How essential are the tags?

WasatchWind

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I'd say that there is a fair number of very popular stories that don't fit into any of those genres.

I'm curious, what do you want to make gender bender less "lumped together"?

Here are a bunch of tags that can fit into the gender bender genre, to different extents of course:
  • Cross-dressing
  • Female to Male
  • Futanari
  • Male to Female
  • Protagonist with Multiple Bodies
  • Transgender
  • Trap
  • [A bunch of Reincarnation related tags]
  • [A bunch of Transported/Transmigration related tags]
... What else do you need to properly depict through tags what you want to show in a gender bender novel?

As for the dictionary, people already asked for it, but never got any answer... My guess is that Tony doesn't want to force authors to adhere to a specific definition to what a given tag/genre means, so he is leaving it vague on purpose... But that's just my guess.
See, I think this is a problem. Why does one genre get so many tags, and fantasy barely has any? I want tags for like "hard magic system," or "epic fantasy."
 

Discount_Blade

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I'm not saying necessarily that no one reads other genres, but any success is dramatically stunted if you are not doing "isekai, gender bender, girl's love, or... ughhhh... harem. (seriously, why is that one of most popular genres?)

When I look at new stories, ones with these tags almost immediately are not only getting views, but comments as well. It feels like more traditional genres have a much harder time.
Why is harem popular? Same reason Gender-Bender is. I find Gender-Bender to be one of the stupidest genre's imaginable, yet it exists even so. Same with Harem genre.
 

WasatchWind

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Why is harem popular? Same reason Gender-Bender is. I find Gender-Bender to be one of the stupidest genre's imaginable, yet it exists even so. Same with Harem genre.
Yeah, I don't understand it. I can only imagine people are treating this as an erotica site.
 

Discount_Blade

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Yeah, I don't understand it. I can only imagine people are treating this as an erotica site.
Well plenty of people call this place SmutHub. Pretty apt name. Quite a few people will deny that smut is as popular as it is made out to be, but I would rank them in popuarity with Isekai and LitRPG on this Site. So, top 3? And then you have stories that mix smut WITH isekai/litrpg.

Plenty of differing opinions on this subject though. There are various old posts about it.
 

WasatchWind

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Well plenty of people call this place SmutHub. Pretty apt name. Quite a few people will deny that smut is as popular as it is made out to be, but I would rank them in popuarity with Isekai and LitRPG on this Site. So, top 3? And then you have stories that mix smut WITH isekai/litrpg.

Plenty of differing opinions on this subject though. There are various old posts about it.
The problem I have is that it feels like EVERY online writing site is like this. Isn't there one big place that all these people can just go to?
 

AliceShiki

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See, I think this is a problem. Why does one genre get so many tags, and fantasy barely has any? I want tags for like "hard magic system," or "epic fantasy."
Uhn... I don't get your point? I mean...
  • Cross-dressing is a very specific tag. Hence why it exists.
  • Male to Female and Female to Male are absolute necessities to make gender bender work, so they have to exist by default in order to have the genre.
  • Trap is a very common anime trope that most people can easily identify... It is enough to be a tag, though one could argue for its removal.
  • Transgender is a very specific tag that has a big community that cherishes it in Scribblehub. Hence why it exists.
  • Futanari is a fetish tag for R-18 stuff. There are tons of those and they help people that wanna find erotic stuff that suits their tastes, nothing strange about this one.
  • Multiple Bodies, Reincarnation and Transmigration by themselves have nothing to do with Gender Bender OTOH. They can just be used to better characterize a story that happens to be Gender Bender, since those are usually the most common causes for the gender bending.
To me all of those tags have a very clear reason for existing, which is why no one asks for their removal. They help you characterize your story and make people know what they're getting into before they start reading.

You can suggest tags for Fantasy if you want, I don't think anyone is against that, but I don't see why you are complaining about the tags I mentioned, they all seem extremely relevant to me.

Also... What is a "hard" magic system? How does one classify what is a hard and a soft system in the first place? This seems really vague and doesn't seem to be very useful as a tag.
And what makes a Fantasy "epic"? What about it is particularly different from other types of fantasy stories? It also seems really vague and not very useful.

