Novels: a redundant category? Have your say

There's no "need" to do anything different. It's up to you. The Novels category may well stay, who knows.

Quote by wxt55uk
With each chapter, I find myself changing the original storyline to mould it to fit a genre... this novel feels like it is being chopped up into a series of short stories within the longer one

That's surely down to writing confidence and structure? A movie is made up of scenes and each scene is about something and they join together to form a cohesive whole. Chase scene. Love scene. Dramatic tension scene. Backstory scene. Character hits rock bottom scene. Overcomes it and learns something scene.

In an erotic novel, if you can't break a story down into defined scenes that fit together then it implies the overall structure might need work. I doubt anybody embarks on a movie with no idea of what highs and lows, scene beats and character interactions are taking place along the way. So if an author doesn't have a plan for the novel and just writes each chapter as it comes, it will feel choppy.

I don't know what obstacles you need to overcome to adapt your existing work to Lush (content terms of service violations or simply editing, for example) but if the original isn't able to be broken up into scenes as it is written, then maybe restructuring it as a whole would be prudent before attempting to serialise it?

If all you want to do is break it up every 8k words or so and publish each part in Novels, go for it. Now we have the ability to refine by tags, and improved searching is on the way, maybe it makes moot the fact that there isn't much of a signal in the Novels category as to what the story is about?

The only reason removing it was even being considered, as I've mentioned a few times in this thread, is because putting things in defined categories with appropriate tags and threading them together with the Series link feature is a stronger signal to readers and search engines that helps put your work in front of more people who want to read it. If you're happy not taking that opportunity, it's entirely your call.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

That's surely down to writing confidence and structure?

Actually, it is neither. Writing confidence and story structure are two of my better abilities, even if I say so myself! 😳🤣

The main reason I rewrite is grammar. The original novel was written four years ago (2021), and the grammar was simply poor, even if the story and its structure were strong and fairly original in terms of erotica novels.

It is true to say that writing on LushStories has greatly improved my writing skills. People even read my stories now and I have followers! 🙄😊

Another reason that I rewrote, apart from quality, was that many of my original chapters were over 10,000 words long. I have shortened them into scenes, added a few new ones, and tried to keep each chapter under 5,000 words as views drop off above that number. That is why I have many chapters in several parts and often in different genres.

Thank you for taking the time to comment on my feedback, WW. It was only how I felt as I wrote it and then read it, and I have known to be wrong many times.

A quick question. With a year now passed, have any final decisions been made on the Novel genre?

Please note: Now, with the long "waiting moderation queue" and the recent announcement on the locked verification times thread, all submitted stories will be treated the same. It makes it not feasible for authors to add the requested novel tags to existing published novels, as each time you do this, it will take around seven days to go through moderation.

I am asking with the thought in mind to go through my 2nd novel here, "Bonding," add the requested novel tag, tidy up the grammar, and add a cover photo. I worked with the mods/admins last summer and did this quickly and efficiently with my 1st novel, "The Alpha Man in Me." But obviously, I cannot do this at the moment, but that's not that important atm.

I am also asking as I am currently planning my 7th Novel, "Our Game." What genre should I put each chapter in? Do I need to have novel tags, or has that idea gone?

There's no requested novel tag. Tags are entirely up to you. And if you solely adjust tags in a published work, there should be no round trip to the moderation queue. Only if you alter the cover image, tagline, title or body text.

There's no decision been made on this category. Perhaps in future we'll revisit this but for now, please continue as normal.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

There's no requested novel tag. Tags are entirely up to you. And if you solely adjust tags in a published work, there should be no round trip to the moderation queue. Only if you alter the cover image, tagline, title or body text.

Thank you. 😊

I’d forgotten this thread had taken place, and in the meantime, had begun giving Novels serious thought anyway, in service of my Omnium plan. I’m in no hurry to get to my Big O, by the way, with a goal of late 2027. I did finally come up with my Steampunk concept this week, though, which means I now have at least an idea for every genre. That wasn't easy.

Anyway, I don’t have a strong opinion towards keeping this genre, but I’m going for it anyway. I have realized that a series I started and paused a couple of years ago (It's A Date!) could, with a slight change in direction going forward, become a decent MLM novella. To that end, I have already started reassigning its chapters to the Novels category, with intent to write additional chapters later this year, coalescing into an actual plot. I also have ideas for two additional series that would be conceived as full novels with intentional plot structures.

