Frustration

[JSX2020]

So I left this a few days before posting, I'm fairly new to writing on Literotica, I've been writing erotic fiction mainly with a hypnosis/mind control angle for about two years, posted most of my stories elsewhere as I didn't know about literotica until recently. Which means none of my previous work was written with the rules here in mind. Initially I uploaded one of my more popular series and all 3 parts got kicked. This is fair as I didn't really know the rules so I went back and edited them with that in mind, parts 1 and 2 went up no problem and seemed fairly well received, I also started adding other stories to vary things up.

Then came time to upload part 3, it's been kicked 3 times so far with the same comment about character dialogue, I've edited it each time and frankly, I was getting annoyed, so I took a few days before saying anything just in case it was just temper but now its just a bit disheartening.

I write mainly for fun (I do commission writing on the side as its a fairly specific niche) and the thing that keeps getting my writing kicked seems more of a stylistic thing then anything else.

I don't know maybe this is just a vent.

Anyone else get frustrated sometimes?

 

[TheRedChamber]

It may be best if you post exactly what the comment about character dialogue was and maybe a snippet of the dialogue in your stories. My first story here got kicked for bad punctuation around dialogue, but as soon as I went back and checked the rules, it went through no problems. Without specific examples, it's hard to advise though.

 

[mildlyaroused]

Is the basis of rejection to do with grammar, or to do with pushing the site's limits on non-con? The former is easier to fix. The latter may be tricky, if you aren't prepared to change the story to fit Lit. Good luck!

 

[Bramblethorn]

Moderation for things like grammar/dialogue doesn't seem to be 100% consistent. Sometimes one story will get bounced for these issues while others at a similar level get through.

Obviously I haven't seen the chapter that got rejected, but I took a look at Chapter 1 in the series and I see some things there that might be an issue. You have some huge run-on sentences, like this one:

Now I cant speak to Sophia's cleaning skills, I can't say I ever saw her clean anything truth be told, she spent a lot of time around my Mom and after about a week I started to notice little things, Sophia was almost never on time in the mornings, if anything the state of the house seemed to get worse but the really weird thing was how Mom just didn't seem to notice that our cleaner didn't seem to be doing a lot of cleaning, she just carried on about her day, which seemed to involve increasing amount of time in her bedroom and a gradual slide away from her normal work clothes to yoga outfits, not that I minded the yoga outfits of course, bless her but my Mom always had a larger figure, not for the lack of trying but all that exercising seem to do was firm up her curves till I'm pretty certain you could bounces a quarter off her ass and no matter what she did those tits refused to shrink, but to her credit see never stopped trying to shed the pounds, even though other women would have either killed or paid a great deal of money to have her figure.

That's 207 words in one sentence. I don't know whether those run-on sentences were a factor in Chapter 3 getting bounced, but if you want to be kind to your readers, I'd encourage you to break those run-ons into more reasonable sized mouthfuls.

Not a lot of dialogue in Chapter 1, but what there is does have punctuation problems. For instance, this one is missing a bunch of full stops - I've marked where they should be:

"That's right Mrs Cavendish, so warm and relaxed, so easy to obey my voice and follow my pretty crystal, so easy to obey and follow, follow and obey, a slave to my will, obedient to my desires, helpless to resist[full stop]" I could see her arm moving, a chain descending from her grip as she stood above my mother, the crystal that presumably swung before the hypnotised blondes eyes concealed from my view by Sophia's body, she simply sat on her bed nodding gently as Sophia's words washed over her open mind, drool forming in the corner of her mouth that she hadn't the free thought to wipe away, completely held under the crystal sway of her own maid[full stop] "That's right slave, deep in my power now, completely under my command, enslaved to my will, my obedient little rich bitch fuck toy[full stop]"

Any "how to punctuate dialogue" guide will cover the rules for this.

From a quick look at Chapter 2, it has much the same issues.

There are also quite a few missing apostrophes, e.g. "I cant speak to" in the quote above and in the title of your other story "The Devils Due". These aren't as big an issue as the run-ons and the dialogue punctuation but they probably aren't doing you any favours in getting your story accepted.

