson dared me to and b) to warn my normal readers than this wouldn't be a normal THBGato story - I was basically using the category to foreshadow things would soon be turning to shit.)

I'm mad that more of the LW bros wouldn't give this one a chance, I think it would have been good for them

 

[Lifestyle66]

I'm mad that more of the LW bros wouldn't give this one a chance, I think it would have been good for them

Think of the categories as someone's "safe space." The regular readers of those categories go there expecting to click on a certain type of story which they prefer to read.

In LW, one of the two factions (and the most vocal) expects/wants a cheating spouse to receive consequences for any extra-marital sex, and those BTB stories receive the highest ratings. I also think they don't care too much for chapter stories, because unless they get those consequences in Chapter One, they won't trust you with a 5-star vote, only to be let down later with a consensual sharing story arc.

And any blatant bleed over from other categories, such as gay/lesbian, interracial, BDSM, SciFi, etc alienates the LW audience as an unexpected "bait & switch." They're not getting what they wanted when they worked at clicking on that story's title. My latest story (linked below) did that: a lesbian "fling" and the wife wasn't burned by her husband. (It's at 3.02/188 after over 2 months).

THBGato's story has a melancholy ending. In my own tragic stories, I've found the LW audience doesn't much care for those lessons either. With extra-marital sex, half of the LW audience wants one of the characters ANGRY, not sadly accepting it.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

THBGato's story has a melancholy ending. In my own tragic stories, I've found the LW audience doesn't much care for those lessons either. With extra-marital sex, half of the LW audience wants one of the characters ANGRY, not sadly accepting it.

This morning, I was working on a story in which two people terribly hurt by messy divorces caused by adultery meet in a club and click together. Technically, I suppose it could be LW, but it doesn't fit at all with the readership.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

This morning, I was working on a story in which two people terribly hurt by messy divorces caused by adultery meet in a club and click together. Technically, I suppose it could be LW, but it doesn't fit at all with the readership.

I have three stories in LW, and only one of them involves a wife actually cheating. I wouldn't let that trope drive your decision on whether or not to post your story there if you feel it is the best fit.

 

[Lifestyle66]

This morning, I was working on a story in which two people terribly hurt by messy divorces caused by adultery meet in a club and click together. Technically, I suppose it could be LW, but it doesn't fit at all with the readership.

As long as you describe the divorces and it's not the fault of the two who meet, it may be well received by the BTB-lovers. They like to see the injured party from infidelity to come out ahead of their cheating spouse.

Emily posted an LW story about a guy who's raising his daughter alone, and he meets women whose husbands wanted them used in a sex club. Those husbands ended up burned, and the guy and one of the wives live HEA. That story scored well.

If the story shows the moral that "extra-marital sex is bad for you", then the story seems to rate better than "extra-marital sex can be fun".

 

[Rambling_Chantrix]

I'm mad that more of the LW bros wouldn't give this one a chance, I think it would have been good for them

I feel like THBGato's getting a lot fewer angry bites in the comments on this story than the previous foray into LW. Maybe people are paying attention to the tags for once?

I cannot wait to see what the LW readership thinks of what I have publishing on Wednesday.

 

[Annabelle1990]

Every story in the "Loving Wives" category used to get review-bombed and rating-bombed no matter how good they were; is that still happening? Because I just browsed "Loving Wives for the first time in a while, and the ratings appear... normal.

Everybody tells me I'm getting rating bombed with ones so I have to think it is true.

 

[SatansFavouritePet]

LW commenters are some of the most hateful people on the planet, I think. Just really nasty, toxic personalities hiding behind their usernames and waiting to pounce on authors so they can spew their bile and feel better about themselves.

 

[SmilingLez]

The main problem with LW for me is that it is the category where writing good prose is absolutely irrelevant.

I think that applies to most of the categories. What seems to be most important is if the theme resonates with the reader, regardless of how the story is written. YMMV

 

[Rambling_Chantrix]

I think that applies to most of the categories. What seems to be most important is if the theme resonates with the reader, regardless of how the story is written. YMMV

I think this is broadly true, but there are major fluctuations in media literacy across categories. In LW, I often see readers conflating themselves, the author, and the character(s) into a single moral entity. I've pretty much never seen that in Lesbian Sex or Transgender.

