Novels: a redundant category? Have your say

I have been experimenting by publishing my fifth novel "The Three Of Us" - Chapter 1:- “Moving In” under different genres. However, I did come up with an issue with chapter four, as there is absolutely no sex in it. So no obvious genre to publish under. In the end, I left it under novels.

This leads me to another point. Having now written seventeen chapters, I find myself as I write trying to fit them into a certain genre rather than staying true to the original story. So extra sex scenes, more story detours, and ultimately, a longer story.

It seems the issue is more with site design, than the section itself. If I'm writing a novel, I'm wanting to get paid for it. It doesn't matter what the character limit is, the site seems to be designed more for short standalone style works, or at least not very intuitive of chaptered stories, like, say Wattpad, or AO3. Which is another reason I haven't done anything over 10k words here. With those sites, it's essentially like sub pages.

As far as the novels themselves, not knowing what they are goes back to site design, and is really an issue with every section, even if they are more catered to something specific; you don't know what it is, until you read it. The bylines are awesome and it's the only site I know that uses them. But they don't help much in determining what the story is. Tags should help. But what would really help is if there was a synopsis, and/or story information, especially in the list, instead of the first few lines of a story. Something like:

Sex Story

"Byline"

Man/woman, Outside, Mature, Novel, Interracial, Young Adult, Monogamous

A 50 something black man and 30 something irish woman, like to add spice to their relationship by having sex outside.

I believe StoriesOnline does something like that. The only reason I see a section like Novels stand out so much with this issue is because of how broad it is. Given site design, even more focused catagories come off just as broad, and honestly they are within the catagory they are. Like Transgender, for example; you don't know what you're exactly getting into, unless it's in the byline, until you read it. They only given is at least one trans person will be in the story. I could be looking for a typical My Trans Roommate story, and have to literally wade through everything not that, blind, until I see a story that eludes to that.

Breaking up novels to scatter the chapters across the catagorical winds, just doesn't seem like a good idea. I know I always don't have sex in every chapter. Mine are also in some way consistant in theme, which might be offputting to some readers seeing something where the main theme of a story is somewhere it shouldn't be, just because of a secondary theme a chapter is wrapped around, like a chapter of an story, because of an anal sex scene.

Quote by dronette56

My first thought was to keep the category because a novel is not (necessarily) the same thing as a series, but then I realized that the point was "Novel" as a category. I agree that we don't need the category, but there should be a way to flag the series as a novel, a longer, disciplined work with a beginning, middle, and end, and not a never-ending series. Using tags can help (e.g., Novel-in-progress and Novel), but perhaps we can add a Novel icon (like we do for comp entries, RRs, etc.). Perhaps an author gets a Novelist badge when they ask for one ("Hey, mods, my novel is done!").

The thing about this site, and those like it, like Literotica(despite it's page auto population, once word limits reached per page), is they aren't conclusive to novels. and one has to be submitted as multiple submissions. A novel and a series is not the same thing. A novel can be a series, but a series isn't a novel.

Quote by Kee

Having read all this thread my first thought was to axe Novels, but giving it more thought I suggest something of a compromise: leave it for those few people that really want to write what would legitimately fall into a Novel. In other words a multi chapter story with a connecting arc of characters and plot that has a real beginning, middle, and conclusion, where no chapters can stand alone. To me the difference between a novel and a series is the novel is as I just stated and a series is a group of stories that can stand alone but do have characters that may move in and out and there is no over arching story line that connects them all with a clear beginning, middle, and ending as modern fiction novels do.

That's what the difference is. A novel can be a series(Full series by Charlotte Huges), but a series isn't always a novel. It's like the difference between my Trigun graphic novels, and my Calvin and Hobbes books. One is a series of novels telling one story, while just one C&H book is a series of stories, that have no connections or order.

Absolutely. Novels was invented when the site was first created. Before we could link chapters together.

I get that a series isn't the same as a novel but we have good reason for the 10k limit.

Firstly, the volunteer moderators won't necessarily have time to read 150000 words.

Secondly, page speed, although less of an issue with larger bandwidths available, is still a concern on mobile devices and those out and about or in poor coverage areas.

And thirdly, a wall of text - even if it's broken up with formatting (which we don't offer much availability) into "chapters" isn't very helpful, especially if a reader wants to come back to a piece later. They have to scroll and scroll and scroll to reach the part they were at. That could of course be mitigated to some degree by an automatic ToC if they happened to be at a suitable chapter break, but if they were mid-chapter it's not going to help much. This is not a kindle experience.

Also, if one part had some sort of familial relationship, the entire piece would need to be moved to that category. And people can hide that category from their stories list so they'd never find it.

