Novels: a redundant category? Have your say

We're considering dropping the Novels story category and moving all the stories from there to more appropriate categories that match their content.

Reasons:

1. Nobody really camps there to see what's new, because the content is so varied.

2. It dilutes the story pool. Stories can be better represented (and may attract higher scores) in higher-traffic categories that more closely suit them.

3. Unless the title or tags give it away, it's difficult to tell what a story is about.

4. The Series Link feature didn't exist when the category was added. Now it exists, it does a better job at chaptering across categories.

Please cast your vote here and weigh in on this thread if you feel strongly one way or the other.

If this went ahead, it would be awesome if currently active authors would kindly move their own stories (as you know the best categories for each chapter and can link them with a Series) but we'd be happy to help, and move any others or those for older/inactive authors.

Anyone who has Omnium would of course retain their badge.

Thank you for your input.

Ditch it.

Goodness knows I have no use for it.

I can't see myself ever doing a novel-length work here and, as you say, it is now easier to put each chapter in an appropriate category and use series to link them. So I would be fine seeing it go.

I am currently working on my fourth "novel" for Lush. That said, I understand that some folks don't want to write longer stories here. I always felt that doing so helped the challenge of earning the Omnium Badge be just a little more challenging (as it should be).

The comment about people still keeping their Omnium Badge seemed unnecessary. You're talking about eliminating a category, not adding one. So, it shouldn't affect that (except for some possible grumbling from authors who fulfilled the criteria for this category).

I voted to keep it, but I definitely understand the comments others have made as to why they voted otherwise. Personally, changing the categories seems like a lot of work, especially since changing the category requires mod reapproval, if I'm not mistaken.

In the past hour, a few authors have reached out to me for help. And I didn't even know this was being considered. 😳

I've asked them to wait until a decision is made, and then I will be happy to assist them.

Quote by techgoddess

I am currently working on my fourth "novel" for Lush. That said, I understand that some folks don't want to write longer stories here. I always felt that doing so helped the challenge of earning the Omnium Badge be just a little more challenging (as it should be).

The comment about people still keeping their Omnium Badge seemed unnecessary. You're talking about eliminating a category, not adding one. So, it shouldn't affect that (except for some possible grumbling from authors who fulfilled the criteria for this category).

I voted to keep it, but I definitely understand the comments others have made as to why they voted otherwise. Personally, changing the categories seems like a lot of work, especially since changing the category requires mod reapproval, if I'm not mistaken.

In the past hour, a few authors have reached out to me for help. And I didn't even know this was being considered. 😳

I've asked them to wait until a decision is made, and then I will be happy to assist them.

My silliness aside. I do take your point. Chasing a story's next chapter across the array of kinks offered might put some readers off. And what of chapters that cross multiple inclinations? Does it go in MLIF? Quickie? Cheating? when it involves all three? What if the 'action' is 80% A, but the remaining 20% not A is truly important to the storyline and is lost because A puts me right off? I can see that as a real burden to the authors trying to maintain the continuity of standing stories and really not something they'd want left in the hands of others to decide.

Quote by techgoddess

I am currently working on my fourth "novel" for Lush. That said, I understand that some folks don't want to write longer stories here. I always felt that doing so helped the challenge of earning the Omnium Badge be just a little more challenging (as it should be).

The comment about people still keeping their Omnium Badge seemed unnecessary. You're talking about eliminating a category, not adding one. So, it shouldn't affect that (except for some possible grumbling from authors who fulfilled the criteria for this category).

I voted to keep it, but I definitely understand the comments others have made as to why they voted otherwise. Personally, changing the categories seems like a lot of work, especially since changing the category requires mod reapproval, if I'm not mistaken.

In the past hour, a few authors have reached out to me for help. And I didn't even know this was being considered. 😳

I've asked them to wait until a decision is made, and then I will be happy to assist them.

