Best Way to Contact Laurel re Rejected Story

So what is the protocol for asking Laurel for feedback on a rejected story? I think it’s sending a PM, but I sometimes see people saying they sent an email.

Sending a PM and taking your chances, I guess. The book on them opening e-mails has, for more than a decade, been that they don't, and no one has claimed on the board to have gotten through to them with anything but direct PMs. Best of luck.

KenNicottii said:

So what is the protocol for asking Laurel for feedback on a rejected story? I think it’s sending a PM, but I sometimes see people saying they sent an email.

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To the best of my knowledge, Laurel does not respond to email. Use PM.

In most cases, you really should just fix the problems as best you understand them and resubmit the story with notes about the changes. It might be too much to expect Laurel to engage in discussion.

Agree that making adjustments and put discussion in the notes section and/or just put discussion in the notes section and refiling might work the best.

I’ve been an avid consumer of this forum going back several years before my 2013 registration date (although I only post intermittently), so I always read any threads that deal with underage sex. I had no intention of slipping something by, based on my understanding of the rules. And I realize that the standards might not be consistently enforced due to numerous reasons, primarily the sheer volume of submissions.

It’s set at a high school reunion (20 years after graduation); and there’s no action that happens back in the high school time frame, although the narrator/male main character has remembrances from that era.

A female main character who got pregnant in her senior year and had to drop out attends the reunion. My assumption was that she was 18 when she had sex, but I never explicitly stated this – which is one of my proposed remedies (in an author’s note before the story begins). The narrator only kissed the FMC when he dated her back then.

My high school was in a school district that only allowed kids to enter the 1st grade who had already turned 6, so my fellow seniors started turning 18 as soon as the semester started. And statistically, almost 75% were 18 by graduation. There’s definitely a possibility of the FMC being 18 when she had sex.

The other possible issue is the MMC remembering getting aroused when he danced with her, which would have been when they were under 18. He also mentions her developing early and noticing this when they danced. These remembrances could be purged, but it would be helpful to know what the problem area(s) is/are so I don’t go chopping out things that are OK.

I suppose I could revise conservatively, knowing that it could take a few iterations to clear out the problems. I would summarize the changes in the notes to Laurel, as you have mentioned.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Laurel only has time to scan and suppose in many cases. I've had a couple of rejections for underage that didn't contain underage. I just sent it back with the note that there was no underage in it and could she point to the specific instance if she thought there was. They were posted by her with no further question or problem. You might have the same situation. If you don't think there is underage, just state that in the notes section and ask her to point to what she thinks is underage and needs to be fixed.

KenNicottii said:

The other possible issue is the MMC remembering getting aroused when he danced with her, which would have been when they were under 18. He also mentions her developing early and noticing this when they danced.

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I expect this is enough to get it bounced. Whether or not that is acceptable depends on how descriptive you were.

Unless this has changed in the last few years, when a story is rejected, you can click on the "rejected" notice and it will respond with the reason. For some reason, this was stated as a question, but there was no problem understanding it.

Just make the changes and resubmit the story.

Boxlicker101 said:

Unless this has changed in the last few years, when a story is rejected, you can click on the "rejected" notice and it will respond with the reason. For some reason, this was stated as a question, but there was no problem understanding it.

Just make the changes and resubmit the story.

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The site uses a range of standard rejection notices, all of which are couched as questions.

As you say, address the questions, determine relevance to your story, edit your content as appropriate and as required, and resubmit.

Don't expect dialogue with Laurel, don't expect anything specific to your story - they are generic responses covering (from what I've gleaned from these threads) the broad areas:

- grammar, dialogue, spelling
- suspected under age
- suspected rape or non-con without eventual satisfaction for the victim
- suspected gratuitous sexual violence including snuff
- suspected bestiality (non-human excluded)

These are the ones most commonly queried here on AH.

I did get an unsolicited PM from Laurel addressing the story rejection within 24 hours of the send-back. It included instructions on how to resubmit, and it referenced links to posts with more info re the reasons for rejection. This may have been an auto response (or close to it), but it did have an encouraging tone.

As electricblue66 and Boxlicker101 stated, the original rejection notice had the ‘questionnaire’ that ticked off reasons for underage sex deal-breakers, but ultimately I had to parse these guidelines and try to apply them to my story edit.

I realized I had to find my own way on this w/o any specifics from Laurel (e.g., ‘Take out the paragraph that talks about X, and you’ll be fine.’). I figured the best approach was to calm down and wait a few days before re-reading the m/s with an eye toward making what I thought would be enough changes, even if I ended up editing things that weren’t a problem.

The process wasn’t too painful, but the changes did require some additional rewriting as the edits affected other content in the story. And the new content had to undergo several revisions as if it were part of a brand new story – some of the edits were lame and/or awkward on first (and subsequent) reading(s).

The VEs now have the excerpted passages that were changed, and I hope to resubmit next week.

Good news! The story made it through after my edits, and it went up earlier today. My first submission in the Mature category:

"Queen of Diamonds" - An old friend brings her daughter to the high school reunion.

Thanks for all the info and support.