Rejected stories

[allison22]

So, I'm very new at writing erotic fiction. And I'm very new at being a published author. Despite the fact that I'm new, I've already had experience with having my stories rejected.

All of the characters in my stories are 18 or older, however, some of my stories have been rejected because my main character discusses her childhood as she tries to give her backstory. She never had any underage sex, however, she discusses how went from being tied up with ropes as a kid playing games, to eventually being tied up as an adult as something sexual.

I was able to get my stories published by editing stuff out and resubmitting them, but has anyone else out there felt that the Powers That Be are to strict and reactionary when rejecting stories?

 

[ElectricBlue]

There's a long history of some writers trying push the age line, and there's a long history of new writers like yourself who feel a bit of a back story is okay. Under the Lit policy rules, it's not okay, and the site tries to keep as consistent an approach as it can, given the volume.

Those who can figure it out (and that's most writers, I'd say) do so, and keep within policy. It's just one of those things you have to get your head around if you want to write stories featuring teenagers. Either up-age them, forget about what happened when they were sixteen, or take the stories elsewhere. It's actually not hard to comply.

So no, not overly strict or reactionary, they're just protecting a business.

 

[NotWise]

So, I'm very new at writing erotic fiction. And I'm very new at being a published author. Despite the fact that I'm new, I've already had experience with having my stories rejected.

All of the characters in my stories are 18 or older, however, some of my stories have been rejected because my main character discusses her childhood as she tries to give her backstory. She never had any underage sex, however, she discusses how went from being tied up with ropes as a kid playing games, to eventually being tied up as an adult as something sexual.

I was able to get my stories published by editing stuff out and resubmitting them, but has anyone else out there felt that the Powers That Be are to strict and reactionary when rejecting stories?

It's difficult to get a backstory through the process. You might see ways to do it after you have more experience. The site's very broad definition of "sex" often surprises people. It's pretty much anything that might be arousing to someone.

I suspect that anything that the adult character finds arousing and is somehow linked back to a childhood experience will be rejected if the childhood experience is described, and especially if the story includes the child's age.

I don't think the Powers That Be (her name is Laurel) are being too strict or reactionary. It's their brand, and they're protecting it. Stories sneak by, but it's been the same for a long time.

 

[MillieDynamite]

So, I'm very new at writing erotic fiction. And I'm very new at being a published author. Despite the fact that I'm new, I've already had experience with having my stories rejected.

All of the characters in my stories are 18 or older, however, some of my stories have been rejected because my main character discusses her childhood as she tries to give her backstory. She never had any underage sex, however, she discusses how went from being tied up with ropes as a kid playing games, to eventually being tied up as an adult as something sexual.

I was able to get my stories published by editing stuff out and resubmitting them, but has anyone else out there felt that the Powers That Be are to strict and reactionary when rejecting stories?

I can sympathize with you, rules are rules and the site owners have the right to establish the rules. I find it easier to not go into childhood events as motivations for any actions that adults take, sexual or otherwise. You can bet, if they published ConAir in story format, this line might not make it through

Garland Greene: [talking about Billy Bedlam to Poe and Baby-O] He's a font of misplaced rage. Name your cliché; mother held him too much or not enough, last picked at kickball, late night sneaky uncle, whatever. Now he's so angry moments of levity actually cause him pain; gives him headaches. Happiness, for that gentleman, hurts.

And I doubt where Garland Greene talks with the little girl at her Tea Party would make the story iffy, even though there is nothing sexual at all in the conversation.

"Little Girl: [siting in front of her at her children's tea party table] Are you sick?

Garland Greene: Why do you ask?

Little Girl: You look sick.

Garland Greene: I am sick.

Little Girl: Do you take medicine?

Garland Greene: There is no medicine for what I have."

But rules are rules. But ConAir is a fucking awesome movie.

