In the next version of CHYOA, we will probably introduce a new category system that allows you to choose one category per dimension (category type.) This thread is meant for defining the dimensions (category types) and fitting categories. Each category should fit into exactly one dimension. Each suggestion should include a short definition. (The definitions are not meant to force authors to file their works "correctly" but to find the most useful category options. Though they might be used as recommendations later.) Categories shouldn't be too specific to only be applicable for a few stories. Categories shouldn't overlap with other categories. I will update this post to offer an overview of the current status. (The current definitions may need some adjustments and I have only added a few categories as examples.) Dimensions: Setting [name?] Describes the environment of the story, if it follows the laws of physics, or if it features magic. [more details needed] Sexual Orientation Describes the main sexual orientation of the characters. (Stories can include other sexual orientations as well.) Characters / Involved Groups of Persons [which one? name?] [definition?] Fetish [name?] The main sexual fetish of the story. Categories: Dimension: Setting Modern Age / Contemporary [name?] Takes place in the mundane contemporary world. (Including historical settings.) [fitting?] Modern Age Fantasy Takes place in the Modern Age. (Firearms are probably already invented.) The story features supernatural elements (e.g. vampires or ghosts), magic, fictional races, or takes place in a world with unrealistic physics. [fitting?] Classical Fantasy / Medieval Fantasy / Swords&Magic [which one? name?] Takes place in a medieval-based world. (There are no firearms or they are quite uncommon.) The story features fictional races, magic, or takes place in a world with unrealistic physics. [fitting?] Science Fiction Takes place in a futuristic or scientifically advanced world. Fan Fiction Takes place in a universe that is based on existing material. E.g. from movies, comics, or published books. [?] [?] Dimension: Sexual Orientation Straight Mainly heterosexual content. Gay Mainly gay content. Lesbian Mainly lesbian content. Male Bi [? name?] Mainly male/male and male/female content. Female Bi [? name?] Mainly female/female and male/female content. [?] [?] Dimension: Characters / Involved Groups of Persons Teen The involved characters are 18 or 19. Old&Young [name?] There is a significant age gap between the involved characters. (> 15 years) Incest The characters are related to each other, whether by blood or not. [?] [?] Dimension: Theme / Fetish [name?] BDSM (Maledom) Involves BDSM themes with the dominant partner being mainly male. E.g. physical restraints (bondage,) unequal power relationships (dominance/submission,) or pain (sadism/masochism.) BDSM (Femdom) Involves BDSM themes with the dominant partner being mainly female. E.g. physical restraints (bondage,) unequal power relationships (dominance/submission,) or pain (sadism/masochism.) Cheating Spouses The main character cheats or is cheated. Adventure The main character explores the world and has erotic encounters on their way. (Also for detective stories and similar.) Romance Love stories, emotion-driven and primarily focused on the relationships between characters Comedy [? enough? too small?] The events are intended to make the audience laugh [?] [?] Example: 1. A story about a married woman who cheats on her husband with her son's friends might get the categories Setting: Contemporary Sexual Orientation: Straight Characters: Old&Young Fetish: Cheating Spouses 2. A story about a young Lesbian orc who gets outcast for eating out the chieftain's daughter tries to survive until she finds a new clan might get the categories Setting: Fantasy Sexual Orientation: Lesbian Characters: Teen Fetish: Adventure
Superhero/Sci-Fi might be good for the setting dimension. Something like "custom" might be good too, but only if these categories are meant to be super specific -- if it's meant to be more broad strokes, then it'd probably be a good idea to keep "custom" out. I really like "adventure" as a category, because it'd be a big help for classifying those stories that only have a consistency in characters and story, not any consistency in the themes (which is hard to achieve in high-depth stories). It's a fix to something I've noticed as a possible "uh oh" for a while now, and it's a much better fix than "miscellaneous" (though that might still have its own place as well). Should the "involved groups of persons" dimension also include stuff like M&F, M&M, and F&F (some sort of "all/mixture" would be cool as well)? Maybe that sort of thing should go into a new dimension, since so far "involved groups of persons" looks to be more to do with character traits and ages than the story's orientational focus. For "fetish", I think stuff like maledom and femdom and freeuse are all common enough to probably deserve their own classification too -- again, maybe molding maledom and femdom into a single "domination", depending on how specific or broad this is supposed to be. Thank you!
