Got rejected :(

[theAmateur]

My latest story just got rejected

There is no clear description as to why, just two suggestions: Does it contain under-age sexual activity? And; Are the paragraphs too long?

The paragraphs are fine, short sentences and only one 'speaker' per paragraph.

No sexual activity for under eighteens, but the main character (explicitly introduced as 28, has just attended a 10 year school reunion, was married for 5 years and divorced for 2) walking by a river bank remembers a pool as a place where 'a gang of kids used to swim naked. The girls stopped stripping off when puberty hit...'

Is that alone enough to get a story rejected? A simple mention of pre-pubescent skinny dipping without any explicit description? Seems a bit harsh.

 

[Weird Harold]

My latest story just got rejected

There is no clear description as to why, just two suggestions: Does it contain under-age sexual activity? And; Are the paragraphs too long?

The paragraphs are fine, short sentences and only one 'speaker' per paragraph.

No sexual activity for under eighteens, but the main character (explicitly introduced as 28, has just attended a 10 year school reunion, was married for 5 years and divorced for 2) walking by a river bank remembers a pool as a place where 'a gang of kids used to swim naked. The girls stopped stripping off when puberty hit...'

Is that alone enough to get a story rejected? A simple mention of pre-pubescent skinny dipping without any explicit description? Seems a bit harsh.

Resubmit with the contents of your post in the comments field. Laurel doesn't read stories in detail so that flashback might have been enough.

Also check and make sure you have double paragraph breaks between paragraphs. (Turn on hidden characters in MSWord to see paragraph breaks. The White space your word processor adds between paragraphs doesn't carry over to the HTML format used in the story formatting.

(You can also Cut and Paste and then preview to ensure the paragraph breaks you thought were there are there in fact.)

 

[theAmateur]

Resubmit with the contents of your post in the comments field. Laurel doesn't read stories in detail so that flashback might have been enough.

Also check and make sure you have double paragraph breaks between paragraphs. (Turn on hidden characters in MSWord to see paragraph breaks. The White space your word processor adds between paragraphs doesn't carry over to the HTML format used in the story formatting.

(You can also Cut and Paste and then preview to ensure the paragraph breaks you thought were there are there in fact.)

Thanks. I just tried resubmitting. I double-checked that all paragraphs are coded as hard paragraphs, which they weren't previously.

I don't use MS Word as a writing programme. It has too much clutz to get in the way. I prefer to use Byword for writing and switch to word if fancy formatting is required. Most places Byword's 'copy as HTML' works perfectly. Not on Lit it seems

 

[TxRad]

Another thing on paragraphs. With backlit screens, six to eight lines is good. Anything over that makes reading difficult for most people.

 

[Weird Harold]

Thanks. I just tried resubmitting. I double-checked that all paragraphs are coded as hard paragraphs, which they weren't previously.

I don't use MS Word as a writing programme. It has too much clutz to get in the way. I prefer to use Byword for writing and switch to word if fancy formatting is required. Most places Byword's 'copy as HTML' works perfectly. Not on Lit it seems

The lack of hard paragraph breaks was probably the reason for rejection. Wordprocessor white space can confuse the issue and cause Lit to format a story as one continuous paragraph.

 

[lovecraft68]

Lits formatting is a little odd. In word my paragraphs look fine, when I preview my story I see large blocks of text and sit there and split them apart.

Copy and paste the story in then when you preview it find a good breaking point and split your paragraphs into smaller section.

as for the under age? Cut the line out about puberty. "There was a lake where all my friends and I would skinny dip" end of reference. Let the reader use their imagination for the rest.

 

[damppanties]

Lits formatting is a little odd. In word my paragraphs look fine, when I preview my story I see large blocks of text and sit there and split them apart.

Copy and paste the story in then when you preview it find a good breaking point and split your paragraphs into smaller section.

as for the under age? Cut the line out about puberty. "There was a lake where all my friends and I would skinny dip" end of reference. Let the reader use their imagination for the rest.

Copy and paste the story in notepad after you're done formatting it in Word. In notepad, you'd see where the paragraphs are running together. Saves you having to work in that little submissions box.

 

[Handley_Page]

Copy and paste the story in notepad after you're done formatting it in Word. In notepad, you'd see where the paragraphs are running together. Saves you having to work in that little submissions box.

Ye gods. Damps;
How the dickens are you ?

 

[damppanties]

Ye gods. Damps;
How the dickens are you ?

Nice reaction, HP. Going good, thanks. And you?

 

[Handley_Page]

Nice reaction, HP. Going good, thanks. And you?

Getting Better all the time, thanks.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Lits formatting is a little odd. In word my paragraphs look fine, when I preview my story I see large blocks of text and sit there and split them apart.

Copy and paste the story in then when you preview it find a good breaking point and split your paragraphs into smaller section.

as for the under age? Cut the line out about puberty. "There was a lake where all my friends and I would skinny dip" end of reference. Let the reader use their imagination for the rest.

You need to set your word paragraph settings as follows...

Then just hit the return key to put that extra white space between paragraphs.

 

[patientlee]

Copy and paste the story in notepad after you're done formatting it in Word. In notepad, you'd see where the paragraphs are running together. Saves you having to work in that little submissions box.

I sent you an email. I was just thinking about you today. It's so funny to hear from you now. (Thanks for the comments!)

