how much smut to be considered smut?

[John_Owl]

Let me clarify: How much of a story has to fit a genre before the story is considered to be "in" that genre?

If a story of 100 chapters has one scene, would that automatically classify it in the smut genre? or would it need to be graphically detailed? If every chapter had a "fade to black" moment, would that classify in the genre?

And for note, I'm hoping more for discussion than any actual hard and fast rules. I'm mostly just asking how far a series has to go into a genre to be considered part of the genre in your opinion. If I write a story about a normal teenager in america going to school, hanging with friends, but at night she signs in and plays a game. If the story is around an even split between her IRL and her playing the game, would that be considered a fantasy novel? no isekai, no full dive gear, etc. just a girl with a vivid imagination.

 

[Anonjohn20]

Let me clarify: How much of a story has to fit a genre before the story is considered to be "in" that genre?

If a story of 100 chapters has one scene, would that automatically classify it in the smut genre? or would it need to be graphically detailed? If every chapter had a "fade to black" moment, would that classify in the genre?

And for note, I'm hoping more for discussion than any actual hard and fast rules. I'm mostly just asking how far a series has to go into a genre to be considered part of the genre in your opinion. If I write a story about a normal teenager in america going to school, hanging with friends, but at night she signs in and plays a game. If the story is around an even split between her IRL and her playing the game, would that be considered a fantasy novel? no isekai, no full dive gear, etc. just a girl with a vivid imagination.

It might not be in the genre, but any story with erotic content should warn the reader beforehand. Some people are the opposite of me and avoid smut entirely.

 

[John_Owl]

It might not be in the genre, but any story with erotic content should warn the reader beforehand. Some people are the opposite of me and avoid smut entirely.

I wasn't just meaning smut, but any genre, really. But I do agree on the smut thing. That's why my stories are all labeled as 'smut', even before any smut chapters have been posted, and each chapter with a smut scene is individually labeled.

 

[Anonjohn20]

I wasn't just meaning smut, but any genre, really. But I do agree on the smut thing. That's why my stories are all labeled as 'smut', even before any smut chapters have been posted, and each chapter with a smut scene is individually labeled.

Well, back to your original question (sorry for the detour), I suppose that for it to be considered smut, it'd have to be part of the plot or at least the subplot. Simply having a few far-apart erotic scenes to either develop a character or immerse a reader into the world shouldn't count as a smut story. Even if it does turn it into an adult/mature/seinen story.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

If there is "smut" as a "detour" from the story, or even as part of it but not a defining trait, then it just needs the "Adult Content" tag/warning (tag overall if it happens occasionally, warning for specific chapters if it happens rarely or only once) IMO.
If the story is all about "smut" and plot and everything else is secondary to that, then it deserves the Smut tag from the start.

 

[AYM]

If at least 1 of 5 chapters on average contains succ

 

[LesserCodex]

If at least 1 of 5 chapters on average contains succ

I second this.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

If at least 1 of 5 chapters on average contains succ

So the Isekai/Gender Bender/Urban Fantasy novel I'm half-working on (at CH6 currently) BARELY makes the cut (roughly every four chapters)...

 

[soupsabaw]

I wouldn't label a 1 smut chapter of 100 other chapters a smut. Not label it as a complete genre, but it is involved in the story, so I think it should at least be included in the tags.

Speaking of, I've had a question I've been wondering for a while. I haven't reached the smut chapter yet in my story, but it's coming up, so I should get an answer: if you already have your story tagged as containing smut, do you have to have a warning at the chapter where it happens? It seems kind of redundant to me or as if it would break the flow of reading. Published books don't have warnings at the start of chapters. People read the tags and know what they're getting into.

 

[LilRora]

I don't think it's possible to quantify a general rule, since different genres refer to different aspects of stories. So like, a tragedy or a slice of life are tagged as such because of plot, but science fiction and supernatural are what they are mostly because of the setting - the plot matters as well since it can interact with different elements of the world, but it is much less important.