Story Type would serve as a useful fourth dimension. There are certain distinct structures, like open stories, linear stories, game stories, anthologies, etc. that I think would be useful for the reader to be aware of before they get into the story. In fact, I think every story I've written has had at least someone misunderstand the point of the story (e.g. not understanding what Game Mode is). You could even let authors use it to control certain aspects of their story - for instance, stories categorised as 'game' could automatically start Game Mode, stories categorised as 'linear' could prevent non-editor users from creating multiple branches, etc. That goes well beyond the scope of this thread, though. Sci-Fi is obvious: "Takes place in a futuristic or scientifically advanced world." Historical would also be useful: "Takes place in a real time period from history." Which leads me to think this... ...possibly isn't the most appropriate wording. 'Classical Fantasy' might be better. Many modern Fantasy settings like DnD deviate significantly from medieval tropes. Something like Avatar: The Last Airbender could not really be considered medieval at all. Additionally, I feel that genres such as steampunk, while not nearly popular enough to warrant their own category, are best alongside more standard Fantasy. The current Fantasy category is something of a mess regarding its interpreted meaning, but I think a Fantasy setting makes it far more clear that it's referring to wizards and dragons, since it by definition excludes non-contemporary settings. I agree with Almax that gay, straight and lesbian would all be appropriate. Bisexual and group would also make sense. I don't think this should be called 'fetish' if adventuring is present. Adventures are not particularly fetishistic. Maybe change the name 'adventure' to something like 'varied' if you're trying to account for stories that explore a wide variety of themes. BDSM: "Involves an extreme power dynamic, the derivation of arousal from pain, or bondage." Exhibitionism: "Focuses on the indecent exposure of one or more characters, consensual or otherwise." (Could change this to account for voyeurism.) Then there's also Mind Control and Romance. I think references to the 'main character' here are restrictive. Sometimes the main character is merely an observer, or sometimes there is no main character.
I think maledom and femdom should be separate. The distinction is very important for most readers - just ask PrinceCai.
Isn't Superhero already covered by Fan Fiction? You mean like a made-up universe that haven't used before? I can't really think of a scenario where such a universe wouldn't fit into another category. Well, if possible, I would avoid a Miscellaneous category as it is nothing you would search for. Game Stories is already a filter. (Though I would like to have a script that kicks out all stories that don't make use of it.) If a story is open (branching?) or linear should be determined by reality, not design. So I would prefer meaningful stats doing that job. Yes, might be better for separate suggestions as categories are centered around the content. There might also be other interesting options. E.g. tense. How common is this? Could this fit into Contemporary? (extending to "mundane past") What about something different like "Swords&Magic" for wizards and dragons? Another setting could be contemporary and "recent" Fantasy, so covering a century or two of the past. (This might cover modern supernatural stuff, steampunk, and unrealistic settings in general.) Group? Bisexual? I guess there are two different types of bi. Transgender? Hm, is there a broader alternative to replace Fetishes? Does this include humiliation like ENF and ENM? My understanding of exhibitionism would be that someone shows themselves for their sexual gratification. And thinking about it, this kind of exhibitionism might be rather rare on CHYOA. (Not sure though.) "Main character" doesn't have to be part of the definition. Isn't Freeuse basically some kind of Mind Control? Hm... I think maledom and femdom might have quite an overlap with other categories. Both might fit "extreme power dynamic" (BDSM). Maledom might also overlap with Freeuse or Mind Control.
I'd like to see some categories for drama, thriller, action. Nothing currently really comes even close to covering these.
I do like what I'm seeing here. It's a great idea to split the categories like this and makes a lot of sense, however: The problem with folding maledom and femdom into one category like BDSM is that the large majority of stories ending up in that category are always going to be maledom, which would make people interested solely in femdom (like me) have to search through a frustrating number of non-relevant stories to find things they actually like. I would very much like to see at least femdom as its own category for ease of access, as it would certainly make using the site much easier for me and others who have an interest in that.
I agree, Femdom and maledon are very different and should be separate and not included in BDSM either.