I'm in the process of reading your third novel now, and it does seem that Novels would be the logical category for your series. I'm not sure there's another category that would accurately represent the story arc over the course of the three books. I do understand the reasoning behind the consideration to eliminate the category, and I realize that most writers aren't going to be writing novel-length works. However, there are several other categories that the majority of writers aren't interested in attempting unless they're working toward the Omnium badge. Still, it's nice to have those categories available, just as, in my opinion, it would be nice to have Novels available if someone sets out to write a much lengthier story that doesn't easily fit into another category.

It's only a proposal at this stage. If people think it has value here, that's fine.

I mentioned Omnium because writing in the Novels category does, by inference, require an author to submit more than one chapter and if they're all reassigned they would (currently) lose the badge unless there are code changes behind the scenes to ignore it while stories are gradually reassigned.

Last time I checked, changing category alone does not trigger a resub for mod approval. But if we have a bunch of stories to change, it's easier to throw a list at the developers and they can switch the categories directly anyway.

The thing about Novels is it conveys no additional info. It's like the dreaded 'Miscellaneous' problem. Doesn't fit anywhere overall, so dump it there.

But each chapter must be about something so, from my view, it should go in the relevant category. Let's take a fictitious BDSM story (overall) as an example called Kate's Awakening. Create a series called that and then start writing a few chapters...

1. She's unfulfilled with her partner. Sex is average at best and she wonders if there's more to it. [Straight Sex].

2. She meets a guy in a coffee shop who has this gravitas about him that takes her breath away. She fantasises about him at night. [Masturbation].

3. She is intrigued and when she sees him again, he introduces her to his dominant ways but she isn't sure. [Reluctance].

4. Reliving the naughty encounter, she gets wet and goes back to see him. Offers herself and he puts her over his knee. [Spanking].

5. She thinks about him all the next day. Can't concentrate at work. She calls him and he tells her to go to the bathroom, remove her panties and masturbate, his voice in her ear the whole time. [Masturbation, or maybe Office Sex].

6. She is more besotted and goes to his house. She's introduced to some restraints in his dungeon and he spanks her while tied up. [BDSM].

7. She craves more. He uses the nipple clamps, paddle and crop on her. [BDSM].

8. ...

By doing it that way, you're exposing your work to people who do camp in, say, the Masturbation category as they like that type of story. If they only read chapter 2, so be it. They're happy because you as an author have got them off. And if they really like your work, there's a tantalizing Next Chapter button at the bottom, which might open their eyes to more variety. They may enjoy it. You might get a new follower.

There's no chasing categories to find works because the Series Link ties them together. Next/Previous and the table of comtents are available on every story. If you read Ch 2, you might like to find out what led her to it and go back to Ch 1 for the introduction.

If all chapters are in Novels, you lose that important categorisation. Sure, you can use tags, but tags aren't all that useful at the moment. We have tags for spanking, ass spanking, bare handed spanking, first time spanking, crop spanking, femdom spanking, and so on. People aren't going to follow them all, so if you choose 'bare handed spanking' as a tag you've potentially missed people who browse the 'spanking' tag. But people who like spanking do check the Spanking category for new stories. Regularly.

As I say, it's only a proposal. I happen to think it improves the experience for readers to access content (chapters) they're interested in without authors having to keyword-stuff the titles and hope someone searches for it. And it gives authors more control over breaking multi-chapter pieces up into categories that more closely align with what readers can expect to find.

Quote by techgoddess
I always felt that doing so helped the challenge of earning the Omnium Badge be just a little more challenging

Fair point. But it's no more challenging than writing a 35-chapter piece and putting each chapter in a category that reflects it.

Say two people are shooting for Omnium. One writes 20 chapters of 2k. The other writes 2 chapters of 10k each. The second person has arguably put half the amount of effort in. Does that make their Omnium less of a challenge? Less of a stretch? No.

What if they wrote a 1k story in all categories and two 1k stories in Novels, compared to someone who wrote much longer pieces in general? Less of an achievement?

I expect most authors shooting for Omnium have written at least one multi-part story anyway.