We used to put tags at the top of the story but since they're shown in the list, you know what you're getting before you click through sonthe actual tags are relegated to the bottom when viewing the story itself. Less to skip over.

Edit: site search and tag browsing are an ongoing annoyance. Hopefully will be fixed one day.

Even if you write a novel-length story, it will be submitted in 8-12 parts of 10,000 words or less, each one with fewer likes than the last. Ditch it. X

Quote by NishasWorld

Even if you write a novel-length story, it will be submitted in 8-12 parts of 10,000 words or less, each one with fewer likes than the last. Ditch it. X

With the greatest of respect, Nisha, I have to ask: is that statement true?

A quick flick of the novel genre will give you the answer. However, I can tell you that though the number of likes might be small, 3 of my novels picked up likes along the way and ended up with more for the last chapter than the first.

Not including the poetry, flash or micro-fiction genres, the novel genre is still the 22nd (out of the 54) most popular genres here on LushStories.

If the novel genre is ditched, what do we replace it with? I for one would like to see a real solution, I don't want to have to move my 65 chapters into Love Stories or Wifelovers, or similar, but that is what is being muted.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

Absolutely. Novels was invented when the site was first created. Before we could link chapters together.

I get that a series isn't the same as a novel but we have good reason for the 10k limit.

Firstly, the volunteer moderators won't necessarily have time to read 150000 words.

Secondly, page speed, although less of an issue with larger bandwidths available, is still a concern on mobile devices and those out and about or in poor coverage areas.

And thirdly, a wall of text - even if it's broken up with formatting (which we don't offer much availability) into "chapters" isn't very helpful, especially if a reader wants to come back to a piece later. They have to scroll and scroll and scroll to reach the part they were at. That could of course be mitigated to some degree by an automatic ToC if they happened to be at a suitable chapter break, but if they were mid-chapter it's not going to help much. This is not a kindle experience.

Also, if one part had some sort of familial relationship, the entire piece would need to be moved to that category. And people can hide that category from their stories list so they'd never find it.

We used to put tags at the top of the story but since they're shown in the list, you know what you're getting before you click through sonthe actual tags are relegated to the bottom when viewing the story itself. Less to skip over.

Edit: site search and tag browsing are an ongoing annoyance. Hopefully will be fixed one day.

The 10k limit makes absolute sense to me. I honestly don't know how Laurel handles 750+ word submissions, and nearly hundreds a day, by herself. I don't remember the max count per page on lit, but it auto populates another page for anything longer than a single page. But really, and I may have explained it poorly; that's not what I think Lush should do, it was more so an example of a site that functions similar, but has that option. The issue is novel chapters are seperate submissions, instead of actual pages added, like Wattpad or Quotev does. I don't know how much restructuring that would be, though.

As you might be able to tell, I have given quite a lot of thought to a possible solution for the future of the novel genre. Here is my suggestion.

1. Remove the novel genre from the Omnium badge.

2. Make the novel genre an optional opt-out genre (like fantasy currently is) and readers warned that novels could contain any of the 54 story genres, including fantasy .

3. Authors writing novels have to put every chapter in the novel genre and use the tags to define the contents of each chapter.

4. Normal LushStories rules of a maximum of 10,000 words per chapter.

5. Once the novel is finished, and providing the author has written more than (say) 50,000 words, they receive a novel badge. The author writes a second novel and a 2 goes by the side of it.  

Could the above work and be a solution?

Quote by wxt55uk

As you might be able to tell, I have given quite a lot of thought to a possible solution for the future of the novel genre. Here is my suggestion.

1. Remove the novel genre from the Omnium badge.

2. Make the novel genre an optional opt-out genre (like fantasy currently is) and readers warned that novels could contain any of the 54 story genres, including fantasy .

3. Authors writing novels have to put every chapter in the novel genre and use the tags to define the contents of each chapter.

4. Normal LushStories rules of a maximum of 10,000 words per chapter.

5. Once the novel is finished, and providing the author has written more than (say) 50,000 words, they receive a novel badge. The author writes a second novel and a 2 goes by the side of it.  

Could the above work and be a solution?

I know I'm getting into the realm of programming work for whoever upkeeps the site here (sorry). But I'm wondering if there can be some sort of "novel" template when they display on a page, such as the homepage. This would create a series-like collection but one specifically designed for chaptarized novels. (I also realize this could create a moderation burden as well since mods would probably want to make sure people aren't just including multi-part series that aren't really a novel into the novel category. I'm just throwing out ideas here).

I agree each chapter (whether it is a single or multiple chapter) adheres to the 10k word limit. That limit is there for a pretty good reason.

