Understanding dA's Prose Categories: Romantic & Erotic Fiction

Keep in mind, when submitting literature, that the category really does make a difference. Properly-categorized literature can result in better readers who are more inclined to like what you're offering because you're giving them exactly what they are looking for. Consequently, this also helps lessen the number of derogatory comments you might get based on someone's mistaken expectation of your work, style, or subject matter. The experience for a reader who runs into a miss-categorized text is similar to someone walking into the "Science Fiction and Fantasy" section of a book store and being confronted with tawdry romance novels; it's not a pleasant one.

Speaking of tawdry romance novels, this week *WordCount is exploring the Romantic and Erotic Fiction galleries on dA. Below you'll find the *WordCount take on deviantART's official category descriptions along with what we believe all that mumbo-jumbo really means (and a few examples to help illustrate our points).


What is Romantic Fiction?

What, exactly, falls under the "Romantic Fiction" gallery on deviantART? Romantic fiction deals with love in all its forms. You can love your dog, your favorite book, the picture on your wall, your best friend, your mom, your teacher, your enemy, your favorite city--just about anything involving that range of emotions, depending on how you want to define "love" at that very moment, is included in "Romantic" fiction. As you can see, it's a rather far-reaching gallery (which is why it has categories).


Cheap and Tawdry

"Cheap and Tawdry" is for anything where the sexual tension is the driving or underlying force and/or cause of the relationship, such as you have with one-night stands and married affairs. It deals more with the sexual side of love and relationships (better known as lust), though not always with the actual sex itself. If you are writing a story that is based less around the gooey, sappy, happy, lovey-dovey kind of love and more around the nitty-gritty, down-and-dirty, "take it all off" and "let it ride" sort of love, then it belongs in Cheap and Tawdry. In fact, Cheap and Tawdry even includes your typical "trashy" romance novel fodder, not unlike the serial novels you find in bookstores.

Here are several examples from this category in order to show the diversity capable between deviations:

Ted and Sylvia Who Are Not You And I by ~entropicalia

The Spunk Stories by ~LoveShotEyes

harder, faster & harder, faster II by ~unrescuable


Now, that doesn't mean "Cheap and Tawdry" is for porn or sexually-explicit material, it simply means that these stories deal with love that has a lot of sexual tension or characters that have undeniable (but perhaps not lasting) chemistry; this includes relationships that are passionate and gripping but may not last a lifetime. Romantic texts that feature affairs, cheating, temporary or "summer" flings, and other fleeting-but-real emotional love stories go here. Keep in mind that there can be sexual content in any of the categories, as sex often becomes a part of the "coupling" type of love, but stories that are more "sex based" than "romance based" belong in cheap and tawdry. As said, if you are talking about a college hook-up and the nitty-gritty of getting it on against the backdrop of the Frat scene, you're heading for "Cheap and Tawdry". If you're talking about the college hook-up where you meet on campus in Comp 101 and become close friends and have your first kiss during the crazy end-of-the-year Frat party and live happily ever after while riding a white horse into the sunset, you'd categorize that as something else entirely.

Yes, but what if it is a sex (or more sexually-explicit) story?

Well, then you'll want to check out the "Erotic Fiction" category.


Erotic Fiction

"Erotic" fiction is focused around the sexual act and not necessarily around the emotions or relationship quandaries that involve sex, lust and love. Stories that look at different fetishes or kinks, stories that delve deeper into sexual affairs (or purely sexual affairs) by describing and focusing on the actual sex, or prose that can almost be relegated to "soft core" porn are what you should find in "Erotic Fiction." It's "sexy" and focuses more on the body and its physical and psychological reactions to sex than on the physical and psychological nature of the relationship.

An example:

Secret Shopper by ~Whittyriffic

In fact, the major difference between "Cheap and Tawdry" and "Erotic Fiction" is that "Cheap and Tawdry" still concerns itself with the psychological and emotional elements of an affair (used generally) whereas "Erotic fiction" is often more concerned with the sexual and physical chemistry present in the sexual act. So, if you're writing with the relationship as your focus, it's "Cheap and Tawdry;" if your focus is getting down and dirty, it's "Erotic Fiction."