There's also what is considered "novel length". 100k words? 200k words? 900k words? We only split chapters because of our 10k per chapter site limit. And we wouldn't stop anyone writing one single chapter in Novels.

Happy to keep it if it has a place. But equally happy to dump it if it helps readers find more stories they like.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

Let's take a fictitious BDSM story (overall) as an example called Kate's Awakening. Create a series called that and then start writing a few chapters...

1. She's unfulfilled with her partner. Sex is average at best and she wonders if there's more to it. [Straight Sex].

2. She meets a guy in a coffee shop who has this gravitas about him that takes her breath away. She fantasises about him at night. [Masturbation].

3. She is intrigued and when she sees him again, he introduces her to his dominant ways but she isn't sure. [Reluctance].

4. Reliving the naughty encounter, she gets wet and goes back to see him. Offers herself and he puts her over his knee. [Spanking].

5. She thinks about him all the next day. Can't concentrate at work. She calls him and he tells her to go to the bathroom, remove her panties and masturbate, his voice in her ear the whole time. [Masturbation, or maybe Office Sex].

6. She is more besotted and goes to his house. She's introduced to some restraints in his dungeon and he spanks her while tied up. [BDSM].

7. She craves more. He uses the nipple clamps, paddle and crop on her. [BDSM].

8. ...

Going off topic, but may I hear more about Kate, please? Hot and bothered here…

Thanks for sharing your opinion, WW. From my perspective, it chops things up. My novels are meant to be read as parts of a larger story and in the order which I’ve written them. I have other series that are broken up over different genres (Hot Wife Hotel, for example), where continuity isn’t an issue and having each part in its own specific genre makes sense. But the novels are complete stories. If I were to put a set of chapters into Spanking, it might suggest that it’s all about that. But the Mac and Grace stories contain a mix of so many different genres, I’d have to really dig deep to start reclassifying each part of the three existing books and the beginning of book four.

If people don’t want to write in this category, I totally get it. But I am just curious as to why the category can’t remain as is for those authors who prefer it. Drop it as a required genre for Omnium if it’s an issue, but leave it as an existing category for those of us for whom reclassifying seems unnecessary and a bit of a cluster-bleep in changing the genre for what amounts to about 100+ stories.

Quote by techgoddess
From my perspective, it chops things up. My novels are meant to be read as parts of a larger story and in the order which I’ve written them.

Which is where series comes in. You can link to the series page on your profile where everything is presented in order. People can follow the series from the first part using the series feature. Frankly, if I do a novel here, that's how I am doing it, novel category or no. I used the feature here for Angel of Love and on StoriesSpace for The Chronicles of Tana the Healer and, while neither is even close to novel length, both are meant to be read in order and it works very well. Better than having them scattered among other author's works in the Novel.category for presenting chapters as a single work. All IMHO and based on my experience.

I always found the Novel category nonsensical as you can put a stand alone story of 2k words in it and leave it at that, so it's not a novel. There have even been top 10 competition entries labelled as novels which were just a stand alone story.

Looking back through the Novels category, there are quite a number where even with chapters the whole lot doesn't amount to more than one decent length story.

I also agree it's a miscellaneous category.

But I would also say that there is a proliferation of other categories which are nonsensical too. What is the point of Occupations.. it is as scattergun as novels. Do people camp out there?

I do think readers attention spans have decreased. I don't know how many have the patience to read 15, 20 chapters or more. I certainly saw my readership drop off as the chapters continued.

For it to really mean something, it should be like a series award, it gets awarded and moved into that category when the novel is finished, not when you've submitted chapter 1 but that's not going to work so I voted to keep it as is.

Quote by techgoddess
If I were to put a set of chapters into Spanking, it might suggest that it’s all about that.

And if you put them all in the Novels category, it suggests the entire series is about... what exactly? Miscellaneous? Long?

Quote by techgoddess
the Mac and Grace stories contain a mix of so many different genres

All the more reason to signpost what is in each. Or are you saying that each chapter is such a medley of kinks and storylines that to classify each would confuse or mislead readers? (Sorry, I'm not familiar with the series).