Perhaps in said novel template, there is an easy-to-view way to look at other chapters in that novel from the actual block, whether that is having a series-like dropdown that you normally see on each series story on the actual preview block or what. Something to let people know this is a novel that should probably be read from start to finish if you haven't already.

I'm in the process of writing a novel/novella myself (although not tagging it as such) and I'm already thinking I'll want to put something like "it is recommended to go back and read previous chapters first" in the author's note.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

I have it on good authority that the only things that trigger remoderation are changes to:

• body

• title

• cover image

• one liner

So tags and category should be editable by authors of their own work at any time.

Note that if you do change category, the URL won't reflect the new name, but if we do go ahead with this proposal, we'll snapshot the situation as it is before we start migrating content and then redirect the category assignments by hand.

Add Author's Notes to things that will trigger a review.

Quote by dronette56

Add Author's Notes to things that will trigger a review.

Is that a request, or are you saying it does currently trigger a trip to the mod queue?

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

Is that a request, or are you saying it does currently trigger a trip to the mod queue?

It does currently trigger. If it was a request, I would have been dirty about it.

I didn't vote mostly because I can't see me ever writing a novel here but I'm also pretty much 50/50 after reading all the comments.

My one thought is Lush is a writing site so doesn't it follow there should be a space for novels?

I don't know the criteria for a Novel but a minimum length and that overarching story curve would be a minimum.

I kind of lean towards an Omnium requiring a novel but i might feel differently if i had more than about 6 categories done.

I say get rid of it. I understand those who may like to keep it . Most people I have noticed don't care for stories over 10000 words. Its a lot of work for little reward if you consider readership a reward. If it stays then I will try to write a novel to get a Omnium badge one day and god knows no one wants that😁

I think there needs to be a novel option. The site runs on short stories, yes, but there are some excellent writers here—like Techgoddess—that write primarily novels, and I think they are a unique and important part of the site. They have a following, and it hurts no one to keep the category in. I think they add to the site.

Remove it as a requirement for an Omnium. The category hardly garners any attention and doesn't seem worth the trouble

I would like to point out once again that, based on counting the number of stories posted on LushStories in October 2024, the novel genre ranked the 22nd (out of the 54) most popular story genres. I discounted micro, flash, and the two poetry genres.

I can understand why some authors might want it removed from the Omniun badge, but to remove it altogether on what is an erotic story site... I think that is a step too far and unnecessary.

If there is a genuine need to reduce genres, why not remove the bottom five? In October, that was Facesitting, Strap-on sex, Uniform, Steampunk and Medical.

I think it is possible to have respect for those who create a novel while also believing here is not the place for them. If people want to write one, they can do so and make themselves a hard copy to remind themselves of the pleasure they had doing it. ( I did something similar in pre-wonky brain days, although in a rather different area of escapism to here!) This didn't put anyone out but me or require volunteers to give up large amounts of their time to proofread or moderate either. A need to balance resources against the probable interest is something I wouldn't expect those involved to comment on, but it is a reality nonetheless.

I think the thing is that multi-part series aren't necessarily unpopular (I've kept pretty good momentum with the pair I work on), but there is a difference between that at what I would consider a "novel" in that a series one can jump in in the middle and probably be okay and they can read the other parts if they want while a novel really does need to be read front to back for it to make coherent sense. Whether it makes Lush "not the place" for them, I don't know, but it's hard to maybe distinguish between a novel and a series on first glance without the category. The problem is that if you tag something "novel" you basically lose out on what the top-level category for the story actually is. Sure you can make up for that to some extent with tags, but if you're looking for a story of X genre you're likely to miss out on it if something is just tagged "novel." And there is honestly no good way (that I know of) to just sort by tag.

From my non-expert point of view, my distinguishing criteria between a novel and a series would be the same. If you're writing something more easily digested, you can give a reasonable hint in a one-liner, genre, and tags to give an idea if something's someone's bag. With something that requires a major investment in time for all involved, including a potential reader, you'd probably need a synopsis feature, meaning, again, extra resources for one aspect that other styles don't need. It's a lot of accommodating for a small number of pieces of creativity; I think that's the point I'm trying to make, even if I'm doing so badly!

Quote by JourneyYoung
if you tag something "novel" you basically lose out on what the top-level category for the story actually is.

Yes, and that's the primary driver behind the proposal. "Novel" carries no weight at the URL level, both for potential readers and for search engines. The only way to determine genre is via tags or reading the whole thing. And as you say, tags aren't sortable. Yet.

But if you were to put chapter 7 in the Facesitting category, you attract people who camp on categories to find new stories, and it's a strong signal to search engine spiders that the story is about that topic, allowing better results for people who search outside of the site (i.e. potentially bringing in more specific traffic from people who don't know about the site).

