Irritating editing

[Clive523]

Doesnt it make you mad when a story is rejected for maybe one question mark and one or two full stops and then you see glaring examples of bad spelling and poor punctuation - it does for me.
There and their --- Hear and here --- you instead of your.
Whilst the site is obviously American, here in England we can excuse Labor instead of Labour etc etc.

 

[SydneyBlake]

Doesnt it make you mad when a story is rejected for maybe one question mark and one or two full stops and then you see glaring examples of bad spelling and poor punctuation - it does for me.
There and their --- Hear and here --- you instead of your.
Whilst the site is obviously American, here in England we can excuse Labor instead of Labour etc etc.

I have a hard time believing that a story was rejected for something like that. If the site rejected your story, you need to click on the link to find out why. But it wasn't for the reason you've stated.

 

[PennLady]

I have seen so many stories get through with bad spelling, poor grammar and lousy punctuation that I can't believe you'd get knocked for one or two errors, no matter which English you use. I'd hope there was more in the rejection notice. Otherwise I'd have to see it to figure it out.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

I go with Sydney and Penn. Lit accepts all Anglo-Saxon spellings, including arse, knickers and trousers. Don't start on Australian English.

Clive

If you've posted a story on the URL system, you might have been tripped by a bot. As far as I am aware, Lit doesn't differentiate between UK and US spelling.

 

[_Lynn_]

Doesnt it make you mad when a story is rejected for maybe one question mark and one or two full stops and then you see glaring examples of bad spelling and poor punctuation - it does for me.
There and their --- Hear and here --- you instead of your.
Whilst the site is obviously American, here in England we can excuse Labor instead of Labour etc etc.

I don't believe two or three errors would not cause a rejection either, but you really give little information in your post. So without knowing the exact reason for the rejection, or seeing the story, there isn't much more we can do.

 

[Sputnik57]

I don't believe two or three errors would not cause a rejection either, but you really give little information in your post. So without knowing the exact reason for the rejection, or seeing the story, there isn't much more we can do.

Without wishing to start another tirade of 'hate-mail'; I know how you feel Mistress Lynn!

I've just had one rejected due to punctuation (always seems to be this) and when I trawled through the 15 thousand words or so, I only found about six possibilities- as this is down to me being a tad shit at typing- I put the full stop (period) after the inverted commas for a speech line- I didn't see that it would make a great deal of difference; I'm sure my story was comprehensible- either side of the pond!

As Mistress Lynn has said; when you look at some of the stuff that gets through...

Makes you want to stamp your feet and throw a tantrum!

I'm sure my readers are anxious to see more of my Victorian femdom novel; it's been 'pending' for over a week now, due to being put to the back of the list!

 

[sr71plt]

The problem with being rejected here for something like punctuation and there not being a further explanation is that it's usually for something the author has no idea doesn't satisfy the selection program--or they wouldn't have done it to begin with. But obviously it takes quite a bit--or something distinctive--to be rejected on the basis of punctuation, because punctuation isn't the strong suit of a high percentage of stories posted here.

Sometimes it takes a third party looking at the story to begin to see what needs to be changed to satisfy the selection bot.

As for late posting, yes, the site has been on an unusual delay in posting for several weeks now. I submitted one a week ago yesterday and it's now dated for posting tomorrow--and there are two behind it waiting to post when I usually don't run a backlog in submissions at all.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

I had a story kicked back for a tag in my Zombies - A Love Story series. Many of the characters go by nicknames, decided to call one raw army recruit "Babyface", but the term "baby" was not liked. Taken completely out of context of course, but dems the rules.

 

[sr71plt]

I had a story kicked back for a tag in my Zombies - A Love Story series. Many of the characters go by nicknames, decided to call one raw army recruit "Babyface", but the term "baby" was not liked. Taken completely out of context of course, but dems the rules.

