Romance tag vs romance genre

[YuriDoggo]

(This is not in the wrong forum. I am not making a suggesting, but rather starting a discussion)

I think there should be differentiation between romance as a genre, and romance as a tag. It's the difference between a romance novel, and a novel that happens to have romance.

Most of the novels here are the latter and having romance as a genre is pretty weird. A romance novel has a huge focus on romantic relationships. The romance is the major draw, and the main conflict is how the relation progresses and resolves; whether it ends happy or with a breakup.

On the other hand, a story with a romance tag will simply have romance take backstage to a more primary conflict.

While on the subject of genres vs tags, I believe that currently, ScribbleHub allows way too many genres. Up to 10, I believe. That's simply ridiculous.
If you have 10 genres, you don't actually have a novel 10 genres. You do have a novel with maybe 3 genres and the rest are better suited as tags because they're not major elements unless you're writing something vast.

Any comments?

 

[SillyIslandBum]

I’m sure most people only add it as a genre instead of a tag because it’s easy to just click the checkbox, or they’re hoping to attract more readers. Normally when I look at the genres if I see fantasy, sci-fi, horror, or mystery, I view the others as tags.

 

[Kldran]

All I know is that the meaning behind a genre label seems to vary a lot. Like Gender Bender seems to go on anything with even a hint of it, or people get offended. I've seen that genre label on manga that just had a minor character who's appearance made it easy to mistake their gender. The entire reason I use gender bender and girls love genre labels for some of my stories is because I expect some people will be offended if I don't include them, despite the topics being only a minor part of most of those stories.

As an author, the most annoying thing to me, is when I feel like I need to include labels or tags or something that feels like a spoiler. Often a warning is needed to prevent people who'd be disgusted from looking, but at the same time... it works better if it's a surprise.

 

[TLCsDestiny]

Genres and tags are overrated.
Why can't people read the synopsis like in the old days?

 

[BenJepheneT]

Genres and tags are overrated.
Why can't people read the synopsis like in the old days?

Because only virgins do that. We chads who have sex many times can instantly gauge a quality of a piece of work by just simply glancing at sticky labels authors can so easily paste on the side of their book without any consideration.

 

[TLCsDestiny]

Scary new age people.

 

[Kldran]

Because only virgins do that. We chads who have sex many times can instantly gauge a quality of a piece of work by just simply glancing at sticky labels authors can so easily paste on the side of their book without any consideration.

Amusingly enough, I think judging a book by its cover would be more reliable than judging it by the tags.

 

[Sabruness]

My issues sometimes is when authors dont properly tag their novels. I've come across a few stories where reasonably prominent elements of the story actually havent been tagged at all.
I think over-tagging is probably better than undertagging because that way you arent surprised by what may come up. Tags and genres are the way for readers to filter out the stuff that doesnt interest them at all.

On the subject of accuracy of tagging, i take the view of: anything that affects the protagonist or prominent, major characters is justification for tagging. Stuff that affects minor, small-time side characters doesnt warrant a tag.

 

[AliceShiki]

(This is not in the wrong forum. I am not making a suggesting, but rather starting a discussion)

I think there should be differentiation between romance as a genre, and romance as a tag. It's the difference between a romance novel, and a novel that happens to have romance.

Most of the novels here are the latter and having romance as a genre is pretty weird. A romance novel has a huge focus on romantic relationships. The romance is the major draw, and the main conflict is how the relation progresses and resolves; whether it ends happy or with a breakup.

On the other hand, a story with a romance tag will simply have romance take backstage to a more primary conflict.

While on the subject of genres vs tags, I believe that currently, ScribbleHub allows way too many genres. Up to 10, I believe. That's simply ridiculous.
If you have 10 genres, you don't actually have a novel 10 genres. You do have a novel with maybe 3 genres and the rest are better suited as tags because they're not major elements unless you're writing something vast.

Any comments?

This is already implemented actually: https://www.scribblehub.com/tag/romantic-subplot/ VS https://www.scribblehub.com/genre/romance/

The problem is that Scribbly's tags/genres are added by the authors and are not controlled by a team that constantly cleans them up like it happens in NU. In NU you'd never see a novel with both Romantic Subplot Tag and the Romance Genre, since they're mutually exclusive.

In any case, the Romantic Subplot tag is there for when you want to say there is romance in your novel, but it's not the focus of the novel.

My issues sometimes is when authors dont properly tag their novels. I've come across a few stories where reasonably prominent elements of the story actually havent been tagged at all.
I think over-tagging is probably better than undertagging because that way you arent surprised by what may come up. Tags and genres are the way for readers to filter out the stuff that doesnt interest them at all.

On the subject of accuracy of tagging, i take the view of: anything that affects the protagonist or prominent, major characters is justification for tagging. Stuff that affects minor, small-time side characters doesnt warrant a tag.

I'm of the opposite mindset actually. Tags are basically spoilers, so I'd much rather add as little as possible. Only the bare minimum to give my reader a notion of what is in the story, if they wanna know more, the synopsis is there for them.

 

[Moonpearl]

This is already implemented actually: https://www.scribblehub.com/tag/romantic-subplot/ VS https://www.scribblehub.com/genre/romance/

The problem is that Scribbly's tags/genres are added by the authors and are not controlled by a team that constantly cleans them up like it happens in NU. In NU you'd never see a novel with both Romantic Subplot Tag and the Romance Genre, since they're mutually exclusive.

