Formatting

[SkyBubble]

I have always used the text box on Lit to submit stories, but I've been told that some authors report a higher success rate when submitting a document rather than pasting the text into the submission box. Does that match your experience?

Also, does anyone know if a .txt file will work, or do I need to copy the .txt file into a Word document and submit it that way?

Does <P> work, or am I going to need to use <br><br>? It's a fairly long story, and using <P> would save me a bunch of time.

 

[talemestories]

I have been using the text box since starting up. I use a variety of word processors trying to find just the right one and have simply cut and paste. I tend to view the draft on literotica to see what errors it finds and make the corrections right there.

 

[onehitwanda]

I have always used the text box on Lit to submit stories, but I've been told that some authors report a higher success rate when submitting a document rather than pasting the text into the submission box. Does that match your experience?

since we're using subjective, anecdotal accounts, I have 39 stories published here.

Every one of them has been via the submission box. Only one has ever been rejected the first time, and that was for mentioning a character's first kiss being prior to the age of 18.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I write in MS Word and have always simply uploaded the *.doc/*.docx file. My formatting in Word (bold, italics) has always been retained.

That being said, I write longer stories, averaging more than 45K words and I find pasting that much into the submission field and then reviewing it or adding formatting tedious Others have their preferences and I respect that.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

Like Wanda, I've always used the text box and only had one out of 60 submittals sent back. In the very first one, Laurel was concerned that the characters might be under 18 so I pointed out where they were in college and it went through later that day. I've had one or two minor snafus with the HTML formatting in all those submittals so I think either method works well assuming the writer has the formatting as they want it prior to submittal.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I personally do not use bold or italics. My capitalizing a word for emphasis is not a problem. I use Libreoffice for my word processor. My submissions are generally in the 7 to 15K word range so none of my 150 or posts are all transferred using simple cut and paste. I personally prefer my chapters to be in small enough chapters to be read in a single session. (I can't figure out how to put a bookmark on a story page.
I've had two stories sent back for underage depictions, neither of the having sex but one referenced when the girl hit puberty and began to grow hair, wanting it gone. The other was being spanked and shaved as a younger teen. Both were easy fixes.

 

[filthytrancendence]

SkyBubble finds a new way to start a discussion about stories being rejected for AI. I think that's 2 in one.

2 drinks this time, everybody

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

a character's first kiss being prior to the age of 18.

Scandalous!!!

 

[Writer61]

I write in MS Word and have always simply uploaded the *.doc/*.docx file. My formatting in Word (bold, italics) has always been retained.

That being said, I write longer stories, averaging more than 45K words and I find pasting that much into the submission field and then reviewing it or adding formatting tedious Others have their preferences and I respect that.

I have always uploaded DOCX. Bold and Italics formatting are correctly read. Two rejections one for underage (incorrectly) and the other for speech formatting (correctly); no reason to think would have been any better via the text box.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Only one has ever been rejected the first time, and that was for mentioning a character's first kiss being prior to the age of 18.

That's weird. I have several stories here with underage characters kissing and teasing each other before they finally have sex after they turn eighteen. I've also read many others with the same, or similar content.

 

[StillStunned]

I make my story submissions a scavenger hunt for Laurel. Sprinkle a sentence here, a paragraph there, give her clues where to find them. I've never had a submission rejected, and the formatting is mostly correct too.

I've heard people complain about delays in the approval process, but I doubt that has anything to do with how much time Laurel spends putting together my stories.

 

[Writer61]

2 drinks this time, everybody

With pleasure

 

[AwkwardMD]

Aaaaand drink

 

[onehitwanda]

That's weird. I have several stories here with underage characters kissing and teasing each other before they finally have sex after they turn eighteen. I've also read many others with the same, or similar content.

I think Laurel was having a bad day. I was apologetic, made the edit, and it was up again very shortly.

 

[StillStunned]

and it was up again very shortly.

I remember being young...

 

[onehitwanda]

very shortly.

I remember being young...

It's a Phallusy that they grow with age.

 

[StillStunned]

It's a Phallusy that they grow with age.

Aw, really? I've been waiting for forty years!

 

[yano2mch]

Does <P> work, or am I going to need to use <br><br>? It's a fairly long story, and using <P> would save me a bunch of time.

While i have yet to submit anything, the tags themselves are html and easy enough to explain. I also dabble in Calibre epub generation which this fits heavily for. And as the site probably stores everything as html i am sure it works fine... Probably?

<p>A paragraph should be opened and closed, and the formatting will break it in to paragraphs and if CSS is set, add indentation</p>

<br> should probably be <br/>. since HTML 4? it switched from a full markup language to being xml wrapped to use html as they use similar tag styling; Everything that opens needs to close. but br, hr, and a few other tags don't close, so the ending slash denotes it doesn't open or close, it's just there. But the site may already deal with those as i downloaded stuff in 2005 that had <br/> tags and using lynx at the time it was annoying and i'd have to convert them to <br> for it to display properly. But that was a loooong time ago.

You might just write your story and add minimal formatting (bold, underline, italic, strike, etc), then use RegEx after to find lines that aren't empty and prepend/append the <p></p> tags. to make it work.

 

[SkyBubble]

They use limited HTML tags here.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have always used the text box on Lit to submit stories, but I've been told that some authors report a higher success rate when submitting a document rather than pasting the text into the submission box. Does that match your experience?

Also, does anyone know if a .txt file will work, or do I need to copy the .txt file into a Word document and submit it that way?

About five years ago, for reasons I never understood, neither .txt and .rtf files would load. The solution in both cases was to copy paste into the submission text box, and I've never had issues since.

In my experience, with the devices I've used (a Kindle Fire and now a tablet), the text box is fail safe. WYSIWYG.

When you say higher success rate, I assume you mean rejections for suspected use of AI or strange formatting? I can't see why the file type would make any difference for any other rejection reason.

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

Have I got a deal for you...!

https://waxphilosophic.sdf.org/LitMark/

It's a tool I wrote to format my own stories, but anyone can use it.

The short explanation is you can paste plain text into the textbox and then format bold, italics, center, etc. by highlighting passages and using the toolbar buttons. You get a nice preview and you can copy to the clipboard for pasting into Lit's submission form.

The longer explanation of what the tool can do is covered in the help page for the tool. (Click the question mark.)

I use it with all my Lit submissions and publisher manuscript submissions.