Why do people ask for a an editor then .....

Tigersman

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Jun 3, 2014
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I recently was greeted as a new volunteer editor. I replied to several requests for an editor which I responded to quickly. Only two or three sent a reply and later their stories. So far I have responded to several more requests only to never hear from them again. Why do some people even ask for an editor when they fail to respond to an Editor's acceptance if they are not going to follow through. They do not have the curtesy to tell you your services are no longer needed or that they have not finished their story. It really gets to be old fast. It's because of this I think their are so few people willing to edit stories.
 
I don't know about previously, Tigersman, but I've got say that every one of your posts today has had serious punctuation problems, and that may be why help seekers will shy away from you now.
 
Punctuation

I may have not punctuated my post correctly but I can guarantee you I did punctuate my college papers good enough to get A's on the majority of them.
 
If you want folks to believe in your capabilities, you have to demonstrate them when you advertise them. This post from you isn't punctuated correctly either. (Commercial fiction isn't the same as college papers, incidentally.)
 
Differences in editing

If a person writes a story for commercial publication, the person will most likely try to find a professional editor or submit the story to a publishing house which normally has their own editors to review the story.

In regard to college papers, those papers are written to receive the highest grade possible in order to obtain the highest GPA. Once the student has graduated, the student will include their GPA on their resume in hoping the GPA will help them obtain the highest paying position possible to earn a living.

All you seem to want to do is side step the question I asked. If you can not answer the question then do not post.
 
You'll have to ask your question again then, because I didn't see a question I didn't respond to. I responded to the only question I saw that you asked.

College papers and commercial fiction (I call it commercial fiction not because it has to sell, but because that's what erotica stories posted here are in form) are entirely different animals.

That isn't the major point. Guess it's time to be blunt. Your grasp of punctuation sucks, as demonstrated in each and every posting you registered here in recent days--even in terms of college papers. It would suck for college papers; it sucks for fiction; and it certainly sucks for forum posts trying to attract writers needing an edit. Anyone who thinks you can help them with theirs is probably self-delusional.

Does that still come across as sidestepping?

At some point someone has to look out for the writers seeking useful help here.
 
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Tigersman

I don't think there's a huge dearth of people willing to edit here. When there is a shortage, it's generally because people's real lives get in the way of their Literotica life. That's likely what has happened with many of those writers as well.

Now, on to sr71plt's point:
Out of courtesy, those of us who post here don't normally jump on each other's usage and spelling errors or chide one another for clunky sentence structure. Once you put yourself out there as an editor, though, you need to write your posts like an editor; especially when you're posting about your frustration with writers.

If you were a writer in search of an editor, you probably wouldn't immediately accept the first reply to your request for help. Instead, you would look at that person's stories and discussion board posts. After all, anyone can send a pm claiming to be the guru of grammar and the swami of spelling.

With that in mind, look at the first post in this thread. There's a question ending with a period, a misspelled word (courtesy), and a confused homophone (their instead of there). In the second sentence, you both "replied" and "responded quickly" to requests for an editor---not technically wrong, but you probably would correct it in a story you were editing. Go back over that post with an editor's eye, and I think you'll see sr71plt's point.
 
I
If you were a writer in search of an editor, you probably wouldn't immediately accept the first reply to your request for help. Instead, you would look at that person's stories and discussion board posts. After all, anyone can send a pm claiming to be the guru of grammar and the swami of spelling.

Would that that were true. But it doesn't appear to be true here on Literotica. Writers seem to be jumping at any hope or opportunity to trust their work to anyone who just says they are an editor, without doing even the checking they could do--even when the claimed "editor" demonstrates a lack of fundamental usage skill themselves. That's what happened here. In the middle of the challenge on capability, this "editor" picked up an editorial assignment from this forum.

I've suggested that folks look for a second pair of eyes (and even to work share on this) as being both realistic for posting at Literotica and to catch some glaring problems that every writer leaves in their work because their mind "knows" it conveyed something that their hands didn't transfer to the keyboard.

But this is an instance where even a second pair of eyes, as the posts reflected, wouldn't help with fundamentals.
 
Would that that were true. But it doesn't appear to be true here on Literotica. Writers seem to be jumping at any hope or opportunity to trust their work to anyone who just says they are an editor, without doing even the checking they could do--even when the claimed "editor" demonstrates a lack of fundamental usage skill themselves.

On that point, I think I may have been projecting myself onto others. In the past thirty years, I've been in work cultures that were all about attention to detail and verification of everything, even that which someone else claimed was good-to-go. You're probably right: It's wrong to assume (those word go together so often) every writer would double check before accepting an editor.
 
I don't get the impression that even a few of them do any checking here. Or that there aren't folks here who are shy about saying they can edit the works of others without a stitch of editorial knowledge. The Web site makes that easy to do.
 
I sent you my future submission Tigersman and was hoping for a reply email verifying you received it ... it gives me an idea for a timeline on when I'll get a reply. I figure at least week.

You know, I never did any checking of Tigersman's work, I took the first offer from a volunteer editor, which hopefully won't be a bad thing. Given that people weren't jumping at the chance to read my master piece (haha) I see no reason in giving him a chance.

Live and learn, for the better I hope.

As far as grammar in a forum, I don't think it's a big deal, though asking for samples of their editing work is an idea I'll follow in the future, if I stick with it and don't decide to just triple check everything and then check my work one more time.

As far as people no following through, giving your work to a complete stranger may not sit well with them once they began or in their eagerness to submit something, they may have asked 10 people and taken whoever replied first.
 