Moreover...
  • There are 10 tags with the word "Magic" on it.
  • There are 3 tags with the word "Weapon" on it.
  • There are 14 tags with the word "World" on it.
  • There are 5 tags with the word "Ability" on it.
  • There are 5 tags with the word "Beast" on it.
  • There are 4 tags with the word "Monster" on it.
  • There are 6 tags with the word "Power" on it.
  • There are 28 tags that revolve around some sort of Fantasy Monster, going from the classic Dragons to niche things like Shikigamis.
... Do you really think there isn't enough to describe a Fantasy Setting? I mean... Just what exactly do you want to write that you can't find the tags for it? I don't get it.
Yeah, I don't understand it. I can only imagine people are treating this as an erotica site.
Gender Bender has nothing to do with erotica by itself. It can be used as a fetish, but the same can be said by pretty much everything, so that's besides the point.

Gender Bender is usually used as either a tool for comedy by putting a protagonist in a position they aren't used to due to the gender change, or by making some more serious dives into human psychology as the character enters a conflict within the gender they had always identified with throughout their life, and the sex of their current body... As well as having troubles and confusion regarding what gender they prefer now that their own gender changed, since a change in the body may also influence the way the head sees the opposite gender.

That's the kind of thing you usually see treated in gender bender... Seems like you never tried reading one if you think it's about erotica... >.>
 
D

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I do agree with some of the comments how the tags are more towards specific themes.
Let's say I want to write a fantasy. But its not transmigration, cultivation, litrpg, smut, or isekai. It narrows down a lot of tags.

Some people asked me about what tags specifically. So here are just a few examples.

If you have tags for beasts, dragons, golems...then what about tags for elves, faeries, werewolves, etc.?
If you want to lump everything with a fantasy creature tag, why do some creature types have their own specific tags and some do not?

What about tags for heartbreak, lies, addiction, redemption, etc., or contemporary? (I wanted to put a heartbreak tag for my story but there was none). Originally I was also going to put my story as a contemporary genre, but there is no contemporary genre listed.

Society tag is only tribal society tag and monster society tag. What if your story is not relating to tribal/monster, but just society in general?
Again some tags are very specific-themed, and then there are just tags where we are supposed to throw everything all together under that one tag.

And regardless how bad a lot of stories you may have come across in these types, Wuxia and Xianxia are still genres, however they only have tags.
What about stories that are steampunk? - no tags, not listed as a genre.
 
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AliceShiki

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If you have tags for beasts, dragons, golems...then what about tags for elves, faeries, werewolves, etc.?
I believe there is one for each of those 6 (Werebeasts instead of Werewolves, Fairies instead of Faeries), though I understand you are exemplifying.
If you want to lump everything with a fantasy creature tag, why do some creature types have their own specific tags and some do not?
You can always make a request for a new one, if there is enough demand for it, Tony might add it.

... Personally speaking, I wouldn't mind if all were removed actually, but that's just me.
What about tags for heartbreak
This one doesn't have anything for it, I believe, you could actually request for it. Seems like a solid tag.

You could try using some substitutes though, like...

You could use betrayal, adultery, broken engagement or affair if they're the cause of the heartbreak.
Secret Crush and Unrequited Love might also work in some cases.
addiction
I believe Drugs should work just fine for this one.
redemption
I think we have none for this. Could be a functional request.
contemporary?
Modern Day is exactly what you're searching for.
Modern Time also exists for some reason, so I guess you could add it too... I have no idea why it exists though, seems like something that should totally get removed.
Society tag is only tribal society tag and monster society tag. What if your story is not relating to tribal/monster, but just society in general?
"Society" is way too broad to work as a tag, it says basically nothing about your story. You need something more specific.
And regardless how bad a lot of stories you may have come across in these types, Wuxia and Xianxia are still genres, however they only have tags.
Wuxia is covered by Martial Arts.
Xianxia is covered by Martial Arts + Fantasy.
 
D

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I believe there is one for each of those 6 (Werebeasts instead of Werewolves, Fairies instead of Faeries), though I understand you are exemplifying.
Okay, thanks for pointing these out. I think I was looking up on a different spelling of fairies.

This one doesn't have anything for it, I believe, you could actually request for it. Seems like a solid tag.

You could try using some substitutes though, like...