In general, I could say that for worldbuilding-related genres the setting has to at least loosely fit the definition. For the plot, however, it does not only matter how much of matching content there is, but also how you approach it. Personally I prefer to consider all that on a case to case basis, but as a rule of thumb, if a major plot or world element (not scene, because length is secondary here) fits the genre, then the story should be tagged with it. This is very convenient because if something is not important in the story, we tend not to describe it in detail and generally move past it quicker.

So for your second example, yes, to me it is fantasy. It does not truly matter how much of the book is dedicated to the other world - what is important is that it is a major element of the story.

Things get a bit iffy in special cases, for example if there is some big potentially genre-changing reveal at the very end of the story, but there's no point being too specific here; better consider edge cases individually.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

My thought on this matter is that I think of genre as something similar to theme.

You can have something in your story (like romance) without actually exploring it like a theme. So even if the MC of a story gets a girlfriend or gets married by the end of it, that doesn't necessarily make it a romance story. I might tag it as romance, but not put it as a genre.

So on a more practical level, I'm thinking that a genre needs to be present from (near) start to (near) finish of a story. If it's only present at the start of the story, or only becomes relevant halfway through the story, then I'd say you probably aren't writing the genre correctly.

So take the example of isekai. If it's only isekai for the first 3 chapters then you switch it to generic fantasy? You've done the isekai genre wrong. Also, I think most of us might have read a story where it suddenly changes tune halfway through. Isn't it very jarring when that happens?

The other thing I can think of is that you as the author need to make a conscious effort to actually incorperate it into the story. Maybe that sounds obvious, but you can't write a theme without taking time to think it through properly.

So if we take the fantasy example:

If the story is around an even split between her IRL and her playing the game, would that be considered a fantasy novel? no isekai, no full dive gear, etc. just a girl with a vivid imagination.

It would only be a fantasy story if you sat down and decided to yourself that you were going to write it like a fantasy story.

 

[John_Owl]

So if we take the fantasy example:

It would only be a fantasy story if you sat down and decided to yourself that you were going to write it like a fantasy story.

Well, in the listed example, I was thinking it'd be a fairly even split. Like, the fantasy segments would be presented as if it were a fantasy world. But the IRL segments would delve more into her life like modern slice-of-life. The whole story overall would be from her POV as she sees it.

So on a more practical level, I'm thinking that a genre needs to be present from (near) start to (near) finish of a story. If it's only present at the start of the story, or only becomes relevant halfway through the story, then I'd say you probably aren't writing the genre correctly.

So take the example of isekai. If it's only isekai for the first 3 chapters then you switch it to generic fantasy? You've done the isekai genre wrong. Also, I think most of us might have read a story where it suddenly changes tune halfway through. Isn't it very jarring when that happens?

but with this in mind, I don't write smut (as a genre) properly, since while there is sex scattered throughout, it's not the central focus. It's just a tool either to advance characters itself or to show the reader growing and blossoming relationships

 

[Tsuru]

Hm..................
I had a definition, but after reading first 2-3 posts ("Some people are the opposite of me and avoid smut entirely.") i have a better one (and thx to an anime post once asking "keep it wholesome plz")



Basically,
(imagine) showing the story to a kid. The innocent kind that dont know the world or the "flowers and the bees".
If you or a normal person think "its bad, they cant read this PARTICULAR romance scene" then yes its smut.

Though then there is a question about the blurrity and definition of "smut VS ecchi" which is another debate to talk that we will skip.
(like pantsu bc of falling, or armpits)

 

[OokamiKasumi]

... How much of a story has to fit a genre before the story is considered to be "in" that genre?

If you're talking about Scribble Hub genres...
~~~~~~~~~~~
-- If it has 40% smut or less, it's Mature.
-- If it has 50% smut it's Adult.
-- If it has 60% smut or more, it's Smut.

As for the other genres...

A story's Genre is usually defined by the core Conflict.
~~~~~~~~~~~
-- The Core Conflict in a Mystery is the search for the Truth.
-- The Core Conflict in a Romance is two people struggling with their feelings for each other.
-- The Core Conflict in a Smut story is the search for partners specifically to get laid.
-- The Core Conflict in a Gamer story is the Competition between video game players and guilds.
-- The Core Conflict in a Slice of Life is the Drama of Daily Living.
-- The Core Conflict in a Sci-Fi is (supposed to be) how Technology and Science affects the world and/or humanity.
-- The Core Conflict in a Fantasy is (supposed to be) how Magic affects the world and/or humanity.