 

[SmilingLez]

I think this is broadly true, but there are major fluctuations in media literacy across categories. In LW, I often see readers conflating themselves, the author, and the character(s) into a single moral entity. I've pretty much never seen that in Lesbian Sex or Transgender.

I found there are two different camps in lesbian sex. One is male gaze written by males, the other is not

 

[TheIntrepidBoyager]

I've been reading these LW threads and comments with a mix of interest and confusion. Not that I don't understand the comments themselves, but I'm somewhat bewildered that a faction with such a narrow definition of or desire for the category has taken such a hold on it.

When I see the term "Loving Wife", my mind immediately goes to swinging, cuckolding and the like. I do not think about a wife cheating on her husband. I mean what is "loving" about that? I'm not even taking exception with their views on cheating wives, that's their views to have, but it just seems odd to me that they would expect to see the cheater have to face repercussions in the Loving Wives category.

But then, a million years ago when I used to post here, there was a faction of dudes that prowled BDSM for awhile that would absolutely attack any FemDom story and not just 1-bomb it but flood the comments about the author (often myself) hating men and so on. Back then you couldn't delete comments.

 

[Actingup]

I guess this is where I mention this thread. Below is the summary graphic, comparing percentile scores between various categories. The legend may be hard to read, but you may be able to deduce which one is LW. And no, it’s not getting any better.

On the other hand, as discussed extensively in that and an earlier thread, you don’t get an ‘H’ in LW just by turning up. You have to work for it. Those who manage the feat are an elite species, trailing adoring fans in their wake, memberships in all the right clubs, offers of sexual delight coming at them during every stroll down the street.*



*author experience may vary.

 

[IWroteThis]

I'm somewhat bewildered that a faction with such a narrow definition of or desire for the category has taken such a hold on it.

I don't think the situation is really that difficult to understand (or that narrow).

You first have to understand that Loving Wives is not a category in the same sense as most of the others. It's more like Audio and Illustrated, in that it is a melting pot of all of the normal categories, with a singular key distinction. While those two are quite self-explanatory, the key to Loving Wives is not directly in the name. Instead, that key is a wedding ring.

Yep, that's the sole difference. Now, a lot of people disagree with me, but I think a very important question is, what difference does the ring make if the presence of the ring makes no difference? To be blunt, the category as described has no logical purpose. No, the very existence of the category, at a minimum, implies that the real key is the drama created by the presence of that ring, creating a distinction between those stories and ones otherwise of the same type in other categories. From there, it's a logical conclusion that a wife cheating and causing marital conflict is, in fact, a Loving Wives story.

Now, to go a bit further, every type of story in Loving Wives that lacks marital drama can also be found in other categories. What is unique to Loving Wives is that marital drama.

So, since Loving Wives is where those marital drama stories are posted, it's also only natural that the readers who want to read that type of stories are going to hang out there. And, since it's really the only place for those stories, those readers are going to fight against anybody who wants to push them out.

Imagine the mom/son and father/daughter factions trying to kick each other out of Taboo/Incest. Or, MFF and MMF trying to boot the other from Group Sex. That's what's actively happening in Loving Wives.

 

[Imstillfun]

Every story in the "Loving Wives" category used to get review-bombed and rating-bombed no matter how good they were; is that still happening? Because I just browsed "Loving Wives for the first time in a while, and the ratings appear... normal.

Yes

 

[SatansFavouritePet]

I guess this is where I mention this thread. Below is the summary graphic, comparing percentile scores between various categories. The legend may be hard to read, but you may be able to deduce which one is LW. And no, it’s not getting any better.

On the other hand, as discussed extensively in that and an earlier thread, you don’t get an ‘H’ in LW just by turning up. You have to work for it. Those who manage the feat are an elite species, trailing adoring fans in their wake, memberships in all the right clubs, offers of sexual delight coming at them during every stroll down the street.*

View attachment 2612682

*author experience may vary.

Did you mean to include a link to another thread?

 

[Actingup]

Did you mean to include a link to another thread?

Fixed - thanks. For some reason, copying and pasting the url on an ipad wasn't copying the full URL.

 

[THBGato]

I feel like THBGato's getting a lot fewer angry bites in the comments on this story than the previous foray into LW. Maybe people are paying attention to the tags for once?

Honestly, it's just being ignored:

Basically, as you say, people are clicking into it, reading my "check the tags" warning, doing so and then clicking out again.

My previous entry to Loving Wives has 1,600+ votes.... but that has a male protagonist. Go figure.