You could use betrayal, adultery, broken engagement or affair if they're the cause of the heartbreak.
Secret Crush and Unrequited Love might also work in some cases.
And what if there's no betrayal, adultery or broken engagement? There are relationships that break and have nothing to do with any of those.
And this is not about any crush at all. For example, you can have two people that were in love, drifted apart or whatever situation they eventually faced, made them broke up and it can still be heartbreak or painful for them.

I believe Drugs should work just fine for this one.
There are many types of addiction, not just gambling or drugs. So what if you're explaining other types of addiction and there are no tags for it?
"Society" is way too broad to work as a tag, it says basically nothing about your story. You need something more specific.
Again, that is referring to very specific tags. Sometimes there are no specific tags. Sometimes the story fits in a more broad concept like society. Like what if I wanted to write about a society but in modern times? It fits both the modern day tag and the society tag. Modern day/times may not necessarily mean society. I can have a cute romance set in modern day but I'm not really talking about certain societal issues in that story.

If you make it too specific, then you can also limit other types that fall into these very broad category, yet doesn't really fit anywhere else either.

Wuxia is covered by Martial Arts.
Xianxia is covered by Martial Arts + Fantasy.
Fair enough. And Xianxia also incorporating some deities and myths too.

Thank you for responding to all these points by the way.
Tags like addiction, redemption, heartbreak - if they are substantial solid requests, is there are a button to request adding specific tags?

Also curious, is slice of life same as contemporary genre?
 

AliceShiki

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And what if there's no betrayal, adultery or broken engagement? There are relationships that break and have nothing to do with any of those.
And this is not about any crush at all. For example, you can have two people that were in love, drifted apart or whatever situation they eventually faced, made them broke up and it can still be heartbreak or painful for them.
As I said in my last post, Heartbreak seems like a solid tag, I could see it getting approved.
There are many types of addiction, not just gambling or drugs. So what if you're explaining other types of addiction and there are no tags for it?
Well, there is, but they probably don't need a tag because of how rare they are. You might just develop that in your synopsis while putting a tag that shows that whatever element you want to show is
Again, that is referring to very specific tags. Sometimes there are no specific tags. Sometimes the story fits in a more broad concept like society. Like what if I wanted to write about a society but in modern times? It fits both the modern day tag and the society tag. Modern day/times may not necessarily mean society. I can have a cute romance set in modern day but I'm not really talking about certain societal issues in that story.

If you make it too specific, then you can also limit other types that fall into these very broad category, yet doesn't really fit anywhere else either.
If you're going to talk about a society, you're probably going to be talking about some aspects of that society... And those aspects might very well have tags for them.

Society in general just feels way too broad, it feels like basically every story could have it and it wouldn't really mean anything.
Fair enough. And Xianxia also incorporating some deities and myths too.
There are tags for those things! ^^)/
Thank you for responding to all these points by the way.
Tags like addiction, redemption, heartbreak - if they are substantial solid requests, is there are a button to request adding specific tags?
There is not, I believe you need to make a forum thread on Feature Requests to request for it.
Also curious, is slice of life same as contemporary genre?
No, it's different.

Slice of Life essentially means that it is a story talking about people's daily lives, usually it has a strong comedy element to it, but it doesn't necessarily need it.

It's commonly used in Modern Day stories, but it can also be used in Fantasy and whatnot.

To give a simple example, a common type of Slice of Life story is a story about a group of highschoolers just going through their highschool years and the things that happen in it. The story doesn't particularly have a plot and it just moves on as things happen without any particular goal in mind. Think of something like the Lucky Star anime.
 

WasatchWind

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Uhn... I don't get your point? I mean...
  • Cross-dressing is a very specific tag. Hence why it exists.
  • Male to Female and Female to Male are absolute necessities to make gender bender work, so they have to exist by default in order to have the genre.
  • Trap is a very common anime trope that most people can easily identify... It is enough to be a tag, though one could argue for its removal.
  • Transgender is a very specific tag that has a big community that cherishes it in Scribblehub. Hence why it exists.
  • Futanari is a fetish tag for R-18 stuff. There are tons of those and they help people that wanna find erotic stuff that suits their tastes, nothing strange about this one.
  • Multiple Bodies, Reincarnation and Transmigration by themselves have nothing to do with Gender Bender OTOH. They can just be used to better characterize a story that happens to be Gender Bender, since those are usually the most common causes for the gender bending.
To me all of those tags have a very clear reason for existing, which is why no one asks for their removal. They help you characterize your story and make people know what they're getting into before they start reading.

