Old story teller needs editorial help

gregscott

Wanna B Story Teller
Joined
Mar 22, 2018
Posts
14
My Pen name is Greg Scott .
An explanation of this name is in order.
Greg Scott was my best friend and confidant for 46 years .

(I guess you can't talk about how best friends went thru puberty)

Removed ~~ Discussing underage sex

Greg would call me at 3 in the morning just to Talk .I have a wife and 4 kids and he would still call. My wife would say to me when the phone rang at 3 am its either Greg or someone died. We would talk for hours on the phone about everything in our lives . Greg Passed away a couple of years ago and I find myself with some stories to tell and I am in need of someone to listen to them , love them ,hate them , edit them .

I am a lowly Carpenter that has somehow climbed up the Chain of command to own my own Construction company. I graduated high school
but the only Excelsior Educere I received was from the smoky end of a joint.
I am no writer but I believe I have a
gift for story telling. I get caught up in how much detail to put here or there.How to write in a past tense or a present tense form .How many explanations for who is speaking in the story.
"Sally said " Jim Remarked "

I will stop Rambling and ask you if you would be interested in editing a story for me .
I have written it in 2 forms
One as an incest based mother ,Son Story and the second was 18 year old boy and his 26 year old care taker. (a little longer with different ending)

It is about a 45 minute read for readers , or 1 hour for Shleps like me that have to chew on every word before they can flip a page.

I will await your reply with
abject modesty on all 4's with my head down ass up.
Ready for a severe thrashing for my mockery of the English language.
Greg Scott

Ps I now have another story that just fell out of my arse .
 
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Be sure the son is at least 18 in the one that is incest based mother/son.
 
Thanks
I'll remember that and I appreciate the feedback.

I got red lettered for talking about my pubescent days.
I laughed when I looked at my posts and then yours .
48,000 to 1
 
An anonymous reply

This message contains feedback for:
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Comments:

You say, "Ready for a severe thrashing for my mockery of the English language."
You will get that thrashing since you appear to be functionally illiterate, for which there is no excuse. Try opening and reading a book to at least figure out how to use the most basic punctuation and how to stop capitalizing random words. Depressing.

(I love honest feedback , For I'm a Shiite Writer)




Tell me this , is a story more important than its spelling and punctuation's.
If the plot and story line are well done, the story flows and the characters develop and grow in your mind, is that not the most important part of writing. Weaving a story in someone's mind that makes them beg to read the next page .

Maybe I'm a uneducated fool or an illiterate dreamer but I can tell a good yarn and a great joke to large audiences, and no one ever has asked me to correct my
oral spelling or punctuation's .

No , I cant spell but I know there are wonderful editors out there that have trouble writing and just maybe they could help me with mine.
 
Well, that was some rough feedback.

Tell me this , is a story more important than its spelling and punctuation's.
If the plot and story line are well done, the story flows and the characters develop and grow in your mind, is that not the most important part of writing. Weaving a story in someone's mind that makes them beg to read the next page ..

I think the story is more important than spelling and punctuation, but there are limits. Poor spelling and punctuation make a story hard to read and if there's too much then people may not read very far into it.
 
An anonymous reply

This message contains feedback for:
This feedback was sent by: Anonymous

Comments:

You say, "Ready for a severe thrashing for my mockery of the English language."
You will get that thrashing since you appear to be functionally illiterate, for which there is no excuse. Try opening and reading a book to at least figure out how to use the most basic punctuation and how to stop capitalizing random words. Depressing.

(I love honest feedback , For I'm a Shiite Writer)




Tell me this , is a story more important than its spelling and punctuation's.
If the plot and story line are well done, the story flows and the characters develop and grow in your mind, is that not the most important part of writing. Weaving a story in someone's mind that makes them beg to read the next page .

Maybe I'm a uneducated fool or an illiterate dreamer but I can tell a good yarn and a great joke to large audiences, and no one ever has asked me to correct my
oral spelling or punctuation's .

No , I cant spell but I know there are wonderful editors out there that have trouble writing and just maybe they could help me with mine.
 