Quote by techgoddess
My novels are meant to be read as parts of a larger story

As you'd expect in a physical book. You wouldn't pick up a book and start reading chapter 11. But if someone opens a story called Mac & Grace Chapter 11 and it has a table of contents at the top with all the chapters in it, and Chapter 11 had a particular aspect they were interested in, why would you want them not to read it until they'd read Ch 1-10? Sure it might not make much sense, but if they like the characters it might spur them on to read more or go back to the beginning.

Equally, they might not want to read anything else, and chapter 11 alone scratched their itch but they loved your writing so much they added you as a friend. Isn't direct access to searchable/filterable/browsable content more valuable than hiding it in a nebulous 'misc' category and hoping someone scrolls back through all the pages to find and open chapter 1 first?

There are a bunch of other categories here that are a bit daft, as Susie touches on. Strap-on sex is surely a subdivision of Toys? Medical is maybe a subgenre of Office, which is a subgenre of Occupations. But I guess we have to start somewhere with kink classification, otherwise we might as well just put them all in one category labelled "sex" and be done with it.

Either way, the effort involved in properly classifying a story chapter shouldn't be a barrier to change.

The category was created when the site was started. The web, readership and site itself has evolved and I don't think the longform nature of the Novels category lives up to the ideals it was created for. But if Novels adds value then we can keep it as-is. Or keep it and remove it from Omnium consideration.

Or are you saying that each chapter is such a medley of kinks and storylines that to classify each would confuse or mislead readers?

This ⬆️

At least in some instances.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

As you'd expect in a physical book. You wouldn't pick up a book and start reading chapter 11. But if someone opens a story called Mac & Grace Chapter 11 and it has a table of contents at the top with all the chapters in it, and Chapter 11 had a particular aspect they were interested in, why would you want them not to read it until they'd read Ch 1-10? Sure it might not make much sense, but if they like the characters it might spur them on to read more or go back to the beginning.

Equally, they might not want to read anything else, and chapter 11 alone scratched their itch but they loved your writing so much they added you as a friend

This is the fundamental problem of doing a sequential work on here. People don't come here for that for the most part. So even if you file it under Novels or make it a series, most likely people will encounter it piecemeal. They might see chapter 6 first because it happens to be on the front page or top of the category on a day they happen to be around. And they might or might not bother to read more. They might be in it for the sex, not the characters or plot.

I know my old chapter piece about a "runaway bride" had tons more views for some chapters than others to the point where I broke the links (this was on the old software where we had links rather than the series feature) save between a couple that were two-parters. Almost no one was reading them sequentially anyhow.

With the series feature, Novel feels redundant, unless you change word limit rules just for that category and allow 'novelists' to submit 30k + word stories.

Quote by Obsolete_Fox
I'm not sure there's another category that would accurately represent the story arc over the course of the three books

The idea is not to put it in the best fit category across the entire Novel but to put each chapter in its best fit category, and tag the remaining ideas. The same as any other chapter-based story that is not a Novel.

By definition, a chapter should be a self-contained collection of ideas that represent a scene or set of scenes that explore an idea and push the story forward. I guess if an author submits multiple chapters in one submission less than our 10k limit then putting the "chapter" (submission) in one category might be difficult.

Quote by deviantsusie

But I would also say that there is a proliferation of other categories which are nonsensical too. What is the point of Occupations.. it is as scattergun as novels. Do people camp out there?

Agree. Look at Money. Only 9 pages of stories. And Mind control. Uniform. I like a variety of categories, but those don’t make sense to have a cat of their own. They are just elements of sex stories that could easily fit elsewhere.

I voted to nix novels, but don’t care either way.