It was kicked back immediately, though, wasn't it? That happened to me today, but it wouldn't even preview. I used the tag "murder mystery," which I had done just three days ago without trouble, and it kicked "murder" back. So that word apparently has been added to the no, no keyword file in the last couple of days. I changed it to "detective mystery" and it went through.

 

[lovecraft68]

Said it before, I will say it again. The words like Rape, murder, anything with baby, and I think even teenager (unsure though) get booted so their stories will show up further down in goggle searches for those looking for underage, snuff, and hardcore rape stories.

They will allow all of this content in their stories (well rape is debated and is hit or miss) but not in title or tags. Just a smart move on their part to fly a bit below the radar and let sites like Asstr get all the unwanted attention for questionable content.

 

[Darkniciad]

I'm going to have to disagree with the consensus here. I have seen stories get popped for the one or two punctuation in quotations mistakes at least a couple of times before. I know that's all it was, because I went through the stories for the authors, and that was all I could find to correct. They both went through the next time in the queue with the two or three corrections.

In both cases, the errors were near the beginning of the document. My guess is that if you have one or two early on, the speed review process doesn't get past that, and you just get popped.

 

[_Lynn_]

I'm going to have to disagree with the consensus here. I have seen stories get popped for the one or two punctuation in quotations mistakes at least a couple of times before. I know that's all it was, because I went through the stories for the authors, and that was all I could find to correct. They both went through the next time in the queue with the two or three corrections.

In both cases, the errors were near the beginning of the document. My guess is that if you have one or two early on, the speed review process doesn't get past that, and you just get popped.

But the OP gave little information. We don't know the exact reason for the rejection. No one has seen the story--as far as I know, anyway. So it could be as you said, or it could have more problems.

 

[sr71plt]

Clive could resubmit what Clive thinks solves any punctuation issues and then see if that worked.

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

... I've just had one rejected due to punctuation ...

If you mean The Mistress of Holt House Ch. 02 then I think the opening sentence may hold some clues:

As he was led eagerly away by the young maid, he looked back with some disappointment as he was taken from the woman he most desired; she smiled and blew a kiss at him as though he had just attended an appointment about a decorating job with her, he smiled unsurely back – she seemed so nonchalant about what had just occurred -he watched her beautiful bottom wiggle as she bent to open her writing bureau.

At the very least, it has five main verbs:
1 he looked back
2 she smiled
3 he smiled
4 she seemed
5 he watched.

Now I am not a professional editor, but IMHO that is too convoluted to be a single sentence, even with a semi colon in there.

 

[_Lynn_]

As he was led eagerly away by the young maid, he looked back with some disappointment as he was taken from the woman he most desired; she smiled and blew a kiss at him as though he had just attended an appointment about a decorating job with her, he smiled unsurely back – she seemed so nonchalant about what had just occurred -he watched her beautiful bottom wiggle as she bent to open her writing bureau.

The sentence has 75 words. I'm not sure of the official rule on this, but that's far too long. A rule of thumb someone told me years ago was to read the sentence aloud. There should be a natural flow to it, without having to take a gulp of air to finish.

In addition, too much information at once clutters the reader's mind and they forget the beginning of the sentence before they get to the end. This could be written tighter and then made into a couple stronger sentences.

 

[Sputnik57]

The sentence has 75 words. I'm not sure of the official rule on this, but that's far too long. A rule of thumb someone told me years ago was to read the sentence aloud. There should be a natural flow to it, without having to take a gulp of air to finish.

In addition, too much information at once clutters the reader's mind and they forget the beginning of the sentence before they get to the end. This could be written tighter and then made into a couple stronger sentences.

Thanks for the tips! Just had a writing course recently through work- the consensus from the professional lady who administered it was that too much use of commas etc. is a failing.

Besides; if what you learned people tell me is true, how is it this is not indicated by 'spellcheck'. As you know, it will pull you up use of verbs etc. If what is written is actually acceptable, rather than a preference of style; who is to criticise it? Surely what counts most is that the story has a life to it and can be readily understood?

