First time author blues

[jonavy]

Wow! It's been some kind of ride. I have been trying to get my story posted for a few weeks now. The first rejection made sense "space my paragraphs out more." Second rejection "Space my paragraphs more and follow guidelines for character conversations." Ok make sense. Third rejection pretty much same as first two.

Not making as much sense as I thought I had it figured out also actively looked for volunteer editor. After ten days and three volunteer editor requests. I finally had the fourth volunteer editor look over my work and make suggestions which I implemented. Then resubmitted after final approval of editor. Rejected for spelling. My spell check did it's thing unless it was intentional misspell as in "Cuz" instead of "because" in dialogue.

Now I'm thinking it has to be the format I'm using. So changed format from cut and paste in window to send txt file . I hope this works. Still waiting for response back. As far as I can tell, I followed the guidelines as closely as I could.

Has anyone else had this type issue? If so, what was the resolution? What WP program works best for this site. Thanks in advance.

 

[sr71plt]

Cut and paste is best for this system, I think, so I don't think you're going to improve it by going to some other submission mode. Using something like "cuz" for "because" in dialogue shouldn't cause it to reject either, so if you think that's the problem you could resubmit with questions on what specifically is wrong with the spelling in the "Notes" box. How many words is it and what program do you have it in (Word?) Someone here might be willing to look it over again if it isn't too long and is in a compatible program.

 

[Jay321]

quite often word processors will add an extra line after a paragraph. I have gotten into the habit of turning it off, now I hit enter twice to end a paragraph. I know it doesn't really help you now, but it may be of some use in the future.

 

[SamScribble]

If you are using Word, the 'Normal' style inserts a space after each paragraph. Try setting the style to 'No Spacing' and adding a space manually. You should then be able to copy and paste without any problems. Good luck.

 

[jonavy]

Thanks!

Thanks for advise. I'll implement and make a fifth attempt this week. A little frustrating as those who have read it thought it was just fine. The only thing I can think of is some type of format issue between my system and Literotica's. It's 37.3 kb.

 

[ColetteJulie]

Thanks for advise. I'll implement and make a fifth attempt this week. A little frustrating as those who have read it thought it was just fine. The only thing I can think of is some type of format issue between my system and Literotica's. It's 37.3 kb.

You can send it to me if you like, I'll take a look. I only accept word doc or docx manuscripts. As Habu said, copy from your pc and past in the box on the submissions page. The alternative underneath is to upload a file, but they do say that because of formatting conflicts if you upload a file, it could take longer to approve.

I have submitted stories written on blackberry, android and pc word, I always copy and paste and Laurel has never come back to me because of a formatting conflict. She rejects my necrophilia stories though........... All the best anyway, don't give up.

 

[lovecraft68]

She rejects my necrophilia stories though........... All the best anyway, don't give up.

Make the corpse a zombie, and it will fly through, 'make believe' creatures are the end around for every rule here.

 

[ColetteJulie]

Make the corpse a zombie, and it will fly through, 'make believe' creatures are the end around for every rule here.

Oooh, I never thought of that. Maybe it's because I watch too many zombie shows. They seem to be de regeur at the moment. My daughter in law asked me to write a roleplay 'scene setting' or 'backstory' or whatever it is that they call it for her for a vampire roleplay site. There's no shortage of research material and just about every author has their own ancestory story. It was actually overwhelming since she wanted an original ancestory line. That's one of the main reasons I have avoided the fictional in my horror stories, I've been too aclimatised to fictional horror.

But thank you for the tip dear lovecraft, I did keep the stories and will certainly think about changing them to zombies.

 

[jehoram]

My spell check did it's thing unless it was intentional misspell as in "Cuz" instead of "because" in dialogue.

Ah, but spell checkers don't do very well with "its" and it's" now, do they?

But as for your problem, I do this: I write my stories with Notepad and then paste the whole thing into Word for spell checking and grammar and such. Then I open up the text file in Notepad as a separate window and make the changes, one by one, in the text file. Finally, I save the text file, and that's what I download to the site. That way, I know exactly what the downloaded file looks like.

It's a little more cumbersome than just saving the Word file as a text file, but it avoids all the weird shit that sometimes happens when MS Word creates a text file from a .doc file.

 

[Weird Harold]

quite often word processors will add an extra line after a paragraph. I have gotten into the habit of turning it off, now I hit enter twice to end a paragraph. I know it doesn't really help you now, but it may be of some use in the future.

To be more precise, "full feature" word processor programs like MSWord or Wordperfect add white space that looks like a blank line before or after a paragraph break.

Lit was designed to accommodate MSWord 97 files, but converts everything to HTML which is a plain text format. You need to essentially remove all page formatting from your Lit story template so that you have to manually insert blank lines with a double paragraph break. Eliminate any "special characters" like En-dash and M-dash and "smart quotes" they may or may not display properly.

Saving as a textfile and opening in Notepad should show up any paragraph break problems obscured by MSWord's wysiwyg formatting.

 

[Hypoxia]

I write with the free Jarte editor, like a super-Notepad with attached dictionary/thesaurus. I run the resultant .txt or .doc file through Word2003 for a spellcheck if it's long, or just paste the text into LIT's submission window and let my browser spellcheck it -- or both. I do a LIT preview and fix any problems in the editor, and re-read and do more fixing, and again, till it looks as good as possible. Then I submit it and forget it.

 

[Kantarii]

Make the corpse a zombie, and it will fly through, 'make believe' creatures are the end around for every rule here.

All this talk about zombies had me forgetting to ask you what you thought about Samael's cover of "I love the dead" by Alice Cooper.

 

[lovecraft68]

All this talk about zombies had me forgetting to ask you what you thought about Samael's cover of "I love the dead" by Alice Cooper.

It was excellent, I love Cooper, but he was in the seventies and there's much harder edged sounds out there now that can really bring out a classic.

 

[jonavy]

Thanks to All!

Appreciate the advise. Hope to get posted soon if all works out.

 

[jonavy]

Thanks for the offer!

You can send it to me if you like, I'll take a look. I only accept word doc or docx manuscripts. As Habu said, copy from your pc and past in the box on the submissions page. The alternative underneath is to upload a file, but they do say that because of formatting conflicts if you upload a file, it could take longer to approve.

I have submitted stories written on blackberry, android and pc word, I always copy and paste and Laurel has never come back to me because of a formatting conflict. She rejects my necrophilia stories though........... All the best anyway, don't give up.

I'd appreciate that as the editors off the list haven't responded yet except for Ami_igirl who only did a substance check. I need a spell and grammar check. I never knew my spelling was so bad. Guess I've been out of practice.

 

[ColetteJulie]

I'd appreciate that as the editors off the list haven't responded yet except for Ami_igirl who only did a substance check. I need a spell and grammar check. I never knew my spelling was so bad. Guess I've been out of practice.

PM Me, I have turned my PM's back on and tried to send you a PM with my email address but the thing keeps telling me I've done something wrong. I give up. PM me, we'll try that way.

 

[ColetteJulie]

I'd appreciate that as the editors off the list haven't responded yet except for Ami_igirl who only did a substance check. I need a spell and grammar check. I never knew my spelling was so bad. Guess I've been out of practice.

I'm on that list somewhere, I would have responded if I got a message from you.