Yeah, I don't really get the point of a 'novels' category, either, given the 10K word limit for submissions. Using the series feature is fine to link chapters of a longer serial piece. I think a few years ago we got a bit carried away with inventing new genres for the site, but what is actually the difference between Monster Sex, Horror, Supernatural, Mind Control, Sci-Fi/Fantasy (and let's throw Steam Punk in there, too)? These could all be consolidated into a single category. Historical as a category? Have you ever really been horny and thought nothing will get me off like porn set in 1786? Niche at best. Flash and Micro fiction should be combined, as should both of the poetry categories. Occupations, Uniforms, and Office Sex could be combined under 'workplace sex.' I'm definitely in favor of streamlining the categories.

...Oh shit. I just remembered I published a 14 part series under novels. Never mind, let's keep it.

There's definitely an argument for streamlining the categories but there are also arguments for keeping many of them because people are often into specific variants of a subgenre.

There are cutoffs and diminishing returns either way. Too specific and very few write in them. Too broad and there's so much noise that people don't bother wading through it and go elsewhere.

My argument is that Novels isn't really a category at all. It's not a kink or a type of story. It was a way of threading stories together in one location before Series Link was a thing, and a by-product of our 10k limit.

Flash and Microfiction are a bit different because they offer very specific challenges to write whole stories in a limited word count, so I'm happy to keep those.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith
My argument is that Novels isn't really a category at all. It's not a kink or a type of story. It was a way of threading stories together in one location before Series Link was a thing, and a by-product of our 10k limit.

Another thought for the novels section would be to turn the 10K limit from a maximum to a minimum for that category, and allow stories to stretch out as long as they need to go (sort of like how minimum word limits are ignored for micros). This seems like a good way to bring misery and suffering to the story mods who have to read through and review these things.

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know

Another thought for the novels section would be to turn the 10K limit from a maximum to a minimum for that category, and allow stories to stretch out as long as they need to go (sort of like how minimum word limits are ignored for micros). This seems like a good way to bring misery and suffering to the story mods who have to read through and review these things.

Readers won’t commit to more than 10K at a time. I should know…my attention span is short.

Micro word limits aren’t ignored. The word counter you see is different from the word counter mods see.

I just don’t see the need to eliminate a category that has more pages of stories than many of the other genres. If writers choose to put their stories there and don’t feel like they are getting enough attention, they can change their genre. But, personally, I’ve been happy with my feedback on Mac and Grace stories. If something isn’t broken, why are we trying to fix it? Eliminate it as a requirement for Omnium if it’s such a big deal. But many writers write multi-part stories with only a few parts to satisfy checking off that box. I don’t see this as an issue.

Quote by techgoddess

Readers won’t commit to more than 10K at a time. I should know…my attention span is short.

Micro word limits aren’t ignored. The word counter you see is different from the word counter mods see.

I just don’t see the need to eliminate a category that has more pages of stories than many of the other genres. If writers choose to put their stories there and don’t feel like they are getting enough attention, they can change their genre. But, personally, I’ve been happy with my feedback on Mac and Grace stories. If something isn’t broken, why are we trying to fix it? Eliminate it as a requirement for Omnium if it’s such a big deal. But many writers write multi-part stories with only a few parts to satisfy checking off that box. I don’t see this as an issue.

Exactly. If too many categories is an issue, put facesitting back into oral sex, put strapons back into toys, put uniforns and medical back into occupations.

If its about making the Omnium easier, remove it as a requirement and give them an Omnium Lite badge.

Quote by deviantsusie

Exactly. If too many categories is an issue, put facesitting back into oral sex, put strapons back into toys, put uniforns and medical back into occupations.

If its about making the Omnium easier, remove it as a requirement and give them an Omnium Lite badge.

It's not about either of them. It's about readers coming to the site and understanding what kind of stories they might find in a particular category. Yeah, you could argue that about flash or micro, but they're so short it's mostly irrelevant. Not sure anyone is just looking for 'long'. Well, not for stories 🤪

Quote by techgoddess

Readers won’t commit to more than 10K at a time. I should know…my attention span is short.

Micro word limits aren’t ignored. The word counter you see is different from the word counter mods see.