In any case, the Romantic Subplot tag is there for when you want to say there is romance in your novel, but it's not the focus of the novel.

Ooh, good to know~!

I'll add for anyone writing BL and GL that there are also specific "romantic subplot" tags for those, which are:
BL: "Shounen-Ai Subplot"
GL: "Shoujo-Ai Subplot"

I'm of the opposite mindset actually. Tags are basically spoilers, so I'd much rather add as little as possible. Only the bare minimum to give my reader a notion of what is in the story, if they wanna know more, the synopsis is there for them.

I find that a synopsis doesn't always give an accurate insight into the story though, and sometimes directly misleads me or leaves out important information that would turn me into a reader. Tags tell me what I'm going to find inside, even if they don't tell me what form it's going to take in the plot.

It's also really helpful for finding novels to read in the first place. Right now I only actively search for novels that are "Girls Love" without the "Gender Bender" tag or have "Girls Love" and "Gender Bender" along with the "Transgender" tag. If somebody doesn't tag their novel properly because of spoilers, I'll never find it.

Plus, there are tags like "rape" that aren't just nice to have, they're unsafe not to provide...

 

[BenJepheneT]

Amusingly enough, I think judging a book by its cover would be more reliable than judging it by the tags.

Untrue. I thought I was gonna read some sick 18th Century smut but oh no, Pride and Prejudice was about aristocratic love.

 

[Sabruness]

I find that a synopsis doesn't always give an accurate insight into the story though, and sometimes directly misleads me or leaves out important information that would turn me into a reader. Tags tell me what I'm going to find inside, even if they don't tell me what form it's going to take in the plot.

It's also really helpful for finding novels to read in the first place. Right now I only actively search for novels that are "Girls Love" without the "Gender Bender" tag or have "Girls Love" and "Gender Bender" along with the "Transgender" tag. If somebody doesn't tag their novel properly because of spoilers, I'll never find it.

Plus, there are tags like "rape" that aren't just nice to have, they're unsafe not to provide...

Couldnt have said it better myself. I've had a few issues with GL stories that actually have bisexual protags (which werent tagged) who get with both guys and girls. Nothing against that type of story, just not my thing. I prefer my GL as just GL.

 

[AliceShiki]

I find that a synopsis doesn't always give an accurate insight into the story though, and sometimes directly misleads me or leaves out important information that would turn me into a reader. Tags tell me what I'm going to find inside, even if they don't tell me what form it's going to take in the plot.

It's also really helpful for finding novels to read in the first place. Right now I only actively search for novels that are "Girls Love" without the "Gender Bender" tag or have "Girls Love" and "Gender Bender" along with the "Transgender" tag. If somebody doesn't tag their novel properly because of spoilers, I'll never find it.

Plus, there are tags like "rape" that aren't just nice to have, they're unsafe not to provide...

I agree that the tags do give a nice extra to the synopsis, but I'd also argue that if the synopsis is not giving an accurate insight into the story, then there is a problem with that synopsis. (Sometimes that's because the author made a bad synopsis, other times it's because the story took a different turn than what the author originally planned... It happens I guess (happened to me actually! xD), but it's good to make a synopsis that accurately reflects your story)

In addition, out of the 4 tags you mentioned, 2 are actually genres (Girls Love and Gender Bender), which I think should always be applied to the appropriate novels. Then come the tags as complement, transgender and rape are both high relevance tags that I do agree that should always appear in whatever novels they are featured in, as they define the novel very well.

On the other hand, some tags like Weak to Strong feel completely unnecessary to me. It just feels like it will spoil the fact the originally weak character will become strong and beat others up. So I'd rather not have them added.

Others like Emotionally Weak Protagonist might show a characteristic of the MC that the reader should not know until they were in a certain point of the story where it became apparent. This would basically spoil an important thing that defines the MC and would change how the reader views their actions.

So uhn... I feel like tags should be used with care, you should add some basic stuff that says what your novel is about, but when you have 20+ tags, you're spoiling a lot of things with it IMO, which is not something I particularly like.

 

[Kldran]

I think the primary benefit of Weak to Strong as a tag, is that I know there are readers out there, who specifically look for stories about a character who rises up from the bottom to become powerful. It's a popular power fantasy.

As for the primary reason I have so few tags on my stories: I have no idea what to tag it with, and am way too lazy to read through the list.

 

[AliceShiki]

I think the primary benefit of Weak to Strong as a tag, is that I know there are readers out there, who specifically look for stories about a character who rises up from the bottom to become powerful. It's a popular power fantasy.

As for the primary reason I have so few tags on my stories: I have no idea what to tag it with, and am way too lazy to read through the list.

That's fair, it's just not a tag I'd personally like to add to my own stories~

... Well, my stories don't involve fighting usually though, so it's not like I'd ever need this tag! xD

 

[YuriDoggo]

I still think that we should be able to vote on tag relevance. See anilist's system. You can vote for a tag's relevance for a story (or add it), which then aggregates to a percentage. The higher the percentage, the more relevant/prominent the tag; the lower the percentage, it's possible that the tag is either wrong or doesn't feature much.

Of course, authors should have some control over it, and they should be able to hide tags behind spoilers. But if they are trying to hide something or bait, I believe the community should have the power to stop it.