 

[NotWise]

I can sympathize with you, rules are rules and the site owners have the right to establish the rules. I find it easier to not go into childhood events as motivations for any actions that adults take, sexual or otherwise. You can bet, if they published ConAir in story format, this line might not make it through

Garland Greene: [talking about Billy Bedlam to Poe and Baby-O] He's a font of misplaced rage. Name your cliché; mother held him too much or not enough, last picked at kickball, late night sneaky uncle, whatever. Now he's so angry moments of levity actually cause him pain; gives him headaches. Happiness, for that gentleman, hurts.

And I doubt where Garland Greene talks with the little girl at her Tea Party would make the story iffy, even though there is nothing sexual at all in the conversation.

"Little Girl: [siting in front of her at her children's tea party table] Are you sick?

Garland Greene: Why do you ask?

Little Girl: You look sick.

Garland Greene: I am sick.

Little Girl: Do you take medicine?

Garland Greene: There is no medicine for what I have."

But rules are rules. But ConAir is a fucking awesome movie.

I doubt the site would reject either of those passages.

 

[RejectReality]

I doubt the site would reject either of those passages.

Late night sneaky uncle might push the line. It's not explicit, and unobtrusive in a quick skim, but probably dances on the razor's edge. It's a trope implication, but a well known one. If someone reported it, I wouldn't be shocked to see the story get pulled down over it.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I think the fact, Little Girl is talking a serial killer might make the censors squeamish. I kept asking my father if he was going to kill her. He didn't answer, so when she ran out and watched the plane fly away, I let out a sigh of relief.

 

[NotWise]

Late night sneaky uncle might push the line. It's not explicit, and unobtrusive in a quick skim, but probably dances on the razor's edge. It's a trope implication, but a well known one. If someone reported it, I wouldn't be shocked to see the story get pulled down over it.

No age is given. No arousing experience is related. It isn't linked to later sexual experiences. I don't think Laurel would catch it, and I'd be surprised if a reader reported it. Most readers know nothing about the under-eighteen rule, and if someone were to report something like that, then "someone" was probably another writer.

I've pushed the limit much harder than that. I've only had one story sent back, and it was accepted without changes when I explained the relationships.

 

[NotWise]

I think the fact, Little Girl is talking a serial killer might make the censors squeamish. I kept asking my father if he was going to kill her. He didn't answer, so when she ran out and watched the plane fly away, I let out a sigh of relief.

In context, nothing indicates that Garland Greene is a serial killer. Even if you wrote a story with that in the context, there's nothing at all sexual in the exchange.

 

[MillieDynamite]

In context, nothing indicates that Garland Greene is a serial killer. Even if you wrote a story with that in the context, there's nothing at all sexual in the exchange.

Garland's comments are are about serial rapist, Billy Bedlam played by Nick Chinlund. When I remembered the quote, I was thinking it was about Johnny 23, played by Danny Trejo. So perhaps not talking about the rapist would allow it to go through. It is also a speculative comment not a flashback.

The Scene between Garland Greene and the little girl, who knows. There's a lot of tension in the scene, or their was for me. This is odd if you understood my background before I landed with my adoptive family. Or, maybe more understandable, seeing I came from abuse, I expected abuse was what she was in for.

The thing is, what we read is not only colored by the presentation of the story, but the circumstance of our own life. When I speak of my father, dad, pops, or Ron this is my adoptive father. Should I speak of my birth father, which I won't, I'd use less family oriented terms.

 

[RejectReality]

No age is given. No arousing experience is related. It isn't linked to later sexual experiences. I don't think Laurel would catch it, and I'd be surprised if a reader reported it. Most readers know nothing about the under-eighteen rule, and if someone were to report something like that, then "someone" was probably another writer.

I've pushed the limit much harder than that. I've only had one story sent back, and it was accepted without changes when I explained the relationships.

