Story rejection

[Duleigh]

I’m extremely disappointed by all of this.

To have a story rejected on such trivial grounds. To be faced with the rigid inflexibility of the moderators is galling.

I refuse to bastardize a story by padding it out to meet some arbitrary word count. And I find it really distasteful the thought of conniving my way around the limits as some have suggested.

I have almost twenty more stories I was planning to put up. The largest being on the borderline of novella/novel. But now I've lost interest. At my age I don’t need the aggravation of this.

Adieu.

By all means GO! To have such a butt rash for such trivial reasons guarantees that your departure will improve the overall quality of the Literotica contents. I refuse to bastardize my eyeballs by subjecting them to a story written by someone who can't find creativity lying beyond 659 words. I truly doubt you have anything near twenty stories planned let alone anything long enough and entertaining enough to keep a reader interested beyond the opening exposition and with your crying over the minimum story length I really doubt you can reach 50,000 words, let alone 5,000 words.

Throughout history writers have delt with limitations creatively, many of those limitations were self imposed just to show that they had the mental horse power to outstrip those limits. Ever hear of ee cummings? He wrote entire stories and poems without capitol letters. Ever hear of a formal verse in poetry? A strict meter pattern and rhyme are required - like a limerick. Ever hear of a lipogram? The most famous of which is the novel Gasdsby by Ernest Vincent Wright. There are 50,000 words in Gadsby and not a one of them containing the letter E.

Wright purposely wrote a 50,000 word novel without using E, the most popular letter in the English language and you whine like a schoolboy over a 750 word limit? Go. If that's all you can do is threaten to leave (like anyone here gives a shit) then take your crap and go.

 

[MrPixel]

Aren't we in a mood this morning? I don't think this guy has been on the site since his rant three months ago; at least he's not posted anything since. Is there not a "most recent access" on this site? I've seen it elsewhere, but can't find it here.

But, yeah, my reaction to the OP post was, "Oh, pleeeeeze. Grow up, man."

 

[onehitwanda]

Aren't we in a mood this morning?

Someone needs his tummy tickled.

 

[Duleigh]

Maybe I spent too much time in the adult world busting my ass and protecting and defending the constitution, but when someone whines that they hate following YOUR rules on YOUR website and the world should bow and scrape to THEM, these four magic words appear in my head:

Grow the fuck up​

Personally I love the 750 rule, it prevents the pool of stories from being diluted by nonsense and tiny anecdotes. I hosted the 750 word event this year and I didn't see our whiny child even attempt an entry, if he had bothered, if he was an actual writer he would have been saying "I can't get a full story in 750 words" I truly doubt that this self appointed TARDIS driver was truly able to put his thoughts into 650 words. Maybe after a couple decades of sucking oxygen and not THC he'll be able to write something worth reading.

 

[EmilysRopes]

My point is simply that, in my opinion, I made a story flabbier and worse by adding 200 words to take it from 650 to 850 so it was published. People are free to think it was not worth publishing at either length but I definitely feel I've made it worse just to meet the rule.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Ever hear of a lipogram? The most famous of which is the novel Gasdsby by Ernest Vincent Wright. There are 50,000 words in Gadsby and not a one of them containing the letter E.

Actually... although Wright said that, and did his utmost to avoid using it, you can find four slips in his story.

 

[Bramblethorn]

My point is simply that, in my opinion, I made a story flabbier and worse by adding 200 words to take it from 650 to 850 so it was published. People are free to think it was not worth publishing at either length but I definitely feel I've made it worse just to meet the rule.

Ogg's work-around for this was to write multiple short stories and post them in a single submission to meet the word limit.

 

[ElectricBlue]

My point is simply that, in my opinion, I made a story flabbier and worse by adding 200 words to take it from 650 to 850 so it was published. People are free to think it was not worth publishing at either length but I definitely feel I've made it worse just to meet the rule.

Maybe, but the site has a minimum story length of 750 words, unless it's poetry. This is clearly stated in the FAQ. So you comply with site policy or you don't publish your story. It's pretty simple.

 

[RejectReality]

Lit's reader base isn't really geared toward shorter works. It's simply not what they expect. There are other places that far more directly cater to shorter works, and the readers who prefer such have likely migrated there.

There simply isn't a large enough demand for it here. Without sufficient demand, there's no incentive for the site to go to the trouble of accommodating it. It could potentially create a massive surge in what is already a nearly unmanageable submission queue on top of the up-front work.

Look for erotica sites that provide flash and microfiction categories. They have them because it's something the readers there are looking for.

 

[EricaDoesNow]

The minimum accepted story length is 750 words. That's a hard rule, no way around it.

I, for one, very much dislike the 750 word rule. I had to leave one of my stories hanging, with no ending, because of that. There was no way to make the story better, just by adding more words.

 

[EricaDoesNow]

Lit's reader base isn't really geared toward shorter works. It's simply not what they expect. There are other places that far more directly cater to shorter works, and the readers who prefer such have likely migrated there.

There simply isn't a large enough demand for it here. Without sufficient demand, there's no incentive for the site to go to the trouble of accommodating it. It could potentially create a massive surge in what is already a nearly unmanageable submission queue on top of the up-front work.

Look for erotica sites that provide flash and microfiction categories. They have them because it's something the readers there are looking for.

In reference to story submissions, what is the normal turnaround, from submission, to published? I've had several that were published, or rejected, in as little as 2 days, but have one that took 10 days, and one still pending, from 11 days ago. How can we apply to be an editor? I'd love to help with the backlog.

 

[alohadave]

In reference to story submissions, what is the normal turnaround, from submission, to published? I've had several that were published, or rejected, in as little as 2 days, but have one that took 10 days, and one still pending, from 11 days ago. How can we apply to be an editor? I'd love to help with the backlog.

2-3 days is typical, but up to a week isn't unusual. You might want to send a PM to Laurel to have her check on your pending story.

Laurel is the only person that does story approval, and it's unlikely that she'd make you one, but you never know unless you ask/offer.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I have a 702 word story, but it was an accident. Went up without issue and it's still up over a year later. Not sure how it got through.

The count is subjective, if there are long dashes connecting words, or hyphenated words, in words these count as one word, but here they count as multiple words. But that'd be a lot of long dashes and hyphenated words wouldn't it?

 

[ElectricBlue]

In reference to story submissions, what is the normal turnaround, from submission, to published? I've had several that were published, or rejected, in as little as 2 days, but have one that took 10 days, and one still pending, from 11 days ago. How can we apply to be an editor? I'd love to help with the backlog.

Once you've got a few stories under your belt, 2 - 3 days is typical, longer if there's a contest or anthology running - they take priority.

Don't think there is a team of editors. So far as anyone is aware, Laurel is the only site editor, assisted possibly by some word bots.