I wouldn't give samples of actual edited work. The work doesn't belong to me. I'd suggest you go read what they've posted to Literotica. If they haven't posted any stories to Literotica, they are suspect for this situation. In the mainstream, of course, the job of a writer and editor are different and there legitimately are editors who don't have their own writing to show (and even if they did, they too, need an editor). But in the mainstream, there's actually verifiable training and experience an editor can and should show. Here, it's just example that can be shown, so having their own well-presented stories--preferably in the genres involved--becomes more important.

The kicker here, though, is that the more help a writer needs in terms of editing, the less they would know was destructive rather than constructive editing.

And I disagree on proper use of grammar and punctuation not being important in posts by folks advertising themselves as editors here. That should be the first clue to you on what they know about grammar and punctuation (assuming you're good enough at it to realize how good/bad they are with it in those posts. Rather a Catch-22).
 
All editors and authors make mistakes in thread comments for various reasons. To make thread comments a win or lose criteria for editors, or authors, on a free erotica site is ridiculous.
 
They don't make them continually in every post they post.

Are you ever planning to show concern for the writers? It's simply not true that a bad editor is better than no editor at all. And you should be ashamed of yourself for a post like this for the lack of concern that a charlatan will likely make a writer's presentation even worse than it was before--and they'll likely never know it happened to them.
 
They don't make them continually in every post they post.

Are you ever planning to show concern for the writers? It's simply not true that a bad editor is better than no editor at all. And you should be ashamed of yourself for a post like this for the lack of concern that a charlatan will likely make a writer's presentation even worse than it was before--and they'll likely never know it happened to them.

Get over yourself. There are good writers and good editors on Lit. Thread comments mean jack shit about anyone's editing or writing capabilities. Take your comments, for example. You have gone out of your way to be an asshole to both writers and editors on Lit for no reason, really, other than to present yourself as God's gift to Lit as an editor and author. Most people have you igged.

BTW, I dedicated another song to you.

:kiss:
 
You always post in support of self-appointed VE editors, LadyV, like you're afraid that protecting the writers would reveal you to be a charlatan editor too. ;)
 
You always post in support of self-appointed VE editors, LadyV, like you're afraid that protecting the writers would reveal you to be a charlatan editor too. ;)

:) You are a broken record. I'm currently listening to Stevie Wonder. I Just Called to Say I Love You. :eek:
 
Get over yourself. There are good writers and good editors on Lit. Thread comments mean jack shit about anyone's editing or writing capabilities.

Anyone can put their name on the VE list or the monthly available to edit thread. If they cannot take the extra time to use proper punctuation and grammar in a post, then why not question their editing capabilities?
 
I sent you my future submission Tigersman and was hoping for a reply email verifying you received it ... it gives me an idea for a timeline on when I'll get a reply. I figure at least week.

You know, I never did any checking of Tigersman's work, I took the first offer from a volunteer editor, which hopefully won't be a bad thing. Given that people weren't jumping at the chance to read my master piece (haha) I see no reason in giving him a chance.

Live and learn, for the better I hope.

As far as grammar in a forum, I don't think it's a big deal, though asking for samples of their editing work is an idea I'll follow in the future, if I stick with it and don't decide to just triple check everything and then check my work one more time.

As far as people no following through, giving your work to a complete stranger may not sit well with them once they began or in their eagerness to submit something, they may have asked 10 people and taken whoever replied first.

Very good point mate. I wish he had the time to edit my story. Good Luck.
 
From your posting on punctuation and grammar on the AH, FI, I think you might be right that it would be just the "editor" you are looking for. ;)
 
Anyone can put their name on the VE list or the monthly available to edit thread. If they cannot take the extra time to use proper punctuation and grammar in a post, then why not question their editing capabilities?

I might add "in every post they post"--not just one or two posts. If nearly every attempt at punctuation fails over a series of posts, why doesn't this signal that they can't help anyone else with punctuation?
 
Anyone can put their name on the VE list or the monthly available to edit thread. If they cannot take the extra time to use proper punctuation and grammar in a post, then why not question their editing capabilities?

Every Lit editor and writer has made grammatical errors in their public comments, even you, and Pilot. To make public comments on Lit a criteria for editing capabilities, or writing capabilities, is ridiculous on a free erotica site. This would mean that every Lit editor and writer would be incompetent.

Some editors and writers are more grammatically incorrect than others in comments, and what's weird is, these are the ones who usually go out of their way to point out others' errors.
 
I might add "in every post they post"--not just one or two posts. If nearly every attempt at punctuation fails over a series of posts, why doesn't this signal that they can't help anyone else with punctuation?

It should. And that could read e-mail or PM just as well since not everyone follows the forums.

Every Lit editor and writer has made grammatical errors in their public comments, even you, and Pilot. To make public comments on Lit a criteria for editing capabilities, or writing capabilities, is ridiculous on a free erotica site. This would mean that every Lit editor and writer would be incompetent.

Some editors and writers are more grammatically incorrect than others in comments, and what's weird is, these are the ones who usually go out of their way to point out others' errors.

You are the only one who mentioned making public comments on Lit a criteria for editing capabilities . . .
 
LadyVer keeps just trying to ignore that I wasn't talking about making an occasional mistake in a post, which, yes, we all do. I have continually pointed to mistaking proper punctuation in each and every one of several postings. There's nothing occasional or competent about consistent failure to use proper punctuation no matter where it's done--and what this signals as the probability of possessing editorial expertise in a system where a squirrel could sign up to be a VE if they were lucky enough to click on the right computer keys.

But it all just comes down to LadyVer only having posted to begin with to razz me. Not a bit of concern about the writers here when she's in her "jab at sr71plt" mode. She sees anyone showing actual editorial expertise on the Web site as a threat to her apparently. Not hard to guess why.

It simply is not true that a bad editor is better than no editor.
 
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