I think it's still on the edge. The creepy uncle trope is much the same as the drop the soap trope, or the trope of the guy in the van handing out candy. They're widely known, what they mean has little ambiguity, and what the creepy uncle trope means is a rule breaker. Like I said, it's not explicit in and of itself, but it carries a lot of baggage around.

I have zero evidence to back it up, but I strongly question readers being unaware of the 18+ rule, and their willingness to report stories over it. At the very least, the large number of stories with 18+ disclaimers should be a strong hint to anyone who reads stories here for very long that there might just be a reason for them.

 

[NotWise]

One of the problems with us speculating over what does and does not fly is that we rarely see what the complaining party wrote. We only get to see how they interpret their own story, which can be very blind to the actual content.

 

[Wifetheif]

One of the problems with us speculating over what does and does not fly is that we rarely see what the complaining party wrote. We only get to see how they interpret their own story, which can be very blind to the actual content.

This. The only way I have children in my stories is as a passing reference. In one a woman wanted to prove that she was a real artist and not faking so she sketched her man's young niece. Nothing sexual, even in passing, is likely to get past Laurel. Moms and dads have kids, but they stay off the page unless they are eighteen or over.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I've written several stories where children are in the house, but not when mom and dad are having fun with others. Mom and dad have had sex together when the children were asleep, but quietly.

If Mom and dad want fun with other at home, they ship the kids off to grandma's house. If they are going out for the night, they hire a babysitter.

The kids are never really around when sex is taking place except at night if mom and dad feel amorous and keep it quiet.

Other than that, the kids aren't around. Most are away at school, etc.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

This site isn't for analysis of under-age backstory. Some of my stories, I might have put more backstory in if the site didn't have the rules it does, but then I'd have a different story - and probably less erotic. One sentence alluding unemotionally to formative experiences is all that's really needed in most cases.

The age of consent being 18 in America/on Lit does my head in sometimes, given I'm writing stories set in the UK where aoc has long been 16 for heterosexual sex. When I had a story where plot hinged on underage sex (aoc being 21 for male-male sex until recently, reducing at varying times across the UK) it did seem somewhat odd having characters talking about being underage but the site had no problem at all.

 

[MillieDynamite]

This site isn't for analysis of under-age backstory. Some of my stories, I might have put more backstory in if the site didn't have the rules it does, but then I'd have a different story - and probably less erotic. One sentence alluding unemotionally to formative experiences is all that's really needed in most cases.

The age of consent being 18 in America/on Lit does my head in sometimes, given I'm writing stories set in the UK where aoc has long been 16 for heterosexual sex. When I had a story where plot hinged on underage sex (aoc being 21 for male-male sex until recently, reducing at varying times across the UK) it did seem somewhat odd having characters talking about being underage but the site had no problem at all.

Let's be clear, age of consent in America is dependent on the state. There is no national rule. I don't believe any states have an age of consent under 16 any more, but many used to have such laws. In some states the age of the younger participant determines what is or isn't statutory rape is in comparison to the age of the older party.

The under 18 rule is Lit rule and not predicated on any law. It is rather, the law of the site.

Something being illegal has nothing to do with writing about said thing.

 

[gordo12]

Sigh, another week, another day, another new author protesting the underage rule. It does get rather tiresome, especially when the real problem is they didn't bother to read the rules before posting a story!

One of the problems with us speculating over what does and does not fly is that we rarely see what the complaining party wrote. We only get to see how they interpret their own story, which can be very blind to the actual content.

It's always a one-sided rant!

Nothing sexual, even in passing, is likely to get past Laurel.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the fact is a ton of stuff is getting past. I see at least one story a week in LW that breaks the rules. Some have been so blatant they ended up disappearing, but a lot of the minor ones don't.

 

[gordo12]

Let's be clear, age of consent in America is dependent on the state. There is no national rule. I don't believe any states have an age of consent under 16 any more, but many used to have such laws. In some states the age of the younger participant determines what is or isn't statutory rape is in comparison to the age of the older party.