I can excuse a few mistakes. But if there are too many, I won't read it.
 
NW is right. Poor spelling and punctuation make reading a story difficult. A story doesn't flow if the reader has to stop and figure out what the next word is.

Telling a story isn't the same as reading one.

I'm not sure how you would correct oral punctuation though. I don't even know what that is, to be honest.
 
Sometimes it can make a big difference and changes the meaning of the sentence.

Classic example:
1. I love her, period.
2. I love her period.

One comma changes the whole sentence.
 
Sometimes it can make a big difference and changes the meaning of the sentence.

Classic example:
1. I love her, period.
2. I love her period.

One comma changes the whole sentence.

So does one period. ;)
 
I guess you can't talk about how best friends went thru puberty
You can, but in no more detail than you have stated in the sentence just quoted.

You just can't describe the sexual aspects in any detail - e.g.: "I lost my virginity at sixteen" will pass, a detailed account won't.
 
Tell me this , is a story more important than its spelling and punctuation's.
If the plot and story line are well done, the story flows and the characters develop and grow in your mind, is that not the most important part of writing. Weaving a story in someone's mind that makes them beg to read the next page.
Both are important. A good story is vital, but if poor writing gets in the way of the telling, then you've got a problem.

Writers need to have a reasonable command of the technical fundamentals of writing - grammar, punctuation, spelling. Nobody achieves 100% perfection, but you should always strive for the best possible copy you can.
 
I agree

and with today's grammar/spelling software, there is no excuse, really, for not editing out basic mistakes.

Although, perhaps Literotica should consider an audio stand alone version of it's stories as there is the audio function available with text versions. That would help for those authors out there who are good with storytelling but not writing.
 
and with today's grammar/spelling software, there is no excuse, really, for not editing out basic mistakes.

Although, perhaps Literotica should consider an audio stand alone version of it's stories as there is the audio function available with text versions. That would help for those authors out there who are good with storytelling but not writing.
You can post audio stories already on Lit. There are many contributors who only do audio, others offer both the text and the audio.

Audio text readers need good copy for them to work fluently - there are several blind writers about who I'm sure will have advice on the better readers available, and what their parsing capabilities are like. I occasionally use a text reader as part of my proofing. If the bot stumbles, it's coz the text has errors.
 
Your anon commenter is a jerk, but they have a point...

Tell me this , is a story more important than its spelling and punctuation's.

Once upon a time there was a man whose head was full of fantastic images, and he wanted to share them with other people, so he decided to become a painter. He went down to the art supply store, bought himself some paints and canvas, and spent hours painting the images that were in his head.

Problem was, he didn't know the boring technical details. He used paints that wouldn't stick to the canvas; he used paints that faded into the canvas; he used paints that reacted with one another and changed colours. None of this affected his enjoyment of the painting - he knew exactly how it should look - but it stopped other people from seeing the picture he meant to show them, because they were too distracted by the cracking, faded, weirdly-coloured paints.

That's how the technical elements (spelling, punctuation, grammar) are for a written story. They can't make a good story, but they certainly can break it for the readers.

When a story's well written, I flow through it without effort. I don't have to stop and think about individual words. Punctuation and grammar are like signposts that guide me through, helping me see how each word fits in the story. But when I have to stop and think "is he talking about multiple dogs, or about something the dog is doing, or something that belongs to the dog?" then I'm not immersed in your story any more. I lose the enjoyment of the story, and reading it becomes a lot more work.

Unfortunately, there are also a lot of assholes who use SPAG as an excuse to sneer at somebody who didn't have the same education. That doesn't help anybody. But just because those assholes have hijacked the issue doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

No , I cant spell but I know there are wonderful editors out there that have trouble writing and just maybe they could help me with mine.

Usually there are more writers looking for editors than vice versa on this board, so editors get to be choosy about who they're editing for. I can't speak for other editors, but for me, one of the criteria that affects that choice is whether the writer is respectful of my time.