Anyway; I'M HAPPY NOW! - part two is on, and the 'Pending' for part 3 has gone black: deep joy.

 

[sr71plt]

I think that it's possible that a construction like "[space]-he" could set off the bot, as that's not a possible construction. Em dashes really should either be real ones or two hyphens with no spaces around them. (Beyond that, yes that first sentence is a mess structurally.)

 

[sr71plt]

Thanks for the tips! Just had a writing course recently through work- the consensus from the professional lady who administered it was that too much use of commas etc. is a failing.

Was this a professional woman from business or from the book publishing industry? Business does, indeed, streamline comma punctuation. The publishing industry keeps more commas than college English now is teaching. It does so to keep the mapping of the sentence clear to the lowest denominator of book buyer.

 

[Sputnik57]

Was this a professional woman from business or from the book publishing industry? Business does, indeed, streamline comma punctuation. The publishing industry keeps more commas than college English now is teaching. It does so to keep the mapping of the sentence clear to the lowest denominator of book buyer.

Thanks for that sr71plt; I'll bear that in mind. Not sure whether I should 'dumb-down' or elaborate now though!

To answer your initial query; this was to do with letter writing, from a Customer Relations angle. so your business theory may be correct.

 

[sr71plt]

Thanks for that sr71plt; I'll bear that in mind. Not sure whether I should 'dumb-down' or elaborate now though!

If you're just writing it for Lit., you could use either model, I think--as long as you are consistent with it.

An example, though, is that the publishing industry still hangs on to the serial comma (e.g., you, him, and me) and general writing has tossed that comma in front of the "and."

Also, whereas there are complex rules for using "which" and "that," publishing makes it quite simple: you only use "which" for an independent clause and you have to set the clause off with commas and you use "that" only for dependent clauses and you don't use commas to set it off (because you aren't setting it off).

 

[_Lynn_]

Thanks for the tips! Just had a writing course recently through work- the consensus from the professional lady who administered it was that too much use of commas etc. is a failing.

Besides; if what you learned people tell me is true, how is it this is not indicated by 'spellcheck'. As you know, it will pull you up use of verbs etc. If what is written is actually acceptable, rather than a preference of style; who is to criticise it? Surely what counts most is that the story has a life to it and can be readily understood?

Anyway; I'M HAPPY NOW! - part two is on, and the 'Pending' for part 3 has gone black: deep joy.

If you're using Microsoft Word there's an option for catching long sentences. Under the proofing link there's a setting option. Another box opens when you click it with an entire list of things for the program to catch. One is sentence length. I have the 2007 version so others may differ.

 

[Sputnik57]

If you're just writing it for Lit., you could use either model, I think--as long as you are consistent with it.

An example, though, is that the publishing industry still hangs on to the serial comma (e.g., you, him, and me) and general writing has tossed that comma in front of the "and."

Also, whereas there are complex rules for using "which" and "that," publishing makes it quite simple: you only use "which" for an independent clause and you have to set the clause off with commas and you use "that" only for dependent clauses and you don't use commas to set it off (because you aren't setting it off).

Thanks again for the tips!

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Also, whereas there are complex rules for using "which" and "that," publishing makes it quite simple: you only use "which" for an independent clause and you have to set the clause off with commas and you use "that" only for dependent clauses and you don't use commas to set it off (because you aren't setting it off).

Consider this sentence, which I am writing as an example. The "which" belongs there---I wouldn't use "that". And the clause introduced by the "which" is not an independent clause.

I think you meant "restrictive" where you wrote "dependent", and "non-restrictive" where you wrote "independent".

 

[Sputnik57]

If you're using Microsoft Word there's an option for catching long sentences. Under the proofing link there's a setting option. Another box opens when you click it with an entire list of things for the program to catch. One is sentence length. I have the 2007 version so others may differ.

Thank you Mistress Lynn; I'm using Word from Office 2010- I'll have a look!