I nearly started crying today.

[BlazonG]

Yeah, I wouldn’t worry too much, I’ve had a story rejected for “extreme pain or torture” for writing blatantly consensual, mild BDSM style play. Think how insulted/taken aback I was. The content I submitted was nothing compared to the stuff I’ve read here. There are basically no consistent rules, we are judged on whims.

 

[FidelityBoss]

I have been writing for a long time. Whether or not my writing abilities are any good is beside the point. However, I do feel very strongly about my command over the English language with regards to literature. Which includes grammar and punctuation. Am I perfect? No way! But I still pride myself on doing an exceptional job with editing my own works (and the works of others when I've occasionally offered my services as an editor.)

I've published quite a few stories over the past couple years. And during that time, I have had only one story get rejected. It was a minor issue with something that occurred in the story that went outside one of the requirements for publishing on this site. (I've forgotten the specific details, but it was an easy fix.)

Never once have I been rejected based on my grammar, formatting, etc. And I consider my ability to write engaging dialogue to be very good. Even with regards to the grammatical structure. I know all the rules about how to properly add punctuation for dialogue, to ensure it flows nicely and is easy for the reader to follow along with. (And most importantly: easy for the reader to know WHO is talking.)

So my latest entry (a story for the April Fool's Day contest) got rejected. And the reason for the rejection was because my dialogues were "not formatted correctly". They referred me to an article that was written over 20 years ago which gives all the various rules for how to structure dialogue in a story. Things like: Only ONE person's dialogue in any given paragraph. Where and when to add the comma. Etc.

But that's the thing... While I DID read the article, to make sure I wasn't missing something.. I discovered that I knew every single rule already. By heart. I have been living and breathing those rules for years. Since before high school. (I've been writing since I was in single digits.) So I thought, "How on earth did my story get rejected on this basis??"

Well, after I cooled down a little (and managed not to start crying), I went back through my story for the fifth time. During this fifth edit, I literally searched for every single line of dialogue and double checked the punctuation/grammar. While I did this, I found three "teeny tiny" little typos. Three. In a 21,000 word story. And this story is littered with dialogue. There are probably over 200 instances where someone speaks in this story. And of those, I found 3 minor typos. And they were so minor that I can't believe anyone would even pause as they read them. The dialogue still flowed. You knew who was talking. There was no issue.

So now I come to the heart of what upset me. Why am I suddenly being so scrutinized? I don't think I've ever read a single story posted on this site that doesn't have at least 3 to 5 minor typos. Have the moderators of the site decided to seek 100% perfection for all story entries now?? I was so frustrated with this, it nearly made me cry (as I mentioned above). I have spent over 25 hours writing and editing this story, and really giving it my all so I could get it posted in time for the upcoming contest.

I don't gain anything from posting here. Aside from friends. But monetarily, I receive zero. I write my stories (and post them) because I enjoy it. It's art to me. The same would be true if I decided to make paintings and put them on display for people to see for free. But on the flip side, Literotica stands to gain a lot by me posting stories. Sure, there are thousands of authors who also post. I get that. But I contribute, too. For free. And it benefits them alone. So I guess when I considered all of this, it made me so upset (devastated, honestly) that I was ready to quit. Stop posting my work.

This is more of a rant than anything. Although sometimes your responses help chill me out even more, which I very much appreciate.

Has anyone had a similar experience when submitting work recently?

~Bridgetrose

Oof, that’s rough. Rejections sting, especially over tiny typos in a sea of solid work. It sounds like you’ve got a strong handle on dialogue and grammar, so this feels nitpicky. Maybe the mods are tightening up, but perfection is a tough standard for free creative work. Don’t let it crush your passion your art matters, typos and all. Keep writing for you, not them.

 

[AG31]

I have been writing for a long time. Whether or not my writing abilities are any good is beside the point. However, I do feel very strongly about my command over the English language with regards to literature. Which includes grammar and punctuation. Am I perfect? No way! But I still pride myself on doing an exceptional job with editing my own works (and the works of others when I've occasionally offered my services as an editor.)

I've published quite a few stories over the past couple years. And during that time, I have had only one story get rejected. It was a minor issue with something that occurred in the story that went outside one of the requirements for publishing on this site. (I've forgotten the specific details, but it was an easy fix.)

