How long should you wait?

[TigerClaw]

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[KillerMuffin]

If you're waiting on me, it'll take a while. I'm very slow. It's why I quit doing it regularly. I'm bad with customer service. I am getting there though. It's just very hard to do because I have to explain everything. It's not quite like a critique which only takes a few hours.

I am getting close to finished, really!

 

[TigerClaw]

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[KillerMuffin]

You should have heard back from the others by now, if you've got others looking at it. It's been a while. When I was into editing I tried to send a regular email to let the author know that I hadn't forgotten them. It's been what, two weeks?

 

[TigerClaw]

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[Weird Harold]

Ok, it has probably been asked before but 25 matches came back on my search and none of them mentioned how long is a reasonable time to wait on an editor.

Just a thought here, but how long is the story you're waiting on? That makes a BIG difference on how long it takes to do a comprehensive edit. It's not even a linear relationship either: Seventy thousand words takes a lot more than ten times as long as seven thousand words -- there's a lot more cross checking for consistency and continuity involved in longer stories.

Story complexity, and the quality of the writing also affect the time it takes to edit -- making changes in every paragraph takes longer than making changes in every fifth paragraph.

I always tried to give the client some sort of estimated time after a first spelling and grammar check before I started editing. You might want to e-mail all of your editors and ask for an estimated delivery time.

 

[Elvenspell]

How about an 1800 word story? I submitted it the other day and I'm curious as well..

Elvenspell

 

[Weird Harold]

How about an 1800 word story? I submitted it the other day and I'm curious as well..

Elvenspell

I edited one 2500 word story that took me over a week to tactfully phrase all of the suggestions on how to turn it into something readable.

A more typical 1800-2500 word story could take as little as two hours but more typically two to three days to comment on.

One other thing to consider when waiting for your editor to finish -- volunteer editors have lives other than your story. They may only have an hour or two each day to work on your story, so a story that requires four or five hours of actual editing time is going to take a week or so to edit.

 

[TigerClaw]

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[P. B. Walker]

In my experience, it's usually 2 or 3 weeks. So what you are waiting is not out of the ordinary at all. On my last story, I wanted to post it on here in two weeks, so when I sent it to a few editors, I told them this. I asked them if they would be able to get it back in two weeks. If not then that was okie with me since I know everyone has a busy schedule. All of them were able to get it back to me in the 2 weeks. In the future I will do the same thing, but ask for 3 weeks (or more depending on the word count). On the first couple of stories I sent out, a couple of editors never even responded at all, so I was waiting and waiting and waiting, and after a month just gave up on them. So, I've found if you ask them if they can do it in a specific time frame, it cuts out the endless waiting since you know it will be at most, two or three weeks (or whatever you ask for).

Another thing to note.. it also depends on the type of edit you are asking for. A sanity check is fast... a very detailed edit takes longer.

- PBW

 

[KillerMuffin]

I should get it done sometime tonight or tomorrow morning.

The good news is that I use blue ink, not red so it doesn't look like blood.

The bad news is that I've already doubled the size of your document and I haven't finished yet.

 

[TigerClaw]

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[Elvenspell]

Hope I did it right then..

I edited one 2500 word story that took me over a week to tactfully phrase all of the suggestions on how to turn it into something readable.

Ahh, well, to be kind, I tried to edit and re-edit my tale before I submitted it. How does one contact an editor in particular? I just clicked the submit button after I filled out the submission form, myself, and I'm mildly concerned that I might have missed a step-- do I have to specifically ask an editor to look it over?

Elvenspell (new and not ashamed to admit it)

 

[P. B. Walker]

Try the Volunteer Editors Elvenspell... plus the Writers Resource area. Here's the link to the Volunteer Editors:

http://www.literotica.com/storyxs/voled_stor.shtml

good luck

- PBW

 

[Elvenspell]

Try the Volunteer Editors Elvenspell... plus the Writers Resource area.

Okay, but what I mean is, I've submitted the story already.. Did I somehow do wrongly by not talking to an editor, or can a story get accepted without going through that process? If it is a different process than editing, then.. how long roughly does it take to get a story approved?

Or, if there's an FAQ I've missed, please point it to me-- I have been looking, but I've yet to see anything about this exactly.

Aldous

 

[Weird Harold]

Okay, but what I mean is, I've submitted the story already.. Did I somehow do wrongly by not talking to an editor, or can a story get accepted without going through that process? If it is a different process than editing, then.. how long roughly does it take to get a story approved?

Or, if there's an FAQ I've missed, please point it to me-- I have been looking, but I've yet to see anything about this exactly.

Aldous

The volunteer editor program is NOT a mandatory step before submitting. It is usually useful and informative.

The wait from submission to approval varies but is seldom over 72 hours. The story will actually post at midnight PST the night after it's approved.

The confusion arose from the fact this thread was about delays in volunteer editing rather than delays in approval.

 

[TigerClaw]

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[P. B. Walker]

Sorry I kinda jumped right to the link there Elvenspell and didn't explain myself.

To answer your question about is it too late? No, it's not. You can still send your story to an editor(s), wait for them to return their edits to you, make the necessary modifications, and then re-submit the edited version of your story (the FAQ tells you how to re-submit an edited version of an already posted story). However, it's not good to do this often, but rather only in special circumstances. I think since you didn't know about the volunteer editor program, you'd be alright in submiting and edited version. Of course, your current story will still be up on the website (in it's current version) until you resubmit that edited version. So if your question was, is it too late to keep people from seeing the grammar/spell errors in my story since I've already submitted it? The answer is Yes, it's too late.

While using the volunteer editors is not mandatory, I believe that is an EXTREMELY good idea. I have a feeling that almost all the really good authors here use editors (either from the volunteer program or have their own). And you don't have to have just one editor. In fact, in the beginning I would highly recommend you send your story to many many editors, as many as 10 or 12. Once you begin to work with them, you will find the editors that you work best with. Plus, it's always better to have more than one person look at your work. More eyes find more mistakes. Some editors only do grammar checking, and some will do more in depth analysis, and some only like to look at the plot and characters and give you a critique of that. So you may find that you need 3 or 4 editors who all give you edits and opinions on different parts of your story. In my opinion, it's better to hear about the mistakes from 3 or 4 editors than to post it on the site, and get emailed to death from readers saying my story sucks and is filled with errors.

Hope that helps... if not feel free to ask more questions We're all here to help.

- PBW