I just don’t see the need to eliminate a category that has more pages of stories than many of the other genres. If writers choose to put their stories there and don’t feel like they are getting enough attention, they can change their genre. But, personally, I’ve been happy with my feedback on Mac and Grace stories. If something isn’t broken, why are we trying to fix it? Eliminate it as a requirement for Omnium if it’s such a big deal. But many writers write multi-part stories with only a few parts to satisfy checking off that box. I don’t see this as an issue.

Bear in mind you're currently the site's most prolific/popular author, so you could probably write something in hieroglyphics on the back of the bin sheds and people would come looking for it.

Ooh, maybe you're the Banksy of Lush, lol.

Anyway, I'm thinking more from the casual reader side. I'd like to give people a fighting chance of finding stories they like. I'm not wedded to removing it. We can leave the poll up a while and see what folk think. Most seem to favour ditching it, but not exactly a big sample size at the moment!

The only purpose I can see for it is long stories that do a lot of kink-hopping where containing said kinks in individual chapters isn't optimal/feasible. Even then, with the way readers consume content here, you're leaving a lot of readership on the table. You'd get more eyes and engagement by splitting a chapter with two wildly different kinks into two parts and posting them to appropriate categories, even if said chapters are extremely short.

If it's to be removed, there should be a significant transition period where authors can choose to move their works into appropriate categories themselves. Only after authors have been given at least a month to make the appropriate edits and category changes based upon their knowledge of the work should it be relegated to what will certainly be a deeply flawed process of a third party scattering the chapters.

Frankly, there should be a message sent to anyone who has submissions in the category warning them of the coming change as well, and/or a block should be assigned to the main landing pages announcing big changes. The forum is a poor location to announce significant changes. It has never been particularly active and has become less relevant as time has passed.

While I'm on that subject, if you want any level of actual feedback about changes, things like this thread should be pointed out on the main landing pages as well.

^^ This 100%. Thank you, RejectReality.

Quote by deviantsusie

Exactly. If too many categories is an issue, put facesitting back into oral sex, put strapons back into toys, put uniforns and medical back into occupations.

I would actually be okay with all of those myself. A few fairly broad categories and then encourage both writers and readers to make better use of tags. Then again, I'm a librarian by training and would probably have a complex system of headings and sub-headings if I was building a site like this so, yeah, probably not the best person to listen to. Look up Library of Congress Subject Headings if you want to see what we library types get off on.🙄😋

As for Omnium, I've always been a bit meh on the idea, and on the badges in general. I have earned badges almost by accident at times, esp. in the pre-Lush 2.0 days, because I don't pay attention to what I have and what is out there. But if it matters to people, then it always needs to be part of the discussion when adding or removing categories, eh.

Quote by RejectReality

The only purpose I can see for it is long stories that do a lot of kink-hopping where containing said kinks in individual chapters isn't optimal/feasible. Even then, with the way readers consume content here, you're leaving a lot of readership on the table. You'd get more eyes and engagement by splitting a chapter with two wildly different kinks into two parts and posting them to appropriate categories, even if said chapters are extremely short.

Seconding this.

Quote by RejectReality
While I'm on that subject, if you want any level of actual feedback about changes, things like this thread should be pointed out on the main landing pages as well.

And also this.

My bottom line is that Novels can stay or go as long as there is no obligation on writers to use it. We should be able to choose whether to put a multi-chapter story in Novels or to put the chapters in appropriate categories and then use Series and maybe a "Novel" tag to identify the chapters.

I put my vote at "Yes, axe it" but in retrospect, might change that if this software allowed changing votes in polls. I'm really more of a "don't give a shit and won't ever use it but keep it if you like".

Quote by Jen

Bear in mind you're currently the site's most prolific/popular author, so you could probably write something in hieroglyphics on the back of the bin sheds and people would come looking for it.

Ooh, maybe you're the Banksy of Lush, lol.

If it wouldn’t seem narcissistic, I would change my rank to Banksy of Lush. Lol. You’re exaggerating, of course, but thanks for the pat on the back. 😘🥰