Never once have I been rejected based on my grammar, formatting, etc. And I consider my ability to write engaging dialogue to be very good. Even with regards to the grammatical structure. I know all the rules about how to properly add punctuation for dialogue, to ensure it flows nicely and is easy for the reader to follow along with. (And most importantly: easy for the reader to know WHO is talking.)

So my latest entry (a story for the April Fool's Day contest) got rejected. And the reason for the rejection was because my dialogues were "not formatted correctly". They referred me to an article that was written over 20 years ago which gives all the various rules for how to structure dialogue in a story. Things like: Only ONE person's dialogue in any given paragraph. Where and when to add the comma. Etc.

But that's the thing... While I DID read the article, to make sure I wasn't missing something.. I discovered that I knew every single rule already. By heart. I have been living and breathing those rules for years. Since before high school. (I've been writing since I was in single digits.) So I thought, "How on earth did my story get rejected on this basis??"

Well, after I cooled down a little (and managed not to start crying), I went back through my story for the fifth time. During this fifth edit, I literally searched for every single line of dialogue and double checked the punctuation/grammar. While I did this, I found three "teeny tiny" little typos. Three. In a 21,000 word story. And this story is littered with dialogue. There are probably over 200 instances where someone speaks in this story. And of those, I found 3 minor typos. And they were so minor that I can't believe anyone would even pause as they read them. The dialogue still flowed. You knew who was talking. There was no issue.

So now I come to the heart of what upset me. Why am I suddenly being so scrutinized? I don't think I've ever read a single story posted on this site that doesn't have at least 3 to 5 minor typos. Have the moderators of the site decided to seek 100% perfection for all story entries now?? I was so frustrated with this, it nearly made me cry (as I mentioned above). I have spent over 25 hours writing and editing this story, and really giving it my all so I could get it posted in time for the upcoming contest.

I don't gain anything from posting here. Aside from friends. But monetarily, I receive zero. I write my stories (and post them) because I enjoy it. It's art to me. The same would be true if I decided to make paintings and put them on display for people to see for free. But on the flip side, Literotica stands to gain a lot by me posting stories. Sure, there are thousands of authors who also post. I get that. But I contribute, too. For free. And it benefits them alone. So I guess when I considered all of this, it made me so upset (devastated, honestly) that I was ready to quit. Stop posting my work.

This is more of a rant than anything. Although sometimes your responses help chill me out even more, which I very much appreciate.

Has anyone had a similar experience when submitting work recently?

~Bridgetrose

It's stories like yours that make me reluctant to re-submit any of mine for minor edits/improvements. I'm afraid I'll get caught in some algorithm. So, Lit readers, you don't have the very best of my output available.

 

[AG31]

I googled Scunthorpe Problem. Good rabbit hole which gave me a bit of a laugh. Thanks

I had to Google it too. I had to drill down to find the embedded word because I couldn't figure it out on my own.

 

[Katie_Mae]

Having said all this, I also read the other replies to my email (thank you all!) and I think I agree that they may simply "skim" these stories purely due to time constraints with so many submissions.

No one KNOWs much about what goes on behind the review curtain. Most of what we know is educated guesses, based on experiences, and everyone's experience differs.

For example, I believe that not every story is read by a human. This belief is, partly, based on a time I had a story over 10k in length approved in under 12 minutes. Even if my story was picked up for review the moment I submitted it (probable) I don't think it's plausible to expect a human to have read it all in that time.

I also had another friend suggest that they may be using some form of AI to do the grammatical scanning these days, which would potentially flag every mistake like that.

I don't know if it's AI or not, but I believe there's SOMETHING that filters stories before a human, and this is based on experience of non-sensical rejection (including yours)

I had a rejection come back in about three hours once saying "did you do xyz" and I hadn't, but also I could see what it was which had tripped the filter. If a human had looked at it, they could have seen this also. So I think an initial rejection can happen without a human reading at all.

My LAST question: I wonder if perhaps they tend to be more meticulous on stories that are entered for contests? Since they will get higher exposure? I thought about this, and that helped chill me a little, also.

I DON'T believe the site is more meticulous on stories for contests, or at least that it doesn't require perfection to enter. This is based on my own experience of having entered a contest and having my story approved... let's just say that story was far from perfect or typo-free.

I also DON'T believe that the site is suddenly raised it's standards. I base this on me recently having two stories approved.

