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Hello,
I have a question. Is there anywhere that explains what the various categories, subcategories, and tags are defined or used as for the stories? I've been trying to figure out a lot of them, but am so far having a bit of problems understanding things. For instance, the lesbians tag I thought meant the main character was a lesbian or became a lesbian, yet stories that I've looked through with this tag seem to have the main character being interested in men so I don't think I'm understanding the system properly. Any help in defining how the categories and tags are used would help.
Thank you
- Katrina L. Halbred
Categories and tags
AT BC there are genres, themes and elements.
A genre is a broad division of types of stories, like fantasy, other worlds, mystery, historical. Here at BC, crossdressing, transitioning and transformation are considered genres, or at least, sub-genres.
A theme is what the story is about, like Accidental, Body Suits, College, or Stuck. The theme of a story is a sort of shorthand description of the arc of the plot.
An element is something that has an important part in a story but is not what the story is actually about. Usually. Christmas, Jewelry, Memory Loss, are frequently elements tho at times some of these can be themes, too.
As to what the various tags and categories mean, I don't police this, I can't. Think about it. I do watch a few and if someone complains that a story is mistagged, I may point out the complaint to the author. I may not, too. In other words, authors decide what they mean by the tags they use. Is this inconsistent? Damn right it is. This is an amateur production you know, even the professionals in actual libraries do not worry too much about consistency in the keywords used in card catalogs. Once again, they really can't.
Did that help? Probably not that much, huh? :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Tags and Themes Optional Definitions?
Okay so there is no set definition on what specifically each tag or theme means then? Its more whatever you want it to mean?
That will make it interesting when I go to write my stories and such as I'll have to figure out how to define the tags and themes in relation to my stories.
Thanks for the response, Erin.
_Hugs_
- Katrina L. Halbred
Communication
Use the tags to communicate with your audience and you are not likely to go wrong. It's just like using any word at all, Humpty Dumpty was right and wrong at the same time. Which I suppose was Carroll's point. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
what i look for.
As readers we all have our likes and dislikes in reguards to what we're looking for in a story. The tags help as a guide for me to find what stories i may/may not be interested in. I for one prefer to avoid "Real Life" situations. So typically if a story is marked simply as Transgender, crossdressing.. then im going to assume that's exactly what the story is about. Real world issues, sure it's fiction but there are several authors here that specialize in that. As great as they are as writers, they tend to write in a field that doesn't interest me. However the instant i see Magic, Otherworlds, Fantasy, or Sci-Fi/.. then i stop and give the story a go. Am i missing out on some good stories? probablly, in all likelyhood some of these stories have some elements to them that i would probablly enjoy, but because the author made the tags look like it was real world-ish it got passed over. I guess for me the main thing i seek is Physical transformation, and typically crossdressing stories do not contain this vital element. I guess the point im making here is to try to not be vague with your tags, but at the same time dont over do it either. I've seen authors post their storys with an age regression tag, that tells me the character physically gets younger, but then you read through only to find that the character has been in some way coerced into dressing as a little girl... to me that's not age regression.. that's a form of crossdressing (and probally deserves a plethora of other tags as well). Just be smart about how you tag your story and you'll do fine.
Over/Under tagging
How many tags to use can be important, too. Use too few and you might miss readers. Use too many and you might turn off readers. I have skipped reading stories because of tag overflow.