I'll try it this way

[nakdsub]

In spite of my constant self proof-reading, I am reminded in almost ever story I write, that I need an editor.

I have tried contacting several who advertise they accept stories in my genre as well as the ones who say they are available for the month, and have yet to receive a single word back.

So, I will try posting it;

I am looking for an editor for my Loving Wives stories. Basically I'm looking for someone who will catch my grammatical mistakes, but would also make a suggestion here and there on content, as long as they would not get insulted if I didn't take their suggestion.

So far I have PM'd approximately 12 to 15 editors, all saying they are available, and have not received a single reply in return.

Is there anyone out there that is interested?

 

[nakdsub]

Well, this way doesn't seem to work either

Can anyone tell me what it takes to find an editor around here?

 

[Beatnic_jazzman]

One way

That has gained me an editor was to ask for one in one of the comments on one of the chapters of a story.

You might try that

 

[likegoodwine]

Same for me

I had to post part of a story without editor and one person offered to help as they liked the story. He was a good editor for a good 6 months.
I wish I could help but I am not that great myself.
Good luck in your search!
Likegoodwine

 

[lovecraft68]

I've been here a year and a half and have posted half of my stuff without an editor. I got lucky and found a good one right off the bat. But she got busy with real life and had to stop. Since then I've had four and most for only a story or two.

Fortunately I've gotten better through what I learned form them, but know my stuff still needs work. It's an ongoing battle to find someone.

 

[JustaSCOUNDREL]

Here is what I'm going to do. I posted on this form asking for an editor. My post has over 60 reads and not a single reply. So I'm going to post the damn thing as is and add a P.S. that I had asked for help from a Volunteer Editor and received none.

Quite frankly if the Grammar Nazi's, the Superior Spelling Sluts or You Need an Editor Perfectionists mark it down screw them. The are welcome to read Hemingway and plow through his endless perfect pointless prose.
Screw them and the ve program.

I will say I have read several stories where the author thanked his VE. So there are some out there and I apologize to those of you who actually spend your valuable time, knowledge, and effort to improve the works of us who were spending our English classes looking at Mary Lou Martin's fine ass rather then listening to the teacher. (Waves hand in the air and hollers me, me, me) Thank each and every one of you.

As for me I'll submit my stories without a VE.

Bye, Mike

 

[_Lynn_]

There are thousands of people writing stories to post. And how many people are there to edit for them?

I understand how asking for help and not receiving a reply would be discouraging. I do get that. I've spent as much as eight hours a day helping others. But there's always someone else needing help.

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

Can anyone tell me what it takes to find an editor around here?

If I knew the answer to that I would sell it.

We get perhaps a dozen editors posting their availability in the sticky each month, often the same ones, and at least that number of authors asking for help, usually new authors.

If the "asking for help" posting catches an editor's eye, then you get an answer.

In general, an author will get a better response if you specify the genre of your story (eg romance, non-consent, incest, gay male, lesbian, etc), the help you feel you need (e.g. grammar only, grammar and continuity, etc.), and its length (in words) as these factors play a large part in a volunteer editor's decision whether to offer help.

But really, I believe the short answer is LUCK.

 

[PacoFear]

nakd et al.,

Just to build on Mistress Lynn's rose observation that there's simply not enough help to go around...

In lieu of attention from a VE, you might try pairing up with another writer and exchanging editing services. My memory is fuzzy, but I think I remember snooper suggesting this on this board awhile back. At any rate, I know peeps who've done it successfully. Yes, there's a blind-leading-the-blind issue--take a deep breath and try to hold it in, SR --but if you pick your partner well, you'll at least get a second pair of eyes looking at your copy for the more obvious errors that readers crow about. It'll also help you get a feel for just how much time editing takes.

And/or do what I did; buy a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style--they're like $40 at Amazon--and stick the sucker on the back of your toilet. Whenever you sit down to do your business, read a few sections. You're never too old to learn.

Cheers,

PF

 

[sr71plt]

In lieu of attention from a VE, you might try pairing up with another writer and exchanging editing services. My memory is fuzzy, but I think I remember snooper suggesting this on this board awhile back. At any rate, I know peeps who've done it successfully. Yes, there's a blind-leading-the-blind issue--take a deep breath and try to hold it in, SR --but if you pick your partner well, you'll at least get a second pair of eyes looking at your copy for the more obvious errors that readers crow about. It'll also help you get a feel for just how much time editing takes.

I believe I'm the one who frequently suggests this. I've never seen Snooper suggest it.

 

[PacoFear]

I believe I'm the one who frequently suggests this. I've never seen Snooper suggest it.