Would I be right in saying that if I added a cover photo to an existing chapter of a novel, no one could read that chapter until it had gone through modification a second time? Yes, looking for clarification. 😊

That is correct. If you please add a moderator note saying you've only changed the cover, anyone skimming the queue will see that, which should speed things up.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

That is correct. If you please add a moderator note saying you've only changed the cover, anyone skimming the queue will see that, which should speed things up.

Thank you, WW. That's what I thought, and I will add a note for the moderator as you suggest when I get around to doing this. 😊

I had that fear when I edited a published story to add the series mechanism. Fortunately, that did not trigger the review process.

Quote by Mandapanda2025

I had that fear when I edited a published story to add the series mechanism. Fortunately, that did not trigger the review process.

Fortunately, you can add a series without needing reapproval. 😎

on the topic of Novels, It doesn't make sense to have it unless you make the MINIMUM 10K words, otherwise, just make a series

Quote by techgoddess

Fortunately, you can add a series without needing reapproval. 😎

Not always. I have added around 15 to my Real Micro series and 4 older ones were pulled out for reapproval. It may have just been an old glitch and the process is more polished now.

I believe I can confirm Kistin’s experience. Usually if I add a series or change categories or add tags, it just accepts it, but I’m pretty sure I’ve had it throw my story into the submission queue at least a couple of times when it was not “supposed” to. That’s why I ALWAYS add a moderator note when I change anything, even for changes that are not supposed to trigger remoderation

Sorry, can’t remember which stories specifically this has happened with.

Personally, I've never used the Novels tag. I've shied away from it, imagining a potential reader thinking that they're about to be confronted with something the length of Anna Karenina. I recently learned that the 'Outstanding Series' tag was abolished. I remember seeing that back in the 90s when I was writing long, multi-chapter series and praying that I could win it. Of course I didn't. Now I think it's a mistake to write a long multi-chapter series if you care about views, likes, and comments, and let's face it, who the hell doesn't?

I've written four novel-length series since I started here, and while some of the individual chapters have received Recommended Reads and even a few Editor's Pick badges, none of the series have done well in terms of likes and comments. (eg, Editor's Pick for 'The Slave Princess, Chap 2. It got 17 likes and 8 comments.) I consider any story that gets fewer than ten comments a failure.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on myself, but I certainly won't be writing multi-chapter stories in the future, nor will I be tagging anything a 'novel'.

Quote by Piquet

Personally, I've never used the Novels tag. I've shied away from it, imagining a potential reader thinking that they're about to be confronted with something the length of Anna Karenina. I recently learned that the 'Outstanding Series' tag was abolished. I remember seeing that back in the 90s when I was writing long, multi-chapter series and praying that I could win it. Of course I didn't. Now I think it's a mistake to write a long multi-chapter series if you care about views, likes, and comments, and let's face it, who the hell doesn't?

I've written four novel-length series since I started here, and while some of the individual chapters have received Recommended Reads and even a few Editor's Pick badges, none of the series have done well in terms of likes and comments. (eg, Editor's Pick for 'The Slave Princess, Chap 2. It got 17 likes and 8 comments.) I consider any story that gets fewer than ten comments a failure.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on myself, but I certainly won't be writing multi-chapter stories in the future, nor will I be tagging anything a 'novel'.

An interesting post, Piquet. From now on, I too won't be using the novel tag as much as I used to, having used it for around 80 of my first 100 stories here. I do think it puts people off, so now I tend to use Wife Lovers, or, where it is appropriate, another genre, with a novel's tag. I also agree with the 10 likes. If I didn't get that on an ongoing story, I too would probably stop there.

One thing I will say about my novels, though, is that it is nice to hear or see via the likes, members reading them, crossing off each chapter. I get a lot of pleasure from that.