 

[SimonDoom]

I scanned your stories, and I agree with Bramblethorn. Your writing consistently violates basic norms of punctuation. Your sentences are far too long, and the majority of them show "comma splicing" -- joining complete sentences into larger sentences through the use of commas where you should have periods, and omitting conjunctions. This isn't just a stylistic thing; it's basic grammar and punctuation. The dialogue format is non-standard.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

You might consider asking for one of the volunteer editors for help.
There are some wonderfully helpful people out there that can do wonders with some of those structural problems.

Best of luck, it can be a frustrating process.
Also, please be understanding that the review process is a 2 person job. That's two people reading everything submitted. So they don't have time to give you a really individualized answer as to why something is rejected because they have a hundred more stories to get to.

 

[KeithD]

You might consider asking for one of the volunteer editors for help.
There are some wonderfully helpful people out there that can do wonders with some of those structural problems.

Best of luck, it can be a frustrating process.
Also, please be understanding that the review process is a 2 person job. That's two people reading everything submitted. So they don't have time to give you a really individualized answer as to why something is rejected because they have a hundred more stories to get to.

I think there is only one submissions editor here--Laurel (Manu works the technical side) and she's, at best, scanning stories, not reading many, if any of them. Too many stories are submitted daily for her to read them.

 

[Britva415]

There is rumored to be an actual Literotica style guide about punctuating and formatting dialogue.

Within the last few months, someone cited it when stating that punctuation goes inside the closing quotation mark. I can't remember who it was and they didn't link to or quote the actual policy.

A week later the subject it came up in another thread, and I saw a dialogue punctuation and formatting guide which was much longer than just that one detail. I can't remember if someone linked to it or just quoted it, or who it was.

And I don't have the link, myself. Anyone?

At any rate, the most important feature would be putting quoted lines spoken by different people into new paragraphs. That's not just a Literotica style convention, that's conventional everywhere. I'm not saying no author ever breaks it, but anyone who breaks it is breaking convention.

In the quoted snippet, the multiple quoted speeches seem to come from the same character, so, that isn't breaking the convention, but it would still be a lot more readable as well as conventional if each instance of that character's quoted speech were in separate paragraphs. I wouldn't be surprised if that were part of what the rejection comment were reacting to.

 

[TheLobster]

And I don't have the link, myself. Anyone?

"The link" would probably to go to one of the manuals of style, like the Chicago one.

I don't think you need one, though. Simply googling for "how to punctuate dialogue" gives you plenty of articles and they all seems to agree on the important points. This one comes up as first for me, and it covers basically everything you should need to go through the submission process. It was certainly enough for me when I did it *looks at the published story count* oh my, eleven times!

 

[Britva415]

"The link" would probably to go to one of the manuals of style, like the Chicago one.

except that I'm talking about what (I was told) Literotica specifically includes in Literotica's own style instructions. This wasn't a generic "we use Chicago" type of thing.

 

[TheLobster]

There's a ton of articles in this section of the FAQ but I don't think any has the imprimatur of being "official."

The actually-official Publishing Guidelines only has a remark that a story can be held if it has grammar and punctuation errors but doesn't specify what would be considered an error.

 

[SimonDoom]

except that I'm talking about what (I was told) Literotica specifically includes in Literotica's own style instructions. This wasn't a generic "we use Chicago" type of thing.

I'm not aware of there being a definitive Site-endorsed style guide. @TheLobster links to what I think is the closest thing -- a series of articles on a number of different grammar and style issues.

I can understand authors being somewhat frustrated at the sometimes rather opaque nature of this Site's standards and its methods of enforcing them, but I also think a lot of frustration can be alleviated by doing some homework. That's what I did when I started as an author, and I have NEVER had the problems that so many newbie authors complain of.

Literotica is headquartered in the US and generally follows US conventions for fiction, and the single most authoritative source for those conventions probably is the Chicago Manual of Style. Nobody should be expected to purchase and master that guide, which is hundreds of pages long, but there are some relatively simple and quick ways of getting up to speed enough to meet Literotica's not-very-demanding standards.

Number 1, basics of punctuation. Write your sentences correctly. The OP's stories are full of writing like this: "I lusted after the woman next door, she was blonde and hot, she was rumored to be sleeping with the mailman, I was jealous." This is incorrect, even by relatively lax standards. It is not that difficult to fix with a modest amount of work.