However, the Setting can also define a story's genre.

Sci-Fi, Historicals, Contemporary AKA: Slice of Life, and Fantasy all tend to be defined by their Setting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Star Wars, for example, is in fact a Fantasy, but since the Setting has space ships and robots, it's considered Sci-Fi, even though the Core Conflict is not about the Effects of Technology and Science at all. The Main Conflicts in the Star Wars movies are battles between Force Users, Light vs Dark.

The Force --> Magic.

In fact, if you removed all the sci-fi trappings from Star Wars, you'd have a perfectly viable Cultivation story.

 

[DireBadger]

it sucks when you write a story that only barely meets any tags. Superhero drama, for example, is hard to tag because it mostly has a variety of plotlines, none of which really encompass what you are writing.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

it sucks when you write a story that only barely meets any tags. Superhero drama, for example, is hard to tag because it mostly has a variety of plotlines, none of which really encompass what you are writing.

Haven't had that problem here but one site I literally could not post anything to because anything that fit neatly into one of their tags had content that violated their terms of service.

 

[sbdrag]

I wouldn't label a 1 smut chapter of 100 other chapters a smut. Not label it as a complete genre, but it is involved in the story, so I think it should at least be included in the tags.

Speaking of, I've had a question I've been wondering for a while. I haven't reached the smut chapter yet in my story, but it's coming up, so I should get an answer: if you already have your story tagged as containing smut, do you have to have a warning at the chapter where it happens? It seems kind of redundant to me or as if it would break the flow of reading. Published books don't have warnings at the start of chapters. People read the tags and know what they're getting into.

depends - if it's very rare, it can give an opportunity to people who don't like smut at all to skip the chapter and still enjoy the rest of the work (some do this). while I don't have header warnings for most of my smut chapters, I have two characters into BDSM, so I give a warning for their chapters since that can be really hit or miss for people and it's not really within the norm of the rest of the story, which is about as vanilla as you can get with sentient plants and non-human anatomy.

some published books actually do give by chapter warnings - usually, they post them on their website so people can look it up, rather than in the book itself.

so I guess my bottom line is: if it's something that's unexpected from just the tags or the general tone of the story, a chapter header warning can be useful even if it's technically covered by the tags in preventing readers from running into something they don't like to read and possibly dropping the story from getting surprised in a bad way. if it's fully covered by the tags and inline with the general tone of the story, chapter header warnings can still be helpful to people wanting to skip those specific chapters, but are more up to you whether you think you'll have a significant amount of readers that will want to skip.

there actually are people who don't read tags before starting a story, but if you don't read tags and then complain about things covered in the tags, that's a you problem lol

 

[soupsabaw]

depends - if it's very rare, it can give an opportunity to people who don't like smut at all to skip the chapter and still enjoy the rest of the work (some do this). while I don't have header warnings for most of my smut chapters, I have two characters into BDSM, so I give a warning for their chapters since that can be really hit or miss for people and it's not really within the norm of the rest of the story, which is about as vanilla as you can get with sentient plants and non-human anatomy.

some published books actually do give by chapter warnings - usually, they post them on their website so people can look it up, rather than in the book itself.

so I guess my bottom line is: if it's something that's unexpected from just the tags or the general tone of the story, a chapter header warning can be useful even if it's technically covered by the tags in preventing readers from running into something they don't like to read and possibly dropping the story from getting surprised in a bad way. if it's fully covered by the tags and inline with the general tone of the story, chapter header warnings can still be helpful to people wanting to skip those specific chapters, but are more up to you whether you think you'll have a significant amount of readers that will want to skip.

there actually are people who don't read tags before starting a story, but if you don't read tags and then complain about things covered in the tags, that's a you problem lol

Ah, I see! Good points, thank you. I'll keep them in mind

 

[CharlesEBrown]

How much smut would a wood smut smut if a wood smut could smut smut?