A brief warning: before you submit to the "Erotic Fiction" category, please make yourself familiar with FAQ #251: Why was my erotic literature removed?

Wait, wait: what does "mature" mean, then?


Mature Romantic Fiction

Mature romantic fiction doesn't mean "mature" in the sexual content sense or the "mature filter" sense; it actually refers to the age of the characters involved in the affair. If you are writing romance stories that deal with unmarried people who are in their later 20s or older (including 80 year old couples), then you are writing "Mature" romantic fiction. It's that simple. There can be sex involved, and parts of it may even be cheap and tawdry, but this category is reserved for true and "traditional" romance between the characters, and its focus is the romance and the relationship (and not simply the sexual chemistry). If you find that you are writing about older characters and the focus is an affair or more sexual in nature, you probably want to move it to the "cheap and tawdry" category.

An example:

Blank No More by ~emptyjester


Married Romantic Fiction

This category is probably the easiest to explain: this is where you place deviations that deal with romance between two people who are married. They can be any legally-married age, and there can be sexual elements to the story, but the crux of the text should focus on the romance and the relationship between the two characters. If you are writing about married "swingers" or a married person having an affair, you are probably going to want to drop that in the "Cheap and Tawdry" category as well. "Married" fiction deals primarily with the more "traditional" and "conservative" type of romantic relationship.^*

An example:

We by `bananaprincess

My characters are homosexuals in a long-term, committed relationship. I consider them married even if the law does not. How do I categorize that story?

This will be up to you. Married romantic fiction, at its core, deals with relationships that are supposed to be lifelong commitments; as such, there are many homosexual relationships that can fall into that category (and there are even places now that consider and enforce Civil Unions). Even so, be warned that there are people out there who do not recognize marriage between homosexual couples and might not think highly of your categorization or your story due to its content and characters. As such, "Mature" is also an entirely appropriate category for your story.


Teen Romance

Happily, this is quite simple: if your characters are college age (undergraduate studies) or younger, and you are not writing solely about sexual affairs or other lust-driven topics (think conservatively and traditionally, not unlike "married" romance), then your deviation belongs here. These deviations explore budding romance, "puppy" love, first loves, that one who got away (when you were younger), broken hearts in high school, and romantic relationships that either may or may not be on their way to marriage. As always, if you find that you are writing more about the sexual side of these affairs rather than the "love and romance" side, you probably want to list your deviation in the "Cheap and Tawdry" category. In that regard, if you are writing about a sexual relationship between teenagers, be sure that the age of your characters is appropriate for the content.

An example:

emotions with longer names by ~FriedPickles

Uh, so what does that leave?


General Romantic Fiction

As it says in dA's official category description, this category should be considered last. It includes anything not covered under the above categories. As such, there's no reason why your "first love" story, your "affair" story, your "old people with amnesia" story, your "homosexual coming out to his/her first love in a college dorm story" or your raunchy fan fiction (etc.) should be listed here. "General Romance" can deal with love affairs a person has with books or other objects, a truly deep and meaningful relationship someone has with a friend or relative (yes, platonic love), the platonic love someone has for a pet, a description of someone's love affair with nature, and even texts that involve or incorporate elements of the "Romantic Era" in literature. "General" romantic fiction concerns romance in general.

An example:

Cicada Song by ~SirCellophane


The bottom line is this: think before you list your deviation in a gallery. Don't drop something in "General Romantic Fiction" just because you're too lazy to consider another category. If you can't be bothered to take your writing seriously enough to place it in the correct category, why should anyone else?

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_{* Please note that "traditional" and "conservative" are not meant as moral or political terms, simply as stylistic descriptions; there is such a thing as a traditional or conservative romance story (think "Happily Ever After" and the like, or The Notebook--a story about the older couple who die together in bed). These categories make no distinction based on the supposed or apparent "morality" of any relationship, and one should not read that intent into the subdivisions.}

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Don't forget to read Giving Prose Visual Appeal; it's a style guide on how to format prose on dA.

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As always, constructive criticism or suggestions about how we can improve this article are definitely appreciated.