The predominant arguments against ditching it seem to be:

a) People who combine chapters into one submission can't easily categorise the various story arcs in one genre. That's a valid concern, except multi-chapter submissions are a bit of a hack to get round writing too-short chapters. Even a chapter of 1-2K words is still a chapter and could be a discrete unit, published separately. And according to the story length poll, combining chapters with the intent of beefing up the word count may harm your chances of people reading the entry.

b) Authors don't want people to dive into a chapter in the middle of the story and would prefer it was read from chapter 1, in series. This is impossible to achieve on the web. That's like saying you wish people would always land on the home page of your website and navigate from there to find what they want. Every page of a website is potentially a home page when search engines allow you to jump in anywhere. It's your job as a website content creator (or story teller, in this case) to make sure they land on something relevant and to inform them it's a multi-chapter piece and might not make sense without the earlier bits.

Interestingly, the above phenomenon is not unique to putting the stories in specific categories vs putting them all in the Novels category. If someone searches for a set of keywords, and chapter 11 pops up in the search results, would you as an author want to stop them reading it and force them to start at chapter 1? No. It's conceited to think that you would. The only way you can mostly guarantee that outcome, would be to publish it all in one loooong story (a single URL) and omit anchor points at chapter junctions.

We do have the same issue with Microfiction and Flash Fiction: neither of them indicate genre. And it is annoying. But the difference there is that each offer a specific and defined challenge for authors, while the Novels category doesn't. And we don't allow chapter series in the Micro and Flash categories.

End of the day, the site needs to connect readers with content they want to read. So any and all signals we can use to achieve that is a win.

Quote by JustForYou
a synopsis feature

Yeah, this is a good idea. If there was some way to autogenerate a table of contents, or for an author to state that chapter 1 is straight sex, chapters 2 and 3 are BDSM, chapter 4 is facesitting, etc, and that was available as a flyout on every chapter / submission of a novel, it would help readers and search engines to find and index the content more meaningfully. That way, we could keep the Novels genre and still benefit from more nuanced searching.

The only way to do that at present is with tags. But until we can set the tags in order of importance (and if all authors adopt this convention!) it's difficult to achieve with the current site tools.

I mean, we obviously can't stop someone from starting a novel at chapter 11, but I wonder if there is a way to make clear (without the novel tag) that the ideal way to read it is to start at the beginning. I mean other than just saying that in the author's note at the start of each chapter. Or maybe that is the ideal solution, I dunno.

Edit: the other difference between things like flash fiction and micro is they are short by design. But I had thought of those categories as well as facing a similar issue.

Yeah, dunno. There's a ruddy great chapter series drop-down at the top of each story if authors use it to thread chapters together. How many readers gloss over it because it's styled in yet more red 🙄🤣 or don't care about the rest of the novel because they're only interested in jacking off to the specific content in this particular chapter is anyone's guess.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith
But until we can set the tags in order of importance

Ooh! Ooh! This is the most exciting part of this discussion for me. Imagine the disappointment of debuting the tags triple titfuck and bon jovi quotes and then discovering that newly created tags get buried at the end of your list. 😅

Quote by Chet_Morton
Imagine the disappointment of debuting the tags triple titfuck and bon jovi quotes and then discovering that newly created tags get buried at the end of your list. 😅

Yeah they're ordered by creation date at the moment, which is a bit annoying. But, side quest, before making any more you might like to read up on how to make the best use of tags. 😃

+1 for removing Novels from Omnium. I hadn't considered this until someone suggested it, but I realized I don't actually care about whether the category exists, but I definitely don't want to have to write an novel to get the Omnium achievement.

Quote by pinkysurprise

+1 for removing Novels from Omnium. I hadn't considered this until someone suggested it, but I realized I don't actually care about whether the category exists, but I definitely don't want to have to write an novel to get the Omnium achievement.

You dont have to write a novel. Just stick a 3000 word story with an ending giving the option for a chapter 2 and select novel... there are plenty of stories in the novel category which never became novels.. if that's the only thing stopping you getting the Omnium

I am currently adapting my 5th book for LushStories and trying my hardest not to use the novels genre and just use the novels tag as is being suggested for the future. With 15 chapters published, I have two observations...

1). With each chapter, I find myself changing the original storyline to mould it to fit a genre, which is not always possible. Of the 15 published, 2 had to stay in the novels genre as there wasn't one they fit directly into.

2). In comparison to the first 4 novels, to me, this novel feels like it is being chopped up into a series of short stories within the longer one because of the need to fit each chapter into a genre. I honestly don't know if that is good or bad, only the readers can decide on that.