Number 2, dialogue. This is the issue where newbie authors seem to go wrong most often. I strongly recommend that every first-time Literotica author should read a few articles on how to do dialogue, stick to the basic conventions, and avoid problems. It's not that difficult. But it takes a little homework.

 

[SimonDoom]

One other thing, about Strunk & White's Elements of Style, the link to which is on the page @TheLobster links to (see here: https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/the-elements-of-style/). This is more of a fundamental guide for writing essays in school than it is a definitive guide for fiction, but it has the virtue of being very short, and not that hard to master, and if you follow it you probably will never again have any problems getting stories accepted by Literotica. Rule 5 of the Elementary Rules of Usage, "Do not join independent clauses by a comma," takes care of 80% of the problems in the OP's stories.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm not aware of there being a definitive Site-endorsed style guide. @TheLobster links to what I think is the closest thing -- a series of articles on a number of different grammar and style issues.

Agree this - Lobster's link page is the only "Lit guide" I'm aware of.

When I first arrived here, I'd never heard of the Chicago Manual of Style, since I'm not an American; and I've never looked it up. Seems like Australian schools way back when taught good English, because I've never had the problems we often see in this forum.

I'll confess to omitting the leading capital in dialogue in my very first stories, because damn me, I'd never noticed that. But nobody has ever commented, and Laurel didn't either, so the rest of it must have been okay. I guess there's that tense shift thing some bloke commented on, but I've never gone back to "fix" that, and anyway, what the hell would he know? A lot, actually, but I don't ever tell him that.

 

[lovecraft68]

Is the basis of rejection to do with grammar, or to do with pushing the site's limits on non-con? The former is easier to fix. The latter may be tricky, if you aren't prepared to change the story to fit Lit. Good luck!

No site that allows Mind control stories really cares about non consent, and either should ban the category or just admit they're fine with rape stories.

Be it hypnosis, drugs, magic, a talisman etc... if a person is controlled there is no consent, and is pure rape.

So, can we stop sanitizing this category, and acting like the author is taking it to far? The fact they allow it, then ban anything is the real issue here. Kills me how few people here will state the truth about what the MC category is. To be clear, I'm not shaming the OP, or any author there, I'm calling out the farce this site continues to promote with its fake rules. Just allow NC stories and stop acting like they care about it.

 

[SimonDoom]

Agree this - Lobster's link page is the only "Lit guide" I'm aware of.

When I first arrived here, I'd never heard of the Chicago Manual of Style, since I'm not an American; and I've never looked it up. Seems like Australian schools way back when taught good English, because I've never had the problems we often see in this forum.

I didn't know anything about it, either, since I'd never written fiction and would have had no reason to consult it. There are other guides for academic and professional writing. KeithD was the one who pointed it out. It's a great guide for an American author, but I wouldn't bother if I was from somewhere else unless I was determined to write like an American (I assume very few Australians want to do that).

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

Be it hypnosis, drugs, magic, a talisman etc... if a person is controlled there is no consent, and is pure rape.

Hey! I'm an MC writer and I'll have you know that MC is not always "pure rape."

Sometimes it's snuff, too.

Hot girl doesn't want to sleep with you? No problem! Just mind-wipe, mind-break, or otherwise completely annihilate her original personality, destroying practically every non-physical aspect of what made her a person. Then take her corpse and stuff a new personality into it, one which is willing to sleep with you!

Funnily enough, a lot of "realistic" mind control would likely come pretty close to that. You know all those stories of head trauma leading to massive personality changes? Just imagine a scenario where someone finds out how to do it deliberately.

What if MK-ULTRA had been run by perverts before they shut it down?
Was it not run by perverts?
Was it ever shut down?

 

[Bramblethorn]

unless I was determined to write like an American (I assume very few Australians want to do that).

Depends on whether the money's good. I do sometimes edit material for American markets but on those occasions my employer has provided a list of US-specific editing considerations, which is easier for me to work with than picking up CMoS and trying to figure out the 10% of it that's different from .au conventions.