Which brings me to my latest series, "Cash in Hand", although none of the chapters is in the novel genre. It currently runs to over 100,000 words, and it has surprised me how many members are enjoying it. As long as I receive around 50 likes per chapter, I will continue to add stories to the series. 😊

I would also like the 'Outstanding Series' badge to come back, but I don't see it (reasons discussed elsewhere). For me, the ultimate challenge for any author is to write a 50,000-word-plus story that keeps readers entertained, although I admit, I would like to receive at least one RR on the way! 😳😀

There are a number of redundant or niche categories that could be culled, or at least streamlined. God knows why we thought 'historical' had to be its own category, like nothing turns me on more than reading about the social startifications of Ancient Rome. 🙄 Steam punk, horror, monster sex, mind control, supernatural, fantasy and sci-fi should really all be rolled into a single category. The distinctions between them are negligible.

One person has some weird kink or temporary fascination for a weekend, and we have to make a whole new category for it and then it just sits there. I think the reason we don't scrap them is that a bunch of people who already got an omnium badge would whine that we're diluting their accomplishments. But these categories really serve no purpose on the site, and just clutter things up, in my opinion.

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know

There are a number of redundant, niche categories that could be culled, or at least streamlined. God knows why we thought 'historical' had to be its own category, like nothing turns me on more than reading about Ancient Rome. 🙄 Steam punk, horror, monster sex, mind control, supernatural, fantasy and sci-fi should really all be rolled into a single category. I think the reason we don't do it is a bunch of people who got an omnium badge would whine that we're diluting their accomplishment. But these categories really serve no purpose on the site, and just clutter things up, in my opinion.

Some would argue categories should be scrapped entirely in place of just tagging everything accurately. On some days, I might argue that. Or just a few very broad genre categories with tagging for everything else.

The fact is, the categories here (and SS isn't much better) are not a well-designed hierarchy like library subject headings. No one sat down and figured it all out. Instead, they've been tweaked and changed and added to over time due to demand and owners' whims to the point where they are almost just a more important tag. I mean, just the fact that you have some based on form (e.g. Micro, Flash, the two Poetry categories), some based on genre (like the Horror and S-F that you mention), and some based on erotic content (e.g. I.F., Voyeur, Watersports, etc.) is a sign of a messed-up subject classification system.

However, I don't think there's a will or really a need to mess with it. It is what it is. A fight over changing them isn't really a productive use of the site's time and I say that as someone who, if he was spinning up a writing site, would definitely do it differently than here or SS. I would probably have genre, form, and content as separate groups of tags and just forget about categories. Provide a tag cloud or similar for navigation purposes along with a well-designed search.

Ape speaks sense. The mishmash of "categories* is a byproduct of over a decade of unstructured tinkering by various parties. And it's annoying.

Having said that, taxonomy and tagging is hard. One person's oral or blowjob is another's cocksucking and someone else's fellatio, so picking one for a category name doesn't always help everyone find what they want.

Further, as mentioned, changing them for the sake of it isn't exactly a priority. The Novels category is only under scrutiny here because it's even more of an outlier than the rest, and isn't travelled much.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith
One person's oral or blowjob is another's cocksucking and someone else's fellatio, so picking one for a category name doesn't always help everyone find what they want.

That's why we librarians have authority control with see and see also references 😋. "Oral Sex" might be the authoritative term with "See" references pointing to it from "Fellatio", "Cock sucking", "Blowjob", "Giving head", "Cunnilingus", etc. Or you could make it hierarchical with all of those as subheadings under "Oral Sex" (so "Oral sex -- Blowjobs", etc.). Or you could just allow all of those and put "See also" references linking them into a kind of tag cloud, but that's potentially even more complicated.

But to have a system like that, you'd need to build it from the ground up at site launch and have some people familiar with it to properly maintain it. You'd need things coded so that if someone tagged their story "Cock sucking", it would get changed to "Oral Sex" or suggest better terms based on your controlled vocabulary.

Yeah, there's a reason why we librarians are just so fucking sexy.😎

Hah, yeah.

For a project external to Lush I'm developing a taxonomy system based on synonyms that work a bit like your "see" example. Anyone who searches/filters a tem like 'oral' will first get results with Oral tagged directly, then results from content that contains the synonyms, as weaker matches. That way, anyone can use any of the related terms and get relevant results.

As you say, it requires someone to be on it and group related terms from time to time. The beauty is that the admin can deliberately include common misspellings like masterbation / masturbation as synonyms, so even searches with typos can find content.

I'd love to implement something similar here for tags.

