AwkwardMD AI Rejection Help Desk

[AwkwardMD]

Welcome to the AwkwardMD AI Rejection Help Desk. If you’ve had a story rejected citing AI assistance and were told to seek out a volunteer editor, I might be able to help.

I believe that I have some understanding of how the AI detector works. I reached this theory just over a year ago, but I wasn’t confident enough in my understanding to say anything except to a few individuals in private. Over time, more authors came through talking about their rejections, and my initial theory continued to hold water. In addition to that, I have recently helped a few authors work through their rejections (not around, through).

Please do not fill up this thread with commentary on AI.

The purpose of this thread is not to help AI-assisted writing be published on Literotica, but to help authors who did not understand that what they were doing violated the rules. In other words, if you don’t know why your story was rejected, I can’t help you.

I will not be discussing how the AI detector works, and I reserve the right to stop helping anyone at any time. Please reach out to me via this thread before PMing me.

 

[GrantBricksly]

Please reach out to me via this thread before PMing me.

Hello!
I've had my story rejected due to supposed AI. And I could use some help. I did not use AI, and am not sure what they think was AI generated. I am anxious to get my story posted (it is Chapter 2-3 of a series, and I've already finished Chapters 4 and 5.) So this is me reaching out to you here!

 

[SkyBubble]

I've had a few falsely rejected for AI. I never use AI for anything more than a spellcheck to catch any typos I missed. I'm significantly rewriting my most current piece because of that. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Hello!
I've had my story rejected due to supposed AI. And I could use some help. I did not use AI, and am not sure what they think was AI generated. I am anxious to get my story posted (it is Chapter 2-3 of a series, and I've already finished Chapters 4 and 5.) So this is me reaching out to you here!

Your best bet is to submit a document with change tracking enabled so Laurel, the site owner, can see the history within the document as you wrote it over time. Any backed up copies that show the finished product in a partial state would also potentially help.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I've had a few falsely rejected for AI. I never use AI for anything more than a spellcheck to catch any typos I missed. I'm significantly rewriting my most current piece because of that. Any help would be appreciated.

All due respect, but I don’t believe you. I've seen you paste entire ChatGPT replies into these forums as if they were your own thoughts and words. I have tried to engage you on the subject numerous times over the past few months, and your responses have been wildly inconsistent.

 

[GrantBricksly]

Your best bet is to submit a document with change tracking enabled so Laurel, the site owner, can see the history within the document as you wrote it over time. Any backed up copies that show the finished product in a partial state would also potentially help.

Ok. How might I do that? I typically write in Google docs, and then copy/paste into word so that I can submit as a .docx

I used to write in word...but I sometimes have to write on the go, so I find it easier to do it on Google now, as it makes it easier to access from both my desktop (my preferred place to write) as well as my laptop (when I'm on the go)

 

[AwkwardMD]

Ok. How might I do that? I typically write in Google docs, and then copy/paste into word so that I can submit as a .docx

I used to write in word...but I sometimes have to write on the go, so I find it easier to do it on Google now, as it makes it easier to access from both my desktop (my preferred place to write) as well as my laptop (when I'm on the go)

Reach out to Laurel via PM. If you wrote your story in Google Docs, you have access to the entire history of the document. Laurel will tell you if there’s anything she wants to see that corroborates your creation of your story.

 

[GrantBricksly]

Reach out to Laurel via PM. If you wrote your story in Google Docs, you have access to the entire history of the document. Laurel will tell you if there’s anything she wants to see that corroborates your creation of your story.

Thanks!

 

[SkyBubble]

Ok. How might I do that? I typically write in Google docs, and then copy/paste into word so that I can submit as a .docx

I used to write in word...but I sometimes have to write on the go, so I find it easier to do it on Google now, as it makes it easier to access from both my desktop (my preferred place to write) as well as my laptop (when I'm on the go)

I write in Word.

 

[SkyBubble]

All due respect, but I don’t believe you.

Believe it or not, I've had a few stories falsely rejected.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Believe it or not, I've had a few stories falsely rejected.

I can't help you.

 

[dirk2024]

I have a story I submitted 8-9 days ago, with no word on whether or not it's going to be published. It's relatively short, 1917 words, in the BDSM category. I'm wondering if the AI issue is the hold-up. I wrote it myself, starting with an exercise here: "write about a kink you don't have", 500 words or less. I enjoyed writing that nugget so much, I fleshed it out a bit and submitted. I write in Word and have the free version of Grammarly, though I don't always agree with its "suggestions".

So I'm hoping that the thread history here will help if I do get rejected.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I have a story I submitted 8-9 days ago, with no word on whether or not it's going to be published. It's relatively short, 1917 words, in the BDSM category. I'm wondering if the AI issue is the hold-up. I wrote it myself, starting with an exercise here: "write about a kink you don't have", 500 words or less. I enjoyed writing that nugget so much, I fleshed it out a bit and submitted. I write in Word and have the free version of Grammarly, though I don't always agree with its "suggestions".

So I'm hoping that the thread history here will help if I do get rejected.

Cart, Horse.