 

[glynndah]

Copy and paste the story in notepad after you're done formatting it in Word. In notepad, you'd see where the paragraphs are running together. Saves you having to work in that little submissions box.

Hi!

A from the good little witch.

 

[theAmateur]

Lits formatting is a little odd. In word my paragraphs look fine, when I preview my story I see large blocks of text and sit there and split them apart.

Copy and paste the story in then when you preview it find a good breaking point and split your paragraphs into smaller section.

as for the under age? Cut the line out about puberty. "There was a lake where all my friends and I would skinny dip" end of reference. Let the reader use their imagination for the rest.

Let me explain,

I write in Byword - a text editor for the macintosh. This lets me concentrate on the content of the story without worrying about formatting initially. I can also use MarkDown for formatting as it retains readability in plain text but can easily be 'interpreted' by many online systems. Byword contains a 'Copy as HTML' command that allows me to take the markdown formatted copy in Byword and copy it in an HTML formatted version to the clipboard, ready for pasting into a web site.

This works most places, but on Lit's submission box it does something weird.

The resulting output retained all my original paragraphs, but as line breaks, not hard paragraphs. The resulting story (when viewed in 'preview submission') looked OK, the paragraphs were there, just not separated with a blank line.

I have now reformatted the story with hard paragraphs, but this leaves a large whitespace between paragraphs in the preview which looks ugly and, to my mind, detracts from the flow.

We'll see what happens.

 

[sr71plt]

The resulting story (when viewed in 'preview submission') looked OK, the paragraphs were there, just not separated with a blank line.

They didn't look OK then. Lit. requires the blank line separation between paragraphs. So ,if your program won't let you cut and paste into the submissions box and include the extra spaces, you'll have to manually put them in yourself. Are you skipping a space between paragraphs when you compose it? That's the Lit. format requirement.

 

[StrangeLife]

When writing about "banging a beaver", "pounding a pussy" or "greasing the gopher" it is important to make it clear that they are euphemisms and not actual animals...

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

When writing about "banging a beaver", "pounding a pussy" or "greasing the gopher" it is important to make it clear that they are euphemisms and not actual animals...

How about FUCKING THE DOG?

 

[StrangeLife]

How about FUCKING THE DOG?

As long as it is the right kind of dog, you should be in the clear...

http://s28.postimg.org/ydgqt5pst/Dog_suit.png

 

[theAmateur]

They didn't look OK then. Lit. requires the blank line separation between paragraphs. So ,if your program won't let you cut and paste into the submissions box and include the extra spaces, you'll have to manually put them in yourself. Are you skipping a space between paragraphs when you compose it? That's the Lit. format requirement.

Well, I've resubmitted now, including the blank line. It just looks ugly. I can paste in like that, I just need to take one extra step in Byword first.

Still, if that's the required format, that's what I'll have to do :-/

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Let me explain,

I write in Byword - a text editor for the macintosh. This lets me concentrate on the content of the story without worrying about formatting initially. I can also use MarkDown for formatting as it retains readability in plain text but can easily be 'interpreted' by many online systems. Byword contains a 'Copy as HTML' command that allows me to take the markdown formatted copy in Byword and copy it in an HTML formatted version to the clipboard, ready for pasting into a web site.

This works most places, but on Lit's submission box it does something weird.

The resulting output retained all my original paragraphs, but as line breaks, not hard paragraphs. The resulting story (when viewed in 'preview submission') looked OK, the paragraphs were there, just not separated with a blank line.

I have now reformatted the story with hard paragraphs, but this leaves a large whitespace between paragraphs in the preview which looks ugly and, to my mind, detracts from the flow.

We'll see what happens.

And herein lies your problem...copy to HTML.

Lits text boxes will not allow html tags.

If you have a copy to TEXT or TXT option use that instead.

Or just copy and paste the text.

The only html tags that Lit will allow: <i></i>, <b></b>, <u></u>, <center></center> and <blockquote></blockquote>

 

[theAmateur]

And herein lies your problem...copy to HTML.

Lits text boxes will not allow html tags.

If you have a copy to TEXT or TXT option use that instead.

Or just copy and paste the text.

The only html tags that Lit will allow: <i></i>, <b></b>, <u></u>, <center></center> and <blockquote></blockquote>

That is NOT the problem.

The HTML tagged text pastes in fine and previews OK. I am only using a small subset of formatting - in this instance, just some italic to indicate a written letter.

Lit boxes will also accept <h1>, <h2>... Tags, and maybe some others too. They are interpreted correctly.

 

[sr71plt]

Looks to me like the problem was just in not providing the extra space between paragraphs from the get go. And that that is solved now. It may look clunky to you, but you'll get over that. If you look at the posted stories, that's how they all are. And the extra white space is needed for viewing on a screen. Readers can't remain focused on a mass of solid text on a computer screen.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

That is NOT the problem.

The HTML tagged text pastes in fine and previews OK. I am only using a small subset of formatting - in this instance, just some italic to indicate a written letter.

Lit boxes will also accept <h1>, <h2>... Tags, and maybe some others too. They are interpreted correctly.

They are, but the story will be rejected for those tags. The only tags that will make through the vetting process are those in my previous post.

 

[sr71plt]

Will it be rejected, or will the text just show up with those tags but without the effect the tags was trying to convey?