A little frustrated..

[jezzaz]

Just looking to vent a bit.

Put up a story for publishing in Loving Wives. It got knocked back by Laural, twice. The second time was a "we aren't going to publish this regardless" which sucks a bit - if that's the attitude a) why not say that the first time and b) it seems a bit draconian for this site.

So the reason for it being knocked back ostensibly is because I've basically re-written someone elses story, because their plot resolution (or lack of one) pissed me off so much. I've changed the names of the people, changed the sequence of events, but effectively the first half of the story as the same premise.

Then I take it in a totally different direction for the second part - that's effectively a completely different story.

You can read it for yourself if you want - SOL published it just fine. [Off-site link removed - AHMod]

Now the reason given for it not being published was first - "You haven't reached out to the original author". OK, I can get behind that. So I did. Twice. No response either time. The original Author hasn't published anything apart from this original story at all, and not since 2013.

So I resubmit and mention I've tried reaching him, but no response. I get kicked back again with "This is a derivative work. We won't publish it"

Now that might or might not be true - there's a fair bit of political commentary in this, since it set against a Trump Presidency and effectively the world has gone to shit. I got a fair few people email me from SOL indicating their displeasure about the representation of a Trump Presidency, but whatever.


But the thing that really makes me go "Wut?" is the fact that the only reason that Laural knew it was in any way derivative was because I said so in the foreword. If I'd said nothing, it would have been published and while some people would have made the connection, most wouldn't.

I'm being punished for basically, telling the truth.

If I'd have lied about it, or in this case, lied by omission, it would be up and nothing else would have been said.

So what this experience has taught me is, "Don't mention anything. Don't be honest, don't say a damn thing."

And I'm a little frustrated that what I've written - 54k words of what I think is one of my best - will never see the light of day on Lit.

Now it's totally their call - this is their website. But apparently it's ok for what FinishTheDamnStory has been doing, and it's fine for some authors to write BS stories being shitty and mean to each other by using each other as their antagonists, making each other out to be assholes and morons in the stories, but not for what I've done.

Now there's an argument to be made about being respectful of another authors premise - but given the nature of what cheating wife stories are, there's a limit to the number of premise stories that exist. If we were going to not allow similarity of premise, the number of stories in the Loving Wives Category would drop to less than a thousand...

The bottom line here is that I'm being penalized for being honest about my inspiration. If that is in deed the reason and it's not politically motivated because of the content (I don't think that's the case here, since Laural just doesn't seem to be like that, but then I've never met her and I don't really know her leanings anyway).

I don't expect anything to happen over this. This is Laural and Manu's website and their decisions are final. I think it's more than likely this story will just never see the light of day on Lit; I just needed to vent a little. It's more than a little frustrating to have some of my best work never make it out for what seem very subjective reasons.

<shrug>

 

[Kantarii]

Wow, you didn't like someone's story and you rewrote only parts of it? That doesn't make it your story. That just means you plagiarized the shit out of it and pieced it back together in a patchwork of sugar coated bullshit expecting the reader to believe it's a new story. Damn right it got rejected.

Why not just write your own original story that's 100% yours? Problem solved Kant

 

[jezzaz]

Have you actually read it? I'm guessing not, given the speed of the response there.

 

[Kantarii]

Why would I read something that isn't 100% original as your own that you have openly admitted to plagiarizing?
Kant

 

[OmnislashXX]

I mean you did admit to copying part of someone else's work. So yes, it stands to reason they won't accept that here. Your only recourse is to drop it and make something totally original. It seems like your capable.

You are trying to be honest about it, but you're being honest about stealing something. So that still doesn't make it right.

 

[jezzaz]

You are gonna get no sympathy from me

I'm not asking for sympathy.

I'm asking you to actually read the damn thing, so you can judge, instead of just knee jerking an ill thought out response.

It's not too much to ask given I had asked for thoughts.

But if you don't want to and just want to spew vitriol, be my guest.

I think that response says all it needs to.

 

[OmnislashXX]

I read your reasons for rewriting it at least. My response to that: Why should you care enough to want to rewrite a story you didn't like? There are stories we all hate. I hate blackmail stories, ecspecially hentai shows that allow the villains to get away with forcefully taking women or committing Netotare without any repercussions. But I never watch that show again and find something I enjoy.

Create something original and move on.

 

[NotWise]

So what this experience has taught me is, "Don't mention anything. Don't be honest, don't say a damn thing."

I'll admit the the irony in telling the truth and getting bitten by it, but I also think that maybe you're learning the wrong lesson. "Don't try to publish derivative works," should be in there somewhere.

As it is, you're sounding a little self-righteous. But then what is a good rant if it isn't self-righteous?

 

[SecondCircle]

I often see good ideas or story concepts that were poorly executed. (For my taste). But I'm not sure it's right to take the direct source material and rewrite it. With ideas, that's fine I guess. Like general ideas or general tropes. But an author's work, however we view the quality, is their own. I can't name many authors that would want their work directly rewritten. It changes the author's sauce, their voice, the flavor that they use is theirs. This is why editors change only what's asked and usually just from grammatical or technical standards, not usually style or content.