You can suggest tags for Fantasy if you want, I don't think anyone is against that, but I don't see why you are complaining about the tags I mentioned, they all seem extremely relevant to me.

Also... What is a "hard" magic system? How does one classify what is a hard and a soft system in the first place? This seems really vague and doesn't seem to be very useful as a tag.
And what makes a Fantasy "epic"? What about it is particularly different from other types of fantasy stories? It also seems really vague and not very useful.

Moreover...
  • There are 10 tags with the word "Magic" on it.
  • There are 3 tags with the word "Weapon" on it.
  • There are 14 tags with the word "World" on it.
  • There are 5 tags with the word "Ability" on it.
  • There are 5 tags with the word "Beast" on it.
  • There are 4 tags with the word "Monster" on it.
  • There are 6 tags with the word "Power" on it.
  • There are 28 tags that revolve around some sort of Fantasy Monster, going from the classic Dragons to niche things like Shikigamis.
... Do you really think there isn't enough to describe a Fantasy Setting? I mean... Just what exactly do you want to write that you can't find the tags for it? I don't get it.

Gender Bender has nothing to do with erotica by itself. It can be used as a fetish, but the same can be said by pretty much everything, so that's besides the point.

Gender Bender is usually used as either a tool for comedy by putting a protagonist in a position they aren't used to due to the gender change, or by making some more serious dives into human psychology as the character enters a conflict within the gender they had always identified with throughout their life, and the sex of their current body... As well as having troubles and confusion regarding what gender they prefer now that their own gender changed, since a change in the body may also influence the way the head sees the opposite gender.

That's the kind of thing you usually see treated in gender bender... Seems like you never tried reading one if you think it's about erotica... >.>
You make very good points. I suppose I am just venting my frustration that I'm not a fan of royal road, but fantasy has a hard time of finding traction on most of these sites.

Granted, right now I am doing a piece of fanfiction, and Zelda fanfic seems almost completely vacant from the site, but it makes me nervous if my original fantasy will find any success here.
 
D

Deleted member 45782

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Society in general just feels way too broad, it feels like basically every story could have it and it wouldn't really mean anything.
Yes and no. Every story can have it. It just some stories probably explore more deeper into social topics such as how society addresses mental issues, abortion, sexism, and these can contributes not just as a characteristic of a character but shapes the whole point of the story. Yeah, I know I'm just throwing out these as examples, but what else could these fit under then? Agree to disagree, but thanks for offering your viewpoint.
There are tags for those things! ^^)/
Yeah, I know. Genre names like Wuxia and Xianxia are noted as tags instead.
To me, marital arts can be broad since it may not be wuxia. I guess some genres are better to be under the umbrella broad genre...
There is not, I believe you need to make a forum thread on Feature Requests to request for it.
Ah interesting. I'll make a forum thread for every tag I think is solid to add in the future. Noted.

"Well, there is, but they probably don't need a tag because of how rare they are. You might just develop that in your synopsis while putting a tag that shows that whatever element you want to show is"

Yeah that's why I see and say there are limited tags, because they are not many stories like that out there. But yeah, if and when I do write a story out in the future that involves addiction, I'll probably request it as a tag too. Besides drugs and gambling (which is noted as tags on here), there's also types like shopping, gaming, addiction to work or (just workaholic I guess?), etc. etc. etc. etc.

No, it's different.

Slice of Life essentially means that it is a story talking about people's daily lives, usually it has a strong comedy element to it, but it doesn't necessarily need it.

It's commonly used in Modern Day stories, but it can also be used in Fantasy and whatnot.

To give a simple example, a common type of Slice of Life story is a story about a group of highschoolers just going through their highschool years and the things that happen in it. The story doesn't particularly have a plot and it just moves on as things happen without any particular goal in mind. Think of something like the Lucky Star anime.
So slice of life can be modern day or set in the ancient past right since the main focus is just talking about people's daily lives in general?