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know
There are a number of redundant, niche categories that could be culled, or at least streamlined. God knows why we thought 'historical' had to be its own category, like nothing turns me on more than reading about Ancient Rome. 🙄

As someone whose output includes a high percentage of 'Historical' stories, I feel the need to disagree. However, I'm sure that if I tagged a story of mine ' Fantasy,' yada, yada, yada, yada, 'historical,' - it would do very, very well.

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know

There are a number of redundant or niche categories that could be culled, or at least streamlined. God knows why we thought 'historical' had to be its own category, like nothing turns me on more than reading about the social startifications of Ancient Rome. 🙄 Steam punk, horror, monster sex, mind control, supernatural, fantasy and sci-fi should really all be rolled into a single category. The distinctions between them are negligible.

One person has some weird kink or temporary fascination for a weekend, and we have to make a whole new category for it and then it just sits there. I think the reason we don't scrap them is that a bunch of people who already got an omnium badge would whine that we're diluting their accomplishments. But these categories really serve no purpose on the site, and just clutter things up, in my opinion.

I honestly am not sure how Horror or, especially, mind control can be done, considering the non-consensual rule and the views on violence. Hisstory, though, I have done a couple of '80s thesemes stories and more to come. they definitely are Hisorty. but i have no plan on doing a story of FDR bopping Elanor

Quote by Piquet

As someone whose output includes a high percentage of 'Historical' stories, I feel the need to disagree. However, I'm sure that if I tagged a story of mine ' Fantasy,' yada, yada, yada, yada, 'historical,' - it would do very, very well.

I think if your tag just read "I wrote this" it would do very, very well.

Quote by kistinspencil

I think if your tag just read "I wrote this" it would do very, very well.

If only. btw The word 'i.c..t' was removed from in front of 'fantasy.' Thank you, Kistin.

Quote by Mandapanda2025
I honestly am not sure how Horror or, especially, mind control can be done, considering the non-consensual rule.

We've had quite a few horror-themed competitions in the past. Imagine you're at a summer camp in the 1980s. There's a killer on the loose. You take shelter in a storage shed. There's another camper already hiding there - An attractive one. You're both scared... And horny! It could be your last night alive. Why not make it a sexy one? Bow chicka wow wow.

Mind control can be done consensually as well, such as volunteering to be hypnotized, or to offer your mind to a psychic. I guess it would follow a similar structure as D/S and restraint stories where one character is allowed to do things to another who gives up their power in a situation and enjoys being controlled - mentally as well as physically.

Both need to be handled carefully, because it's easy to cross the line into abusive, non-consensually, -y or explicitly violent scenes, and those are not allowed.

Quote by Piquet
As someone whose output includes a high percentage of 'Historical' stories, I feel the need to disagree. However, I'm sure that if I tagged a story of mine ' Fantasy,' yada, yada, yada, yada, 'historical,' - it would do very, very well.

Ah hell. After I wrote the above post, I wondered if I was 'kink-shaming' anyone. Sorry if I caused offense. However as Seeker and WW noted, the classification system here is a hodge podge of different whims - history is a setting, comedy is a genre, swinging is a particular activity, lesbian refers to the characters (and their activity by extension), flash fiction denotes length - And of course, it's possible to write a historic flash-fiction comedy about swinging lesbians. But if I'm looking up a story on here, I'm going to focus on swinging stories or lesbians as my search criteria, not the historic setting where the story takes place. Doesn't mean you can't put lesbians in togas in your story if you want, just that it's not the main thing most readers are going to consider when choosing a story here, and therefore doesn't really need its own category.

Quote by Mandapanda2025

I honestly am not sure how Horror or, especially, mind control can be done, considering the non-consensual rule and the views on violence. Hisstory, though, I have done a couple of '80s thesemes stories and more to come. they definitely are Hisorty. but i have no plan on doing a story of FDR bopping Elanor

I know I'm getting old when the 1980s are mentioned as being in the history genre. 😳🤣 I did most of my courting during that decade! 😊

I would suggest that 'reluctant' is one of the harder genres to write in. But it is still pretty broad. Just put your story character into a situation she/he/they unexpectedly got into. The sex, of course, has to be consensual.

With Steampunk, which I knew nothing about, I did a little bit of research on this existing universe. Wrote a story (in my opinion, one of my best) and slipped it into that universe. My gripe with that genre is that too few people read it. I am guilty of that too! 🙄😈