 

[OliviaM]

I can understand the site not publishing it but I don't get the scorn at the ethics involved. Why are we okay with fanfic and not okay with this?

 

[Kantarii]

Deleted

 

[ChloeTzang]

Ohhhhh boy. That's what happened with my first story. I took someone else's and rewrote it to suit my own tastes. It got thru, but then someone reported it and it got knocked down. I had to rewrite 3 times before it got accepted. I sympathize, but on the other hand that was my one and only attempt to plagiarize and it was more lack of knowledge of the rules than anything else - and me trying to get myself started writing an actual story.

You can steal the plot, but not the words. I can see why you got rejected, I can see why LIT does that and at the same time I can sympathize. On the other hand, you got it up somewhere else ....

 

[lovecraft68]

I know you're upset but I feel the site did the right thing. Another author was so annoyed with one of my stories he wrote his own in private then emailed it to me and asked if he could post it I said sure because he asked.

Worth noting even though he mentioned in his note he had my blessing a few people trashed him.

But it's what got it through the site.

I appreciate the posters honesty a lot of people have just gone ahead and done it

 

[SecondCircle]

I can understand the site not publishing it but I don't get the scorn at the ethics involved. Why are we okay with fanfic and not okay with this?

Hm. Good question. The obvious point right off is fan fiction isn't usually written to change the source material because of dissatisfaction of quality. It's usually a flattering sort of way to expound upon the established universe. Quality is usually pretty subjective. Would it not be jarring to see your own work rewritten with name swaps and plot changes? Just because someone did not like how you did it? Or how you left it? It's walking a hair thin line of plagiarism as well, though it is not plagiarism.

It's technically not wrong or devious. Just, eh, in bad taste by some people's standards. Just opinions on the matter is all. Evidently, the idea didn't sit well with Laurel either. And it would have been just as well creating an original work inspired by that story.

 

[OliviaM]

Hm. Good question. The obvious point right off is fan fiction isn't usually written to change the source material because of dissatisfaction of quality. It's usually a flattering sort of way to expound upon the established universe. Quality is usually pretty subjective. Would it not be jarring to see your own work rewritten with name swaps and plot changes? Just because someone did not like how you did it? Or how you left it? It's walking a hair thin line of plagiarism as well, though it is not plagiarism.

It's technically not wrong or devious. Just, eh, in bad taste by some people's standards. Just opinions on the matter is all. Evidently, the idea didn't sit well with Laurel either. And it would have been just as well creating an original work inspired by that story.

There's tons of fanfiction that was inspired by dissatisfaction with the source material. Don't misunderstand me, I've written lots of fanfiction myself, but it would still weird me out if someone took my stuff and rewrote it. I'm just not sure where to draw the line.

 

[sr71plt]

I can understand the site not publishing it but I don't get the scorn at the ethics involved. Why are we okay with fanfic and not okay with this?

I'm not okay with fan fiction, so "we" aren't good with fan fiction. It's not my site, though. The call is for Laurel to make as she pleases.

 

[Dream_Operator]

I'm not asking for sympathy.

I'm asking you to actually read the damn thing, so you can judge, instead of just knee jerking an ill thought out response.

It's not too much to ask given I had asked for thoughts.

Okay, I read it -- at least the part you could read witthout registering. After 40 plus paragraphs of backstory (I lost count), none that advanced the plot, I checked out.

Here's but one example:

The kitchen area was brand new, with shiny new facilities. Large 55 inch TV on the wall, with no discernable cables – as an engineer my eye immediately told me this guy had money, since it costs money to rip out a wall, install cables to hide them, then re-hardwall it. This house certainly wasn’t built with TV Cables in the wall, that’s for sure. Way too old for that.

There was recessed lighting and a nice comfortable sectional sofa, along with a crackling - real – fire going under where the TV was installed in the wall. That was another thing that gave away the fact that money had been spent. TV’s over the top of fires is generally a bad thing, since the heat going up tends to mess with the TV itself – the cabling heats up and the mount isn’t so stable because it’s constantly expanding and contracting. It takes money to rout the heat – via fireproof ducting - from a fire away from where the TV is mounted above it. Again, only stuff you’d know if you were an engineer, or had occasion to mount a TV over a fireplace.

Who gives a shit?

I found it pretentious, tedious and boring. Seems like a huge waste of time and effort on your part.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I'm not okay with fan fiction, so "we" aren't good with fan fiction. It's not my site, though. The call is for Laurel to make as she pleases.

I'm okay with fan fiction, but totally agree that all else aside, it's Laurel's call.... she sets the rules and makes the calls. Go with the flow.... I'm not whining about my story getting kicked back - I found out why, learnt from that and moved on....

 

[TamLin01]

Now the reason given for it not being published was first - "You haven't reached out to the original author". OK, I can get behind that. So I did. Twice. No response either time.

I believe the original author's permission is what's missing here. Indeed, if the author didn't respond, we have no way of knowing if he/she actually got the missive at all. So that's a problem.

 

[Crkcppr]

Great read

Just looking to vent a bit.