Thanks. Reread the slice of life part again. I have a better understanding of Slice of Life genre now. I see, so it doesn't need to follow a specific plot. That sounds really good since I have a lot of scenarios imagined but don't have a central plot to string it up to. Noted. :)

Again, thank you for sharing your viewpoints - some of them make valid points.. :)
 
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Sabruness

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I'd say they're pretty important, since they provide a sneak-peak into what your novel will contain, beyond what you've put in the description.

I've seen some good novels use no tags and get next to no readers for it (like, single digits), and I personally use tags to decide whether a story is and isn't for me.

My recommendation for tagging is to tag:
  • Female, Male or Genderless Protagonist (and/or Multiple POVs, Multiple Protagonists if relevant)
  • Some Protagonist tags (type in "Protagonist" and wait, and the list will filter for you)
  • Love Interest and/or Couple tags, if applicable
  • Trigger warnings
  • (For Fantasy) The important species in your novel - I recommend not tagging for every little type, because people who want to read novels dedicated to dragons will not be happy to read through your whole novel for two sentences in chapter 93
  • (For Fantasy) Type in "Magic" and take your pick of those relevant
  • Important roles like knights, royalty, nobility, etc. that are very relevant to your novel
  • Important themes like "Cross-dressing", "Adultery", and so forth
On top of Moonpearl's advice, as an opposite: dont tag things that barely exist in your story just to try and bait more readers. It's rare but happens and can quite annoy readers who expected something that was tagged but equated to a few lines in a far ahead chapter.
 
D

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On top of Moonpearl's advice, as an opposite: dont tag things that barely exist in your story just to try and bait more readers. It's rare but happens and can quite annoy readers who expected something that was tagged but equated to a few lines in a far ahead chapter.
Noted. I don't plan on baiting readers anyways. Things that exist in my story or what the story is about is the main focus of my tags. I just wish tags didn't feel as limited as they are. :)
 
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Malonymous

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Aside from suggesting tags, you can always try adding an 'Additional Tags' section to the bottom of your novel's description and write whatever you want. While that might not give the same searchability, you'll be capped by the 25 tag limit anyway, and that way you can add as many extra descriptors to your blurb as you want for potential readers, i.e. listing specific species of Beastkin/Demi-Humans in the story that don't currently have tags.
 
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Kenjona

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I'd say that there is a fair number of very popular stories that don't fit into any of those genres.

I'm curious, what do you want to make gender bender less "lumped together"?

Here are a bunch of tags that can fit into the gender bender genre, to different extents of course:
  • Cross-dressing
  • Female to Male
  • Futanari
  • Male to Female
  • Protagonist with Multiple Bodies
  • Transgender
  • Trap
  • [A bunch of Reincarnation related tags]
  • [A bunch of Transported/Transmigration related tags]
... What else do you need to properly depict through tags what you want to show in a gender bender novel?

As for the dictionary, people already asked for it, but never got any answer... My guess is that Tony doesn't want to force authors to adhere to a specific definition to what a given tag/genre means, so he is leaving it vague on purpose... But that's just my guess.

I can see about 5 stories I am already reading on that list. Not necessarily on Scribble Hub as I started reading them elsewhere first.

It is all a personal outlook, I admit I have a semi vanilla outlook in the stories I like and prefer my MC's to be somewhat Vanilla types. Boring for many but its all a preference and it is just mine. MC or main love interest disguising/temporarily H Gender sure ok, I will read it. But MC's who are Futanari, Transgender or traps are not my cup of tea. But that is just what I like in my "flavor" of stories. Since so much gets lumped into gender bender I tend to avoid stories that have it tagged as such, since there are so many other stories out there. As such I am sure I may be missing stories I would actually read; let alone all the grammatically near prefect, well written, and engaging plot line stories I already miss out on because of my preferences.

What you listed, is how I would mainly break down the "Gender Bender" tags here on Scribble Hub and get rid of Gender Bender tag altogether. When the tag Gender Bender has to be added to a story just cause the "Female MC disguised as a Guy to get X Object from an male only locker room and then gets stuck having to go out with a group of males to play soccer to keep her disguise going" but it also includes the "Female MC who magically becomes a futanari and has great fun wherever she goes with whoever"; to me they are VERY different premises in a story and should have different tags. One might make an interesting story to me, the other is just a turn off to me, it all just depends on what flavor of story we like.
 
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