Fixing other people's punctuation isn't exactly the most thrilling thing any of us could be doing. Plenty of editors will do it all the same as a kindness, to encourage other writers. But that kindness gets sour pretty quickly if it feels like the writer is making unnecessary work for us.

It might take a writer an hour to read up on something like how to punctuate dialogue. But once they've put in that investment, it benefits all their future stories. On the other hand, if they don't put in that effort, they are creating unnecessary work for everybody who edits for them, because every time they write a new story it'll have the same mistakes in it. Mistakes that could've been prevented.

If I'm editing for an author who keeps making the same mistake, I'm going to flag it once, explain what the issue is and what they should be doing, and leave them to fix up all the other incidences of that same mistake. If they still don't want to learn, I'll find somebody else to edit for.

If I'm getting paid to edit (which I sometimes do, outside Literotica), that's another matter. People want to pay me instead of learning how to do it right, that's their choice. But even there, the more effort I'm putting into fixing trivial punctuation-type stuff, the harder it is for me to catch more subtle problems. The better the quality of the story you give your editor, the better their work will be.
 
I guess its time to do some homework.

I thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

What I am hearing is that I should get off my lazy ass and take some time to learn the basics of punctuation and grammar. No editor wants to edit for a lazy Writer
who albeit is smart enough to write a story but to ignorant or lazy to learn the ways of writing. I suppose a few hours spent on grammar and punctuation training could be in my future.
 
I guess its time to do some homework.

I thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

What I am hearing is that I should get off my lazy ass and take some time to learn the basics of punctuation and grammar. No editor wants to edit for a lazy Writer
who albeit is smart enough to write a story but to ignorant or lazy to learn the ways of writing. I suppose a few hours spent on grammar and punctuation training could be in my future.
 
Your anon commenter is a jerk, but they have a point...



Once upon a time there was a man whose head was full of fantastic images, and he wanted to share them with other people, so he decided to become a painter. He went down to the art supply store, bought himself some paints and canvas, and spent hours painting the images that were in his head.

Problem was, he didn't know the boring technical details. He used paints that wouldn't stick to the canvas; he used paints that faded into the canvas; he used paints that reacted with one another and changed colours. None of this affected his enjoyment of the painting - he knew exactly how it should look - but it stopped other people from seeing the picture he meant to show them, because they were too distracted by the cracking, faded, weirdly-coloured paints.

That's how the technical elements (spelling, punctuation, grammar) are for a written story. They can't make a good story, but they certainly can break it for the readers.

When a story's well written, I flow through it without effort. I don't have to stop and think about individual words. Punctuation and grammar are like signposts that guide me through, helping me see how each word fits in the story. But when I have to stop and think "is he talking about multiple dogs, or about something the dog is doing, or something that belongs to the dog?" then I'm not immersed in your story any more. I lose the enjoyment of the story, and reading it becomes a lot more work.

Unfortunately, there are also a lot of assholes who use SPAG as an excuse to sneer at somebody who didn't have the same education. That doesn't help anybody. But just because those assholes have hijacked the issue doesn't mean it doesn't matter.



Usually there are more writers looking for editors than vice versa on this board, so editors get to be choosy about who they're editing for. I can't speak for other editors, but for me, one of the criteria that affects that choice is whether the writer is respectful of my time.

Fixing other people's punctuation isn't exactly the most thrilling thing any of us could be doing. Plenty of editors will do it all the same as a kindness, to encourage other writers. But that kindness gets sour pretty quickly if it feels like the writer is making unnecessary work for us.

It might take a writer an hour to read up on something like how to punctuate dialogue. But once they've put in that investment, it benefits all their future stories. On the other hand, if they don't put in that effort, they are creating unnecessary work for everybody who edits for them, because every time they write a new story it'll have the same mistakes in it. Mistakes that could've been prevented.

If I'm editing for an author who keeps making the same mistake, I'm going to flag it once, explain what the issue is and what they should be doing, and leave them to fix up all the other incidences of that same mistake. If they still don't want to learn, I'll find somebody else to edit for.