Aw crud, all you old guys run together after awhile.

Sorry 'bout the mix-up.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Here is what I'm going to do. I posted on this form asking for an editor. My post has over 60 reads and not a single reply. So I'm going to post the damn thing as is and add a P.S. that I had asked for help from a Volunteer Editor and received none.

Quite frankly if the Grammar Nazi's, the Superior Spelling Sluts or You Need an Editor Perfectionists mark it down screw them. The are welcome to read Hemingway and plow through his endless perfect pointless prose.
Screw them and the ve program.

I will say I have read several stories where the author thanked his VE. So there are some out there and I apologize to those of you who actually spend your valuable time, knowledge, and effort to improve the works of us who were spending our English classes looking at Mary Lou Martin's fine ass rather then listening to the teacher. (Waves hand in the air and hollers me, me, me) Thank each and every one of you.

As for me I'll submit my stories without a VE.

Bye, Mike

Your anger is justified. SR, aka It, blows off a lot of steam and, despite its claims to being a high-dollar editor, it can't even do a quick edit here.

And so it will lash out at me for criticizing it. I'd rather the rest of this be shared in a PM. I'll try and help.

 

[sr71plt]

What are you on about now, AS? There's no obligation for me to edit here. And Scoundrel didn't ask me to edit anything. I'm not a VE. And I'm contributing a story a week to the story file (are you?)--and answering basic questions on editing from such as you (as recently as yesterday). Beside, I did do an edit last week from a request to this board (PM me and I'll tell you which one)--and asked another requestor to this board if they'd found an editor yet, with the intent to offer to edit their story if they hadn't. (They didn't respond.)

So, yet again you have attacked me without foundation and out of the blue--and in error. You have been batting pretty much zero. It's not me attacking you here, it's you attacking me--for no good reason whatsoever. Over and over and over again.

You've even repeated the falacious claim that I boast about being a high-paid editor. I've challenged you to back up that claim, and you haven't done so. Editing isn't the foundation of my earnings.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

I believe I'm the one who frequently suggests this. I've never seen Snooper suggest it.

Do some FUCKING editing instead of riding on that high and mighty horse.

EARN your so-called right to be here.

I might be drunk, but I have a better sense of right and wrong than you do.

But of course you won't, you'll recite page and paragraph and pick us all apart. You're weak SR. Such a pity.

I have an excuse. You don't.

Vile is the word I have for you.

Let's see what the rest of the crowd thinks.

 

[sr71plt]

Do some FUCKING editing instead of riding on that high and mighty horse.

EARN your so-called right to be here.

I might be drunk, but I have a better sense of right and wrong than you do.

But of course you won't, you'll recite page and paragraph and pick us all apart. You're weak SR. Such a pity.

I have an excuse. You don't.

Vile is the word I have for you.

Let's see what the rest of the crowd thinks.

Read my last posting. You CAN read, can't you?

And don't look for any answers from me from now on on your basic editing questions. And god help whoever contracts you to edit for them. Scoundrel posted that he was just going to post it without a VE editor--which I've suggested is fine to do on Lit. I'm not one who has criticized anyone's posted story on technicalities (or anything else unless they directly asked for assessment).

 

[AsylumSeeker]

t

What are you on about now, AS? There's no obligation for me to edit here. And Scoundrel didn't ask me to edit anything. I'm not a VE. And I'm contributing a story a week to the story file (are you?)--and answering basic questions on editing from such as you (as recently as yesterday). Beside, I did do an edit last week from a request to this board (PM me and I'll tell you which one)--and asked another requestor to this board if they'd found an editor yet, with the intent to offer to edit their story if they hadn't. (They didn't respond.)

So, yet again you have attacked me without foundation and out of the blue--and in error. You have been batting pretty much zero. It's not me attacking you here, it's you attacking me--for no good reason whatsoever. Over and over and over again.

You've even repeated the falacious claim that I boast about being a high-paid editor. I've challenged you to back up that claim, and you haven't done so. Editing isn't the foundation of my earnings.

Okay, granted, there is no requirement for you to edit. The why bother thoes of us that do>

I;ll be seeking Laurel's councill about admonishing you from this forum.

Not sure it can be done. But I'll try.

I shit on yout face and rub the traces of peanuts all over it. Gosh, you can really piss a person off. Oh, oh no, I feel a REALLY big WET FART coming.

 

[sr71plt]

I think it would be a sterling idea for you to direct Laurel's attention to this thread.

(And what part of I DID do an edit from a request to this board last week couldn't you comprehend? When I do an edit from a request to this forum, I just don't trumpet it like you do.)

You've got to be the most bizarre poster to this website, A.S. (Well, I guess there's Elfin as well.)