Put up a story for publishing in Loving Wives. It got knocked back by Laural, twice. The second time was a "we aren't going to publish this regardless" which sucks a bit - if that's the attitude a) why not say that the first time and b) it seems a bit draconian for this site.

So the reason for it being knocked back ostensibly is because I've basically re-written someone elses story, because their plot resolution (or lack of one) pissed me off so much. I've changed the names of the people, changed the sequence of events, but effectively the first half of the story as the same premise.

Then I take it in a totally different direction for the second part - that's effectively a completely different story.

You can read it for yourself if you want - SOL published it just fine. [Off-site link removed - AHMod]

Now the reason given for it not being published was first - "You haven't reached out to the original author". OK, I can get behind that. So I did. Twice. No response either time. The original Author hasn't published anything apart from this original story at all, and not since 2013.

So I resubmit and mention I've tried reaching him, but no response. I get kicked back again with "This is a derivative work. We won't publish it"

Now that might or might not be true - there's a fair bit of political commentary in this, since it set against a Trump Presidency and effectively the world has gone to shit. I got a fair few people email me from SOL indicating their displeasure about the representation of a Trump Presidency, but whatever.


But the thing that really makes me go "Wut?" is the fact that the only reason that Laural knew it was in any way derivative was because I said so in the foreword. If I'd said nothing, it would have been published and while some people would have made the connection, most wouldn't.

I'm being punished for basically, telling the truth.

If I'd have lied about it, or in this case, lied by omission, it would be up and nothing else would have been said.

So what this experience has taught me is, "Don't mention anything. Don't be honest, don't say a damn thing."

And I'm a little frustrated that what I've written - 54k words of what I think is one of my best - will never see the light of day on Lit.

Now it's totally their call - this is their website. But apparently it's ok for what FinishTheDamnStory has been doing, and it's fine for some authors to write BS stories being shitty and mean to each other by using each other as their antagonists, making each other out to be assholes and morons in the stories, but not for what I've done.

Now there's an argument to be made about being respectful of another authors premise - but given the nature of what cheating wife stories are, there's a limit to the number of premise stories that exist. If we were going to not allow similarity of premise, the number of stories in the Loving Wives Category would drop to less than a thousand...

The bottom line here is that I'm being penalized for being honest about my inspiration. If that is in deed the reason and it's not politically motivated because of the content (I don't think that's the case here, since Laural just doesn't seem to be like that, but then I've never met her and I don't really know her leanings anyway).

I don't expect anything to happen over this. This is Laural and Manu's website and their decisions are final. I think it's more than likely this story will just never see the light of day on Lit; I just needed to vent a little. It's more than a little frustrating to have some of my best work never make it out for what seem very subjective reasons.

<shrug>

Well I went to SOL and read it , I was very impressed ( you did warn me about the politics).
I'm pretty sure that FTDS and others here have embellished stories that they disagreed with the ending before. In fact , it was pretty commonplace here 8-10 years ago.
If I had the talent and the technical skill , I would love to be able to do something with "Revelations" by Alex_Lover. I think Carvohi tried to , but his story still didn't do the original storyline justice , IMHO.
Thanks again for sharing !

 

[Bramblethorn]

There's tons of fanfiction that was inspired by dissatisfaction with the source material.

aka "fix-fic".

 

[jezzaz]

I would point out to those who have commented, that premise != plot.

Premise is "What would happen if Person X did something and Person Y had to cope with that?"

That's premise. Plot is what happens after that premise is established.

I borrowed the premise, and about 1/4 of the plot to get the premise established. The rest is 100% mine, as those who have read the original and then mine have seen.

The question here is, to what amount does that mean "plagiarized?"

Some people here don't seem to have any idea of what that actually means. If you want to go down the absolutes path, I'm pretty sure I can find things in every story on here that 'plagiarizes' other stories, right back to Shakespeare.

The issue is not "does it happen" but, "Where is the line?" I think for Laural, that line is "If you freely admit it".

Plenty of people mentioned that my story Words was the inspiration for what they wrote. I'm fine with that. If they can do a better job at it than I can, then who's fault is that?

 

[SecondCircle]

Then why the *need* to tell Laurel?

I'm not implying that your honesty was wrong. But if you truly feel that most of the story is just an original spin, why feel the need to warn anyone at all? If you felt you actually did nothing that was out of bounds, would you not just have submitted it?

It's very possible that since you were honest up front, Laurel just didn't want to mess with the backlash of having to possibly take the story down at a later point.

But I think the best way to find that out would be a PM to her.

If you feel the story isn't plagiarism, that it's just a spin off the premise, I don't see why you included the red tape.

 

[CharlieB4]

FTDS contacts authors and gets permission. How do I know? He's contacted me to get permission to write a different ending to one of my stories.

 

[ishtat]

Mebbe, Mebbe not

I think that re-writing someone else's story is not on, but I cannot see any solid objection to someone writing a sequel to an unfinished story, if firstly, significant time has elapsed and secondly if permission is sought. I would not even insist that permission be obtained if the sequel was a long time behind.

However, having said that, the only sequel to a long unfinished story I have ever read was appalling, (the original story was Party of Five by VertigoJ) so maybe best left alone.