TopShelf TG Fiction in the BigCloset!
When choosing a rating (G, PG, R) should I go by the current chapter or the work as a whole. I have most chapter's being pg, but there are a few that are X . Should I mark every chapter as X or should I go by the content of the one post.
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Comments
you know...
I've been kind of wondering that myself.
There's a slim chance that one of these days a chapter of Open Your Heart might go up a rating or two.
I'm also wondering if the rating on the Title page should be the highest rating which occurs in the story, or the most frequent? Or it's own separate rating based on the content of just the Title page? If the second, my current rating will remain fine no matter what happens later, most of the story will remain Mature Subjects. If the former I may need to bump it in the future depending, and if the latter, I think the Title page itself is PG. :P
As to the original inquiry, I'd assume that if it's NOT to be individual for each chapter that it'd be the highest rating that occurs in the story.
Official word from staff?
BTW, what I was going to do was rate my chapters individually, and if one of them ends up bumping the rating up, bump the rating up on the Title page as well... For what it's worth.
Abigail Drew.
Up to the author, mostly
These are decisions I leave up to the author, tho complaints about bad or misleading ratings can cause me to step in to arbitrate.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Don't Ambush Your Reader
I think if you plan to take a series to dark place, the reader should warned at the beginning. The same would apply to ratings. In an intro at the beginning of every posting of the series you could say something like; This series will be mostly PG, but some chapters may have extreme violence or graphic sexual assault (or whatever) and will be labeled appropriately". That way the reader can decide whether to begin reading a series or not with some idea where it's going to go.
For me it's really disappointing when a series that's been light and positive all of a sudden turns very dark (with just a warning when the chapter is posted). I know this stuff happens in real life and that talking about certain events can be therapeutic for the author. I just think it's only fair to give the series reader some idea at the beginning if the story is going to go to a very dark place.
I dunno about what happened with his story...
But my story is pretty much set up to be angsty. I highly doubt anyone'll be surprised IF a chapter gets a little rough. I'm not saying it will, but I'm not saying it won't either. I'm letting the characters control the flow of the story entirely and nothing is pre-written - at all. I'm not putting a warning on every chapter, but I did state when I started the project that the characters are in control, I'm just writing what they tell me to. There is some sexual abuse in Drew Pattendale's history, whether he winds up telling me to share it or not, I don't know yet. I'm also not sure just how... explicit, Janet might get in her questions. She has a tough time understanding the concept of a taboo subject. She has a tough time understanding why she shouldn't understand everything, period. Characters who haven't even shown up yet all have their own little secrets as well that may or may not wind up in the story. Until they tell me what to write, I don't know!
Abigail Drew.
you might be asking a lot.
A lot of the serial stories here are by the large part are winged with maybe a simple outline. I don't think anyone here is doing 200 page outlines for there whole story.
Since it all very seat of the pants, where the story goes and the tone that it takes is likely to be dynamic. The only way to be consistent would be for author to simple hold out until there stories are complete then post. Which would kind of suck since many project here only exist because there is feed back keeping the author motivated .
Speak for yourself
The God Bless the Child trilogy was very methodically planned out. In fact, not only did I have a really detailed outline (which included specific dialogue, scene layouts, a community map, drawings of certain locations (specifically the Milan's house), character sketches, a DSMIV, psychological profiles, a former paramedic to ask questions to (in growing up jenny) and a 4 year degree in developmental psychology to back up what I was doing). This is it, I can't put any more work into a story, too bad it's going over like a lead balloon.
I gave the title page a mature audience rating, which i think is appropriate. I know there is abuse, and I went into detail, but it wasn't pornographic nor was it romanticized. It was the facts, raw facts that cause pain. The one thing I am glad to see is no one messaged me with a desire for more sexual abuse.
K.T. Leone
My fiction feels more real than reality
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
Pre-planning or not
It can work both ways. I have pre-planned some of my previous stories to a greater or lesser degree, some have just come out of their own accord.
Can you imagine if Bike hadn't been published until the last chapter got written, just in case the rating needed changing?
Penny
In the Case of Bike....
Angharad made it clear from the beginning that there was no plan. It was just sit down and write. In Angharad's case, I had her previous writing to go on and thus some idea what I might be getting into. I understand that bad things happening is a pretty common theme in TG literaure; so, I expect some level of conflict in most stories. It's those really big shocking unexpected right turns into extreme darkness that I'm talking about. In the 3 years that I've been a member here, I've only felt I've been really ambushed two or three times and maybe 4 or 5 times that I felt mildly ambushed or didn't understand why a dark element was placed in a story as it really didn't contribute to the story line in my view.
Serials can be fun. The reader gets to comment on and speculate where the story is going. The author gets encouragement (hopefully) and the opportunity to interact with their readers if they want to. I think I understand that the story can take on a life of it's own, but at the same time I think most of us know what we are capable of and likely to do.
This has been a really good discussion so far. I appreciate the ideas and views of the others who have responded. I don't want to inhibit anyone's creativity or writing freedom, I just ask that the feelings of your readers be considered to the extent possible.
I would suggest that you err on the side of caution
If I get invested in a story specially one with chapters... I don't want to be surprised by an X rated chapter if all the others are G rated. I only check ratings and keywords for the first chapter. I'm sure once you decide if you like the first chapter... you really don't read to check if something in the keywords/ratings have changed... you're going on memory and laziness to just read the title and then click on it.
A lot of series writers express their surprise for where the story goes each time... if you're one of those then you really don't officially know when the sex will be non-existant or disgustingly detailed...so you'd be forced to rate each chapter.
I'm not a writer... but I'd just add a warning to the header page and a header to the story warning people if the rating given in the first chapter changes. I'd recommend writing such a chapter so any unwanted bits can be skipped over with little or no loss of exposition.
Having thrown in my 2 bits... I would of course prefer you wrote the whole story and posted it in a single post.
Dayna.
too big for one post
My story is over 200,000 words, I think it's a little too big for one post. It's epic length. I break it down in chapters so people can digest smaller chunks and also comment on smaller chunks. There would be way to much to comment on for one post... thus, when I posted God Bless The Child on FictionMania I got a whopping 10 comments. I broke it up into three post on here and got 39 comments. When I post the sequel in chapters I got 269 comments... What do you think is more rewarding.
K.T. Leone
My fiction feels more real than reality
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
Submitting stories
When you click on "Add a story", part of the text at the top says:
As such I try to write chapters of around 100k, which generally work out (for me anyway :-) to around 15,000 words.
As far as my reading habits go - I tend to "graze", taking breaks from whatever else I'm doing and reading one new post for each break. As such, an over-long story might go longer than a break - but that's a personal preference I wouldn't push on anyone else, but it does work very well with the guidelines.
I have to agree with Dana
In particular, now that a number of people have learned from blogs that you can open up all currently posted parts of most stories, If the 'worst' rating of the series comes along later in the story, the rating of part one should be changed at the earliest opportunity in part one, to reflect this.
I've read and worked with enough stories/authors to realize that a story sometimes drifts from the original idea, so I cannot expect the 'worst rating' to be posted on the original posting of part one of a story. Though if you know going in that it will, put it up right away, or note it in the introduction of part one.
It’s not given to anyone to have no regrets; only to decide, through the choices we make, which regrets we’ll have,
David Weber – In Fury Born
Holly
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Holly