 

[KeithD]

The issue to what extent other conventions than U.S. style are accepted at Literotica seems to be the extent to which Laurel, operating an American style Web site, understands what conventions are elsewhere. She seems to let UK style, where it differs with American style, through, including the difference in quote presentation (terminal punctuation inside/outside the quote marks) when she knows it's being used, although occasionally UK posters complain they've had rejections for this. Maybe UK and Aussie users need to identify a good guide on usage in their conventions and send that to Laurel (and whatever precheck bot she's using). The bottom line is that it is a U.S.-based site, using U.S. style--and, yes, the Chicago Manual of Style is the premier accepted guide for U.S. style for the humanities (which includes fiction). I don't think it's a case of Laurel being rigid on style.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Don't get frustrated. This is a learning experience. I just went back to a story I released over four years ago. It's full of the same kind of errors. So much so, I'm completely reediting it with plans to submit an updated version. It's honestly painful to read as it is.

Look into something like Grammarly or ProWritingAid(*) to help you see the issues others have discussed. Some may give you push back, but getting the grammar right will help all your stories and that's a good way to do it without having to digest the entire Chicago Style Guide.

Good luck and, above all else, keep writing.

(*)EDIT: DO NOT accept content revision suggestions from either or use any text generation features. Use them just for grammar; punctuation, comma splices, run on sentences, matching quotes, etc.

 

[KeithD]

One other thing, about Strunk & White's Elements of Style, the link to which is on the page @TheLobster links to (see here: https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/the-elements-of-style/). This is more of a fundamental guide for writing essays in school than it is a definitive guide for fiction, but it has the virtue of being very short, and not that hard to master, and if you follow it you probably will never again have any problems getting stories accepted by Literotica. Rule 5 of the Elementary Rules of Usage, "Do not join independent clauses by a comma," takes care of 80% of the problems in the OP's stories.

Except that is not complete on what S&W #5 is saying, and, as it stands in this post, is misleadingly incorrect because it omits saying what should be used. And beyond that, this S&W advice is not good for commercial fiction. If you go on to read what #5 says, it, first, says to use a semicolon in this instance ("Stevenson's romances are entertaining; they are full of exciting adventures"), which commercial fiction does not do whenever it can avoid it. It either makes that two separate sentences or it invokes what #5 goes on to say is proper, which is to use both a comma and a conjunction for two independent clauses ("Stevenson's romances are entertaining, because they are full of exciting adventures").

I don't think Laurel would reject the semicolon. The mainstream commercial publishers I've edited for all would reject using a semicolon in this instance, though, as being used so rarely that it would make the reader pause to ponder it. S&W isn't for commercial fiction, but, yes, most of its guidance would pass at Literotica.

 

[SimonDoom]

S&W isn't for commercial fiction, but, yes, most of its guidance would pass at Literotica.

I understand this, but I think there are many Literotica authors who would do better than they are doing if they followed S&W, even if it isn't ideal guidance for fiction. I liken it to dieting: the best diet is the one you can actually follow. The details are less important. It's not realistic to expect a newbie Lit author to pony up for the latest edition of the Chicago Manual and master it. But S&W is so short and so to the point that it's more realistic to expect one can follow it. And I would say that in 95% of cases involving newbie authors who are having trouble with the basic, S&W would help them. It's not the final word, but for many it would be a positive step.

 

[KeithD]

I understand this, but I think there are many Literotica authors who would do better than they are doing if they followed S&W,

Which is what I posted in what you quoted, isn't it? That S&W guidance should normally pass at Lit.?

I stopped buying new versions of the Chicago Manual of Style two iterations ago myself when I closed down my editorial services business. It's too expensive for occasional writers to buy. If CMS 16 isn't good enough, some editor behind me can bring in a later edition if they want. It's certainly good enough for Literotica.

I have Strunk and White and just about any other style guide used in U.S. publishing. The kicker is that I know which guide is for which kind of writing.

 

[KeithD]

At any rate, the most important feature would be putting quoted lines spoken by different people into new paragraphs. That's not just a Literotica style convention, that's conventional everywhere. I'm not saying no author ever breaks it, but anyone who breaks it is breaking convention.

The Anne Tyler novel I just finished reading (French Braid, published by Vintage) has several paragraphs with short, multiple-speaker bits of dialogue in them. I did this recently in a story, where I had two characters ganging up on a third with brief exclamations and wanted to give a sense of near-simultaneous speech.

 

[Britva415]

I'm not aware of there being a definitive Site-endorsed style guide

Well, I can't find the post so I can't defend the statement.

The closest I come is to a link to Strunk & White in the publishing FAQs, but it's not presented as "Lit's official style," just as an example of "good style" to use when writing for Lit.