Fan-fic I think is too broad a term to be a 'category' in my mind. It's more like... a story type, or something. What I mean is, if someone writes a fan-fic based on Lord of the Rings, it's more descriptive for it to be categorized in some sort of 'fantasy' category. Something like Harry Potter sits in fan-fic pretty commonly, but it's got some specifics that put it into any other story category featuring magic with witches and wizards and that sort of thing. Superheroes might fall into fan-fic too, but what if someone creates their own, contemporary superhero world, where would that fit into? (Scif fi maybe but that's not always accurate). It's not fan-fic if it's an entirely original world with original characters. I think Fan-fic might work better as some sort of other meta-attribute rather than an encompassing category.
Would just add that "Incest" should probably go under "Involved Groups of Persons" (or maybe "Fetish") - it's certainly a big enough category on the site right now and I would not be surprised if many found it to be useful for search (either for inclusion or exclusion). There's some overlap, as incest stories can be about teens or old & young, but then again, none of the fetish subcategories are actually mutually exclusive... As a side note, "Involved Groups of Persons" is a clunky name. Something like "Characters" might be a conciser way to convey the same idea.
I agree with Deadedge, fan-fiction shouldn't be a category. I'd like to see like an "Originality" dimension. You could then have the dimension divided into the categories of "Original" vs "Fan-fiction" and I'd even maybe throw in an "In Universe" category. "In Universe" could be for stories that are set in an established piece of fiction but don't involve the characters from the piece. It would be the difference between reading about original character in Lord of the Rings universe doing it vs writing about Sam and Frodo doing it. Plus then fan-fiction wouldn't take away from a setting tag, that way if I don't care I can still find it under my "Fantasy" search. Like I haven't played Dragon Age, but I'd be fine reading a story if it came up in Fantasy. But I might not find it if it's tucked away in fan-fiction without a fantasy tag. The only problem would maybe be those stories that have a lot of branches and some of them are fan-fiction while others are original. Maybe a "Mixed" category could help there?
Right now, BDSM seems to be quite a big category with about 6.5% of the stories. (Average is 3.7%) So breaking that up might be good. Any idea how much of the BDSM stories are femdom? If there are two categories, would there be an overlap? (femdom, maledom, switch, no domination?) What would be the definition of femdom and the opposing category? (Note: Tags will still be a thing.) I think all of the categories of the dimension setting will be rather broad. Having a category for fan fiction might also be legally favorable. (Though I'm not sure about that.) I don't get why HP is more fan fiction than LotR. I thought about something like: I would avoid too many dimensions. Especially dimensions with only two or three options. Categories should be meaningful, so things like "mixed" and "misc" should be avoided. If a story covers more categories of one dimension, the best-fitting category should be chosen. That allows the story to be found in that category. In a misc category, it won't be found as you don't search for "I don't know." Yes, "characters" might be the better option. I guess some overlap can't be avoided. (Otherwise, there would be too many dimensions with too few options.) I think it will better fit into Characters as the Fetishes might be more important. (E.g. combined with something like romance, BDSM, or non-con.) The categories should only be there for inclusion. For exclusion, there will be flags that should be applied on a per chapter basis. Can you be more specific? Definition? From my experience, fanfictions are usually very different as they expect that you already know the lore and — if applicable — the look and behavior of canon characters. Readers who don't know these details wouldn't really understand what's going on, so I think it's very different than an original story located in a similar non-fanfiction world.
Oh dear I may just not be smart enough to grasp this classification and categorization system. So please indulge me as I try to stumble through it, I have read the posts a few times but I think true comprehension keeps slipping away So, 'dimensions' are category types, or simply a larger container for categories. Simple enough. It's a bit odd to have, say, incest as a category under "characters" or whatever the dimension is called, but the current setup where some categories are a fetish and some are a setting etc obviously isn't ideal. To try to wrap my head around thinking about this whole system maybe I can think of an example: Dimension: Genre (offered as an idea, 'genre' as in a category of literature, based on a set of stylistic criteria. Useful for erotica stories with fewer or less overt sexual fetishes, and stories that do *not* fall under the "Setting" dimension? So, no need for genre categories for sci-fi, fantasy, etc which may be more about the *where* of the story versus the tone) Drama more serious stories, often with emotional struggles and realistic character development Comedy a series of funny, or comical events, intended to make the audience laugh Mystery a story that follows an investigation into a crime or puzzle, with clues and details presented to the characters and readers at the same time Romance the classic love stories, emotion-driven and primarily focused on the relationship(s) between the main characters Ok, that's all I got for now. Mainly I was thinking about how we could get stuff like mystery and romance (my fav lol) their rightful place. I also do feel that it makes sense to have a dimension for story genres for the stories that have, I guess, 'vanilla' sex. Like, if you have a great comedic story but it's on a spaceship, then sci-fi is the place. But if you have a great comedic story without a distinct fetish component it may be cool to have a place for it. Just my thoughts as I try to work it out!