The under 18 rule is Lit rule and not predicated on any law. It is rather, the law of the site.

Something being illegal has nothing to do with writing about said thing.

As I read it the lowest is 11. Many states are 12,13, 14 as long as the person isn't an authority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States

 

[MillieDynamite]

As I read it the lowest is 11. Many states are 12,13, 14 as long as the person isn't an authority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States

Yes, and that is just creepy that the government of some states are stuck in the 1840s in 2021.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

This site isn't for analysis of under-age backstory. Some of my stories, I might have put more backstory in if the site didn't have the rules it does, but then I'd have a different story - and probably less erotic. One sentence alluding unemotionally to formative experiences is all that's really needed in most cases.

The age of consent being 18 in America/on Lit does my head in sometimes, given I'm writing stories set in the UK where aoc has long been 16 for heterosexual sex. When I had a story where plot hinged on underage sex (aoc being 21 for male-male sex until recently, reducing at varying times across the UK) it did seem somewhat odd having characters talking about being underage but the site had no problem at all.

Let's be clear, age of consent in America is dependent on the state. There is no national rule. I don't believe any states have an age of consent under 16 any more, but many used to have such laws. In some states the age of the younger participant determines what is or isn't statutory rape is in comparison to the age of the older party.

The under 18 rule is Lit rule and not predicated on any law. It is rather, the law of the site.

Something being illegal has nothing to do with writing about said thing.

^^^^ What she said.

The 18 rule is predicated on the fact that in the US an 18 yo is an adult, nothing more. Anyone under 18 is not an adult. It's as simple as that.

ETA: One more thing... Literotica is an adult site. It's not a childrens site or a pedo site. It an adult site.

 

[TadOverdon]

So, I've just spent an annoying morning cutting up a chapter that got flagged for "underage" content and resubmitting.

Of course, there was no such thing in it.

There was backstory, all of which was described as occurring after both characters were eighteen.

So I start by doing word search for "boy" - there were none, but since adult women are called girls all the time you can get by with a hundred "girls" but "boy" can be problematic, got rid of a "kid" (sentence: "He'd belittled her for putting the kids ahead of her career"), and just for safety's sake took out all of the "girls" anyway, including "girlfriend."

I cut the backstory way down in general. And then I went through and peppered sexual memories with the obligatory "after both had turned eighteen," over and over and over and over...

There were, of course, already multiple phrases establishing their ages at various points as having been over eighteen (in story present-time they're twenty and twenty-one), but you can never have too many "eighteen-year-olds," right?


I even changed the phrase "friends most of their lives" to "friends as long as she could remember" because...capricious review process.

It's funny...I had a similar backstory section about a young woman in a previous story and it passed review without a problem. Go figure.

It's worth the time to do one pass. If this doesn't fly I'll just have the already-posted chapters of the book deleted and call it a day. It's already available enough other places on the Internet.

And now that I've done that and spent ten minutes venting pointlessly about it, I'll have a coffee and try to do some more creative writing.

 

[RejectReality]

If there was no such thing, then just resubmit with a note pointing that out. Laurel is just skimming, and hitting the rejection button when she sees a trigger. If there's genuinely nothing there, it will go through the second time without all the tweaking. That's something you do the first time around if you don't want to risk triggering a mistaken rejection.

( Although, using the notes section to point it out on the first go is the better course )

So, I've just spent an annoying morning cutting up a chapter that got flagged for "underage" content and resubmitting.

Of course, there was no such thing in it.

There was backstory, all of which was described as occurring after both characters were eighteen.

So I start by doing word search for "boy" - there were none, but since adult women are called girls all the time you can get by with a hundred "girls" but "boy" can be problematic, got rid of a "kid" (sentence: "He'd belittled her for putting the kids ahead of her career"), and just for safety's sake took out all of the "girls" anyway, including "girlfriend."