If I'm getting paid to edit (which I sometimes do, outside Literotica), that's another matter. People want to pay me instead of learning how to do it right, that's their choice. But even there, the more effort I'm putting into fixing trivial punctuation-type stuff, the harder it is for me to catch more subtle problems. The better the quality of the story you give your editor, the better their work will be.

I thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

What I am hearing is that I should get off my lazy ass and take some time to learn the basics of punctuation and grammar. No editor wants to edit for a lazy Writer
who albeit is smart enough to write a story but to ignorant or lazy to learn the ways of writing. I suppose a few hours spent on grammar and punctuation training could be in my future.

Good advice from Bramblethorn and a good decision from you Mr Gregscott. I just thought I would add one more little goody to all the goodness.:D

When I got back into writing I needed to refresh myself on the punctuation rules in some cases and this is something I noticed:

There are some areas of punctuation that are a little ambiguous. For example some types of punctuation can be interchanged with only very subtle effect on the flow of the reading. ( ; - ... for example) . so while you are researching grammar you may find one source that suggests one while another suggests another.

I think that consistency within your own writing becomes important at this point. Set your own rules (within the overall rules) and stick to those rules.

My ten cents delivered, the invoice will be in the mail;)

Uggg:rose:
 
What I am hearing is that I should get off my lazy ass and take some time to learn the basics of punctuation and grammar. No editor wants to edit for a lazy Writer
who albeit is smart enough to write a story but to ignorant or lazy to learn the ways of writing. I suppose a few hours spent on grammar and punctuation training could be in my future.

I would advise reading some stories by experienced writers whose stories are in the same category as the two you have written. Also, as you’ve said, spend a few hours on studying grammar and punctuation. I’ve had to and I thought my command of the English language was very good. I still think so but not for writing fiction where I have to learn and improve. Still making mistakes even in comments on here.

Bear in mind that writers with many red H’s are not perfect. In two stories that I’ve read recently, by such writers, the word “site” was used instead of “sight” and one character drank a glass of “whine.”

Volunteer editors seem hard to find. Perhaps if you said how many words are in each story someone who comments on here might offer to help. If the story is not too long and time consuming.
 
How do I make sure no one steals a story.

I have sent out my stories to 3 different editors .

One said he wanted to but didn't have the time to edit it.

One loved the stories but had to many family commitments so she put me onto the editors forum.

I have found a very nice gentlemen to look over the stories and he is an editor on here. I am not looking to be paid or to have this ego trip from Adoring fans
(to come), they love me they really love me .

I just want to build my story base and try to be a good thoughtful writer.
To produce stories that people can enjoy . I even thought about copy and pasting one in this note.

Do I even have to worry about someone stealing a story and publishing it in their name?

I Just want an opinion from a few experienced editors .
Thanks
Greg Scott
 
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I have sent out my stories to 3 different editors .

One said he wanted to but didn't have the time to edit it.

One loved the stories but had to many family commitments so she put me onto the editors forum.

I have found a very nice gentlemen to look over the stories and he is an editor on here. I am not looking to be paid or to have this ego trip from Adoring fans
(to come), they love me they really love me .

I just want to build my story base and try to be a good thoughtful writer.
To produce stories that people can enjoy . I even thought about copy and pasting one in this note.

Do I even have to worry about someone stealing a story and publishing it in their name?

I Just want an opinion from a few experienced editors .
Thanks
Greg Scott

Forums aren't the place to post stories. The most you can add to a post is three paragraphs (and that doesn't mean you can make several posts to show the entire story).

Stealing stories happens but I'm not the one to give you legal specifics on ways to protect your work.
 
Do I even have to worry about someone stealing a story and publishing it in their name?
No.

Well, not likely, not by an editor. The theft will come later, after you've posted. Some bot will scoop it up and post it (or some mangled portion thereof) elsewhere.

Remember, every fucking thing online is free to be taken. You have zero control once it's out there. Accept that reality or only handwrite your tales on your secret notepad under your bed covers at oh-dark-thirty hours.
 
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