 

[bumpercars]

When you recommend contacting Laurel, should I do that through a PM on the forums or through the main site?

I'm in a similar boat as other folks - I wrote a story in Google docs, it got rejected after two weeks, I resubmitted saying that an editor had reviewed it and I used no AI, and it's been in the queue for two weeks.

 

[AwkwardMD]

When you recommend contacting Laurel, should I do that through a PM on the forums or through the main site?

I'm in a similar boat as other folks - I wrote a story in Google docs, it got rejected after two weeks, I resubmitted saying that an editor had reviewed it and I used no AI, and it's been in the queue for two weeks.

The site does not want "an editor" to look at your work. It wants someone from Lit's volunteer editor program (read: a known quantity) to spend time looking at it and vouch for you. In other words, someone the site trusts who has more time to dig into things than Laurel does.

Use the forums to PM Laurel. I will tell you for free that most inquiries over a rejection get no response because the answers they need have already been provided in the rejection notice, and the real problem is that its just not the answer they want (or a lack of reading comprehension, neither of which Laurel has time to fix).

 

[StillStunned]

The site does not want "an editor" to look at your work. It wants someone from Lit's volunteer editor program (read: a known quantity) to spend time looking at it and vouch for you. In other words, someone the site trusts who has more time to dig into things than Laurel does.

I always got the impression that anyone could sign up as a volunteer editor without any vetting. And the advice to get a volunteer editor to look at a rejected story was more about "writers are blind to their own mistakes, have someone else take a look."

Judging by the number of posters complaining that they asked dozens of VEs but never got a single response, it doesn't seem like the programme is actively curated.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I always got the impression that anyone could sign up as a volunteer editor without any vetting. And the advice to get a volunteer editor to look at a rejected story was more about "writers are blind to their own mistakes, have someone else take a look."

Judging by the number of posters complaining that they asked dozens of VEs but never got a single response, it doesn't seem like the programme is actively curated.

Both are true at once

 

[StillStunned]

Both are true at once

The site wants a known quantity in the form of a VE to vouch for your story, and the VEs aren't a known quantity because they're not vetted? You might have to explain that to me in short words.

 

[AwkwardMD]

The site wants a known quantity in the form of a VE to vouch for your story, and the VEs aren't a known quantity because they're not vetted? You might have to explain that to me in short words.

1) The site wants a known quantity in the form of a VE to vouch for your story.
2) The VEs are not vetted in any grammatically measurable way, and are hard to find/get a hold of.

Both true.

 

[StillStunned]

1) The site wants a known quantity in the form of a VE to vouch for your story.
2) The VEs are not vetted in any grammatically measurable way, and are hard to find/get a hold of.

Both true.

Both *could* be true, and perhaps the VE programme started out (long before my time) with vetted editors and an idea of basic quality.

But I think by this time it's safe to say that the advice should be construed as "get a second pair of eyes on your story, and to help you on your way here's a list of people who might be willing to help."

 

[AwkwardMD]

You have successfully identified the very same gap I did when I started this thread. I do not personally have the bandwidth to edit and vouch for other authors (except in rare circumstances like with @rampe ), but I can do this. I can provide information and clarity.

More people would need to be on board to help in order to be more helpful. Volunteers wanted.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Both *could* be true, and perhaps the VE programme started out (long before my time) with vetted editors and an idea of basic quality.

But I think by this time it's safe to say that the advice should be construed as "get a second pair of eyes on your story, and to help you on your way here's a list of people who might be willing to help."

For basic editing problems yes, but not when it comes to AI.

 

[StillStunned]

For basic editing problems yes, but not when it comes to AI.

I'm sure it would be great if people could say, "Here, Vetted Volunteer Editor no. 3 has edited my story, now publish it!"

But unless the VE is holding the writer's hand every step of the way, what's to stop the writer from just sending an AI-generated story to the VE and saying, "Make this sound human!" Or even if they wrote it themselves, but in the style that got them rejected in the first place, it still becomes the VE's job to turn it into human prose.

What you'd need is some kind of mentoring system that teaches writers how to write.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I'm sure it would be great if people could say, "Here, Vetted Volunteer Editor no. 3 has edited my story, now publish it!"

But unless the VE is holding the writer's hand every step of the way, what's to stop the writer from just sending an AI-generated story to the VE and saying, "Make this sound human!" Or even if they wrote it themselves, but in the style that got them rejected in the first place, it still becomes the VE's job to turn it into human prose.

What you'd need is some kind of mentoring system that teaches writers how to write.

VEs are under no compulsion to help everyone. I turned away Skybubble. A VE would be expected to make the same decision knowing that their name is the currency that gets a previously-rejected story passed.

Sometimes you have to say no.

You would need to demonstrate that there is a significant ratio of rejections to passable submissions in order to justify needing a mentoring system. In other words, most people figure it out on their own just fine. I'm only here to direct the 1% (and maybe get involved personally with 0.1%).

 

[AwkwardMD]

Also I do not believe that "writing in a certain style" triggers rejections, given my understanding* of Lit's detection system.