It sucks, but Lit is really inconsistent. Your story gets knocked back while worse ones go through. Somebody else's stories get approved first when they submitted after you. There's not "normal" across the batch. It's unfair, frustrating and stupid, but if your writing here in this thread is anything to go by this is nothing about you, just a frustrating blip.

 

[Katie_Mae]

Scunthorpe problem is a perennial classic, although that's the first I heard about mere two letters ("sb") being caught by some inane filtering software.

I don't know if they had a problem with people calling each other SBs or if it was done as a precaution. It is likely as the person who put the filter was Chinese, they forgot to factor in people might write in English or use roman letters for anything other than using vulgarities.

They did eventually fix it it, but prior to fixing it, it was ANY variation of a S followed by a B. So if you'd write "That's better" or "guess who's back!" or anything you'd get your message blocked too.

 

[bridgetrose]

I just want to say thank you to ALL of you for replying here. Honestly, you completely made me day. Knowing that I'm not alone helps more than I express with words alone. You took all the sting out of my upset. (And, in hindsight, I was beginning to feel under the weather yesterday, since I apparently caught the nasty virus my husband is still getting over. So that may have had an influence on my emotions as well!)

I'm crossing my fingers, but when I look at my story now, it still shows "Pending" but it has a PUBLISHED date!! (3/2/2025, which is the start date of the contest.) So I THINK that means it got approved. But we'll see!

Again, thank you all so much. I feel like you all gave me a big hug, and I very desperately needed it!

~Bridget~

 

[Katie_Mae]

I'm crossing my fingers, but when I look at my story now, it still shows "Pending" but it has a PUBLISHED date!! (3/2/2025, which is the start date of the contest.) So I THINK that means it got approved. But we'll see!

Yes! It is approved Horary

 

[ElectricBlue]

I don't know if it's AI or not, but I believe there's SOMETHING that filters stories before a human, and this is based on experience of non-sensical rejection (including yours)

I had a rejection come back in about three hours once saying "did you do xyz" and I hadn't, but also I could see what it was which had tripped the filter. If a human had looked at it, they could have seen this also. So I think an initial rejection can happen without a human reading at all.

Having been here ten years, and read an endless number of "My story has been rejected" threads, I reckon the first screening (and the first rejection) is done by a combination of a basic key word bot, triggering on obvious word combinations, and a basic grammar/punctuation tool. It's an automated process.

The second pass probably involves human eyes, for the first time.

There's none of the, "I'm being targeted/persecuted/singled out" paranoia stuff that so many people seem to think goes on. Nobody is that special that they're getting personalised attention - we're all on the same conveyor belt.

The major factor, nearly always, is,: 1) adhere to the content policies, and 2) know your basic technical stuff like grammar and especially dialogue punctuation. Most folk stumble on the latter.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I've had grammar related rejections too. Probably it's happened to most of us at one point or another.

I just shrug and look for whatever triggered the rejection and fix it and resubmit. It's never anything personal with Laurel and I suspect some of these are automated checks anyhow.

 

[Actingup]

I understand the pain. I’ve had that rejection reason several times now. Each time I’ve found some minor improvements to make and resubmitted with a polite cover note describing what I’ve changed, and it’s sailed through.

Glad to see it’s approved now!

 

[Duleigh]

Has anyone had a similar experience when submitting work recently?

No. And I'll admit that I'm horrible with wore tense and punctuation. Did your story get published on second try?

Just a quick question - How did you submit the story? Did you paste it in the text box or did you submit it as a file? I ask this because if you submit as a file and use anything other than a .rtf or a .doc file, Manu's story gnomes or bots or macros have a problem with reading the document. They really don't like .docx files. I've had them go through but there always seemed to be a weird issue each time. Recently I had a another writer come to me with a submission issue. I told them to use a .doc file and their story went through on second try without a change.

 

[bridgetrose]

No. And I'll admit that I'm horrible with wore tense and punctuation. Did your story get published on second try?

Just a quick question - How did you submit the story? Did you paste it in the text box or did you submit it as a file? I ask this because if you submit as a file and use anything other than a .rtf or a .doc file, Manu's story gnomes or bots or macros have a problem with reading the document. They really don't like .docx files. I've had them go through but there always seemed to be a weird issue each time. Recently I had a another writer come to me with a submission issue. I told them to use a .doc file and their story went through on second try without a change.

