Approved but not showing?

[Kikori]

My first stab at posting a story (well, second, the first one involved me learning I needed to manually add HTML myself) has been approved, but is there a step between approval and being posted? I can't find it where I asked to have it posted.

(If you're curious, the story should be titled "A Lesbian's Dream" under the BDSM section)

 

[AchtungNight]

Look for the story's submission date next to the title on your author page. That should be the date it gets released onto Lit. As long as the word "pending" ain't clickable, you're good.

 

[Kikori]

It shows 10/19/08. That's today. I can expect it up before tomorrow comes, then?

 

[Darkniciad]

I see it on the new list:

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=388593

So, it's up and running. Good luck

 

[Kikori]

Oh, yeah! Thank you ^_^

And, looking through, I messed up in the beginning. Ah, well.

 

[Darkniciad]

Oh, yeah! Thank you ^_^

And, looking through, I messed up in the beginning. Ah, well.

Seems to never fail *laugh*

One thing that always helps me ( I just made about six formatting corrections to my latest submission not even an hour ago this way ) is to really pay attention to the "preview" when you submit.

The preview is most likely in a different font size/face than you're used to writing in, uses different margins, etc. That can really make goofs jump out at you sometimes. You can accomplish the same thing by reading the story in a different font/size in your text editor, as well.

Formatting really leaps out. Sometimes spelling, grammar, transposed words, etc. are just more visible when you look at it in a way you haven't looked at it up until that point.

 

[Kikori]

I tried to, but that one bit slipped up. In Microsoft word, making a new line actually makes a new paragraph, but I wanted a conversation like this.

*Paragraph of content here*

Amanda: Words
Sammy: Response
Etc: Yeah

*Another paragraph*

Alt-enter allowed for line breaks without making it a block quote, I didn't realize it transferred into the story as one paragraph. What's weird is, when I pasted it, it kept its proper format. I could tell that because the italics were easy to put in, since it was organized. In the jump from that to being the story, it became one paragraph.

If nothing else, I'll just hard-code the whole story next time. (Yay for HTML knowledge!). Still, if that paragraph winds up causing controversy, that's when I'll search for the edit request.

 

[CopyCarver]

Oh, yeah! Thank you ^_^

And, looking through, I messed up in the beginning. Ah, well.

If the mess-up really bothers you, it's always possible to edit after the fact:

Make whatever changes you want and then submit the revised story just as you did the earlier version—with the word EDITED added to the original title title—i.e. “A Lesbian’s Dream – EDITED”

That will clue Laurel to replace the original text with the new, improved version.
It won’t happen instantly, but she’ll make the changes for you. You won’t even lose the votes or the views that the original version received.

 

[Darkniciad]

I've found that if you need to use single spacing in a submission that you need to make a note about it in the "Notes" section of the submission. Even HTML formatting won't do the trick. Everything will go into one paragraph or default to double spacing.

There are only a few tags you can use in submissions: <b><i>
<center><blockquote> ( these two have a bug in the text processor currently that cause a font size/face change in the final story that lasts until the next page of the story)

Everything else is stripped automatically. You can use HTML special characters, but you can't always depend on the preview. The code for the diamond symbol works fine in preview, for example, but comes out as the default "box" when the story finally posts. The same holds true for em dashes from most word processors. They look fine in preview, but come out as double hyphens in the final story. You can use the special character to override that.

Curious to see whether the symbol for Delta that I used in my new submission's scene breaks comes out...

As CC mentions, you can edit it after the fact, as well.

Here's the process, in case you need it ( or anybody else reading does )

Start a new submission
Use the same title as the original submission, but append something such as *EDIT* to the title
( If the title is too long, use an abbreviated version, make sure *EDIT* gets in there )
Select the same category
Fill in other sections with placeholders
( *PLEASE USE ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION* on the description, for example )
Upload or paste your edited text -- the whole story, not just the edited sections

( If you're changing title or category intead of text, fill in the text section with a description of what you want changed, instead of the story text )

In the notes section, it helps to copy the Lit ID# ( found at the very end of the URL when you view your story ) to ensure that the correct story gets edited. Make sure you say that this is an edit, and say exactly what you want changed ( story text, title, description, keywords, etc )

Make sure you don't accidently upload/paste the old text in the edit *laugh* Should go without saying, but it happens all too often ( guilty )

Normally, an edit has the same lag time as a normal submission, but I've had edits to a multi-chapter story all go through in only 1 day before, all at the same time. If the workload for new stories is light, you might get lucky. Once the edit processes, your new "edited" submission will vanish, and the original submission will have the changes.

I tried to, but that one bit slipped up. In Microsoft word, making a new line actually makes a new paragraph, but I wanted a conversation like this.

*Paragraph of content here*

Amanda: Words
Sammy: Response
Etc: Yeah

*Another paragraph*

Alt-enter allowed for line breaks without making it a block quote, I didn't realize it transferred into the story as one paragraph. What's weird is, when I pasted it, it kept its proper format. I could tell that because the italics were easy to put in, since it was organized. In the jump from that to being the story, it became one paragraph.

If nothing else, I'll just hard-code the whole story next time. (Yay for HTML knowledge!). Still, if that paragraph winds up causing controversy, that's when I'll search for the edit request.