 

[AsylumSeeker]

.Okay. Let the madness begin.

 

[sr71plt]

- - - -

Duplicate post.

 

[sr71plt]

It's already begun, A.S. You have been bizarre for years.

What is your response, please, on the fact that I DO editing from requests to this forum despite not being an VE and to my repeated challenge that you are misrepresenting what I have posted about editing earnings?

 

[nakdsub]

Wow! I should have tried this before

Thank you to all the volunteers from whom I've received PMs in the last week.
I have been sucessful in aquiring an editor.
Thank you again.

 

[_Lynn_]

Thank you to all the volunteers from whom I've received PMs in the last week.
I have been sucessful in aquiring an editor.
Thank you again.

Awesome!

 

[CarlusMagnus]

It'll also help you get a feel for just how much time editing takes.

Just so.

I think I'd enjoy editing—The Pilot's opinion of my language skills notwithstanding.

But I don't have enough time to do my own writing, let alone help someone else.

 

[sr71plt]

Since you poked me on it, I think you are overskilled and archaic in the language, Carlus, which is fine for yourself. But you push it on others here, so it's probably a happy thing you don't edit here. Much of what you'd insist upon isn't current and probably would have nothing to do with erotica. You have already shown a "you have to do it my way" (and based on fifty-year-old authorities) temperament and you are quite unaccepting of current publishing styles, which isn't the temperament of a good prose editor.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Since you poked me on it, I think you are overskilled…

As opposed to being ignorant? I'll take the former, thanks.

…and archaic in the language, Carlus, which is fine for yourself. But you push it on others here, so it's probably a happy thing you don't edit here.

That's an interesting accusation from one who spends at least half his time here telling people how they ought, or ought not, to do things.

Much of what you'd insist upon isn't current and probably would have nothing to do with erotica.

Good writing and precise meaning have nothing to do with erotica?

Now you're just being silly.

You have already shown a "you have to do it my way" (and based on fifty-year-old authorities) temperament and you are quite unaccepting of current publishing styles, which isn't the temperament of a good prose editor.

Since you brought the matter up, let's discuss "current publishing styles," or, as you usually put it, "the commercial standard".

The Big Mac is a commercial standard: It's also a meal you don't need teeth to eat. (And that's the least of the criticisms we could aim at it.)

Detroit's Big Three developed a commercial standard that led to nobody's wanting to buy their product; it almost put them all out of business.

Microsoft's commercial standard is a bloated word processor overloaded with so many "features" that very few people ever use more than five or ten percent of them—though they must pay for all of them. (And it also has a reputation for corrupting large files without warning—lovely.)

Need I mention television's commercial standard? Pop music's? The video games industry's? Hollywood's?

Shall I go on with other commercial standards that contribute little or nothing to the common good?

That something is a commercial standard means nothing other than that it is a standard used in commerce. It certainly doesn't mean that the standard is meaningful or worthwhile in any real sense—except perhaps for a pecuniary one. In fact, as we've just seen, there are many examples to the contrary.

Lit. isn't commerce, and your commercial standard doesn't apply here. Most of the writing that people do isn't anything to which your commercial standard has any application. And your commercial standard certainly isn't an equivalent, for English, of l'Academie Francaise. It isn't even close.

As to "current publishing styles," I haven't addressed them. (This, by the way, has to do with precision in writing, which means saying the right thing, and not something pretty close. You would certainly profit by learning to be more precise.) I have had some things to say about what commercial publishers accept as their standard for the meanings of words: According to Pilot, its Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Ediition (MWCD11].

Here, for example, is an excerpt from that dictionary's usage entry for flaunt:

-----------

Although transitive sense 2 [Note: "to treat contemptuously…"] of flaunt undoubtedly arose from confusion with flout, the contexts in which it appears cannot be called substandard… If you use it, however, you should be aware that many people will consider it a mistake.

-----------

I've rarely seen such an exhibition of fence-sitting. Educated speakers and writers will generally agree that using flaunt where you meant flout is, at best, a mistake, at worst, ignorance. But MWCD11 tells us that the mistake isn't substandard—though "many people will consider it a mistake".

Which people? Why the educated people whose usage defines the language. But, of course, it isn't in MWCD11's self-interest to tell us that.

MWCD11 tells us that it records the language as it is used, rather than as it should be used. But where pronunciation is concerned, it tells us that it records only variants found in use among educated speakers. That's as it should be.

I suggest that the same standard applies to the meanings of words.

Frankly, Pilot, I think you like MWCD11 so much, not because it's the commercial standard, but because it sets the bar so low that even you can clear it.