Yes, Yes, yes to all of this! If I'm honest I'm struggling with to work out the way this is being done too. But we definitely need more categories that cover standard literature genres. You've mention 4 that I had was thinking about but I'd add Thriller and/or Action too. Plus, would it be helpful to have a category for game mode stories?
There does seem to be a bit of misunderstanding going on... 'Dimensions' are not just categories of categories. The idea is that each story will choose one category from each dimension. This way, there's no conflict between settings and fetishes (for example) - you can choose to have an incestuous fantasy story be shown in both categories. The purpose of dimensions is to prevent users from just squeezing their story in as many categories as possible for attention; each dimension is supposed to consist of categories that wouldn't normally show up together. A story generally has exactly one setting, for example. More dimensions means more choices for the author and exponentially greater complexity for readers, so it's important to use as few dimensions as possible. Literary genre is a good idea, but I don't think it applies at all to the average CHYOA story. The vast majority don't really have a plot, or they have a plot centred exclusively around a fetish, so trying to apply conventional labels to them won't work. As an exercise, take a look at the New Stories section on the homepage and try to work out what 'normal' genre each story fits into. I doubt they will be apt.
That sounds like detective stories. Would that fit into adventures? This might fit Fetish as well. (I've added this for now.) added As insertnamehere explained above. I've also added some examples in the first post. There is already a search filter for Game Mode stories.
Notes: - Every note in brackets [] are things that should be sorted out eventually. - If things are separated by / it means either-or. Changes: - defined the cutoff for classical and contemporary fantasy with the rather common usage of firearms. - included historical settings into contemporary settings - added Theme as an alternative to Fetish contradict if you see fit
For "Sexual Orientation", would something like "assorted" be alright? There are lots of stories that would be hard to put into any one box there -- it's sort of the only dimension that I think could benefit from having multiple selections, with a possible "assorted" option just sort of being a patch over that. Having multiple options for this dimension also (I think maybe possibly) couldn't be used for just false advertising, like selecting every fetish could be. It's also a more important thing to be upright about in your stories, and only advertising one thing when you have two or three things in that category feels like you're tricking both the people that choose to read AND the people that choose to not. Plus, in the case of the fetish, it's easier to choose something that's the "main" fetish (or instead something like "Adventure", which I'm still so glad exists as a thing!) than it is to choose a "main" sexuality for a lot of stories. So, it's much harder to do, and it's also much more important to get right. I do get the concern for massively-sized all-straight stories getting one gay chapter in one branch and suddenly being "advertised" as M&M as well as straight, which wouldn't be that truthful of an advertisement, but I feel like it's still a good investment for all of the single-author stories despite the risk of falsely advertised multi-author stories. Also, when you see a story with all sexualities ticked, but it's got a few hundred or a few thousand chapters, I think it's a pretty safe assumption that every path doesn't explore every sexuality there, so it might not be as big a problem as it seems (while still, I think, being a big benefit to other sorts of stories!) So, yea -- I think, for this category only, it might make sense to have it be tickboxes instead of radio buttons. Or, if that's no good, at least having something like "assorted" for the Sexual Orientation dimension would solve almost all of these problems (with the only shortcoming of being inspecific, since there are lots of stories that feature equal parts F&M and F&F without ever really dipping into M&M, for whatever reason). (((also, I think "Contemporary Fantasy" is a better name than "Modern Fantasy", just because Contemporary sounds like it's about the world and Modern sounds like it's about the world the story's written in)))
Contemporary is by definition about the present, and is usually used in the context of the real world. 'Historical Contemporary' and 'Contemporary Fantasy' are both contradictory.
I getcha, but I think that "Contemporary Fantasy" still evokes more images of a slightly-up-to-date fantasy world than "Modern Fantasy", just because it's used a lot less as a word than Modern. So out of a choice of the two, I think Contemporary edges it over just for clarity, despite being pretty much exact synonyms (you can figure out what "Contemporary Fantasy" means without many question marks, I feel).