I cut the backstory way down in general. And then I went through and peppered sexual memories with the obligatory "after both had turned eighteen," over and over and over and over...

There were, of course, already multiple phrases establishing their ages at various points as having been over eighteen (in story present-time they're twenty and twenty-one), but you can never have too many "eighteen-year-olds," right?


I even changed the phrase "friends most of their lives" to "friends as long as she could remember" because...capricious review process.

It's funny...I had a similar backstory section about a young woman in a previous story and it passed review without a problem. Go figure.

It's worth the time to do one pass. If this doesn't fly I'll just have the already-posted chapters of the book deleted and call it a day. It's already available enough other places on the Internet.

And now that I've done that and spent ten minutes venting pointlessly about it, I'll have a coffee and try to do some more creative writing.

 

[KeithD]

So, I've just spent an annoying morning cutting up a chapter that got flagged for "underage" content and resubmitting.

Of course, there was no such thing in it.

There was backstory, all of which was described as occurring after both characters were eighteen.

You may have gone to a lot of trouble and watered your story down needlessly. If you know there was "no such thing" in the story, all you needed to do was to resubmit it as written with the note that there was no underage in the story and to please point it out if Laurel thought otherwise, and, if you are correct, it will then go through as originally written. Each and every time I've gotten an "Is there underage?" rejection, this is what I've done and each and every time it went through as originally written. At the initial stage, Laurel is just relying on some program to pick problems up, she's not reading and verifying herself. No, that's not ideal, but it's what enables her to pass a large number of stories into the file every day.

 

[MillieDynamite]

You may have gone to a lot of trouble and watered your story down needlessly. If you know there was "no such thing" in the story, all you needed to do was to resubmit it as written with the note that there was no underage in the story and to please point it out if Laurel thought otherwise, and, if you are correct, it will then go through as originally written. Each and every time I've gotten an "Is there underage?" rejection, this is what I've done and each and every time it went through as originally written. At the initial stage, Laurel is just relying on some program to pick problems up, she's not reading and verifying herself. No, that's not ideal, but it's what enables her to pass a large number of stories into the file every day.

However, being dyslectic, with broken glasses a few weeks back, my 21 year old, was a 12 year old in one spot. They didn't point out the spot, but did say I violated the underage rule. It was hell finding it until the new stripy glasses came and it jumped up and bit my nose.

 

[Emirus]

ConAir is a fucking awesome movie.

It would seem you really like Con Air, Millie. You and me both. I’ve watched it umpteen times when I need cheering up. It’s like the old 1940/50’s white hat/black hat Westerns in a modern setting but with lots of violence.

There’s nothing special about the script but with such a good cast making it more than it is and how can you go wrong with John Malkovitch in the cast (he makes me smile every time I watch Red. Helen Mirren and guns? She’d be sexy dressed as Yogi Bear).

A scriptwriter with a sense of humour put in the line “I’m going to show you God does exist.” And, of course, the classic “why couldn’t you put the bunny back in the box.” Watching Agent Malloy’s car disappearing and him saying “I was going to change it anyway.”

Anyone who can’t enjoy that movie has no sense of gun.

***

Back on topic about rejected stories.

I had a story rejected, three days after submission, with the standard notification (it wasn’t for underage) which gave me no indication of what part was unacceptable. Although many times it must be obvious. I submitted it a second time, unchanged, putting in the notes there was nothing in the story which contravened the rules. That came back rejected in fourteen hours.

Instead of submitting it again I sent Laurel a polite, detailed message saying there was nothing in it which was unacceptable and I could only assume there was a word or phrase which had been read out of context. I was determined not to change the story because I saw nothing wrong with it and also because I’d seen, as has been mentioned, stories get through blatantly flouting the rules. Then I forgot about it. It either got published or it didn’t. Six days later it appeared.

If you think you’re in the right be polite, but also persistent, and you’ll find, as in everyday life, most times it’s more effective than kicking the door in.