Thank you for the reply! Yes, my story got approved on the second try. I literally found three teeeeeeeny tiny itty bitty little typos. Fixed them and resubmitted. No further issue. In hindsight, I think my story was mis-flagged. Maybe a computer error. Maybe just a mistake. I don't know. Because frankly, I've looked at several other April Fool's Day stories and I found WAY more issues with dialogue than mine had.

Oh, and I always copy/paste from notepad. I never upload a .doc file or anything like that.

 

[Duleigh]

Thank you for the reply! Yes, my story got approved on the second try. I literally found three teeeeeeeny tiny itty bitty little typos. Fixed them and resubmitted. No further issue. In hindsight, I think my story was mis-flagged. Maybe a computer error. Maybe just a mistake. I don't know. Because frankly, I've looked at several other April Fool's Day stories and I found WAY more issues with dialogue than mine had.

Oh, and I always copy/paste from notepad. I never upload a .doc file or anything like that.

How odd... I'm a self admitted punctuation slob and a nearsighted editor so quite a few sins get past me and I've never had that happen...
For me, it's Lesson Learned! Stay away from Notepad!
(It's safer for everyone concerned if I do)

 

[bridgetrose]

How odd... I'm a self admitted punctuation slob and a nearsighted editor so quite a few sins get past me and I've never had that happen...
For me, it's Lesson Learned! Stay away from Notepad!
(It's safer for everyone concerned if I do)

Wait, what's wrong with Notepad? I love it.

Although my stories do get written in Word. But when I'm ready to publish, I copy/paste the entire thing into notepad, and then copy/paste it into my browser on the story entry page. I've always done it that way without issue.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

Although my stories do get written in Word. But when I'm ready to publish, I copy/paste the entire thing into notepad, and then copy/paste it into my browser on the story entry page. I've always done it that way without issue.

I do the exact same thing. You are a smart cookie.

 

[Actingup]

I do the exact same thing. You are a smart cookie.

What's the advantage of doing the Notepad step? Does it help with the paragraph formatting or HTML tagging?

 

[bridgetrose]

What's the advantage of doing the Notepad step? Does it help with the paragraph formatting or HTML tagging?

I do it just to make sure that there are NO formatting "left overs" from Word that get pasted by mistake. I do all my formatting manually, using <codes>. I don't know if I NEED to do it the way I do, but it's just habit at this point..

 

[WCSGarland]

I don't use the Notepad step myself. And now that I've updated to a new computer without MS Office, I just do copy and paste from Libre Office doc type into the text field.

 

[Actingup]

I do it just to make sure that there are NO formatting "left overs" from Word that get pasted by mistake. I do all my formatting manually, using <codes>. I don't know if I NEED to do it the way I do, but it's just habit at this point..

Fair enough. I'm copying from Word into the web form with manual codes. It works except that I need to double all the paragraph markings in Word.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

What's the advantage of doing the Notepad step? Does it help with the paragraph formatting or HTML tagging

I do it just to make sure that there are NO formatting "left overs" from Word that get pasted by mistake. I do all my formatting manually, using <codes>. I don't know if I NEED to do it the way I do, but it's just habit at this point

Bridgetrose nailed it - this is probably a vestige of being an old wordpress blogger, where if you cut and pasted anything from word into wordpress, it would do the most absurd funky things. Dumping it in notepad clears all the weird word formatting behind the scenes stuff and just gives raw text that won’t do weird things in a browser window.

I also write out my italics and centering codes as I’m typing, rather than use the italics and things in Word.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I write in Word, then change the spacing with find/replace ^p to ^p^p, then run a macro that converts Word's text styling to Lit-compatible HTML. Then I copy/paste that into the Lit text entry window. The only tag I type as I go is <hr>. So far it's worked okay.

 

[Actingup]

I write in Word, then change the spacing with find/replace ^p to ^p^p, then run a macro that converts Word's text styling to Lit-compatible HTML. Then I copy/paste that into the Lit text entry window. The only tag I type as I go is <hr>. So far it's worked okay.

It’s that macro that I’m missing!

 

[StillStunned]

It’s that macro that I’m missing!

Close your eyes and shout "Macro Polo!"

 

[YmaOHyd]

It’s that macro that I’m missing!

I can't seem to find it right now, but I found it here, just searching around old threads related to formatting and whether to submit work as copied text or .doc/rtf files and the best way to handle lots of italics.