Looking for Editor (First story - Erotic Couplings)

[magic_knirf]

Hey there,

I contacted several volunteer editors through the literotica search, but none wrote back to me.

Now I have the first chapter of my "UnderStatement" Story and I still don't have an editor / editorette.

Please help

You'll find an excerpt below:

...
So, while window-shopping at the mall wearing jeans and a t-shirt that showed off some of his newly developed muscles, he noticed a new shop called “UnderStatement”. The shop window showed some female display dummies wearing lingerie and a male dummy wearing something that looked like shiny black bike shorts but seemed to be missing something. It was low-rise and carried a small metallic tag at the waistline. This item immediately got his interest as he had thought about buying a new set of bike sportswear and was intrigued by this unusual design.
He entered the store.
“Hi!” said a melodic voice.
It belonged to a female assistant of short and slim stature with a buzz cut and a winning smile who sat behind a counter. She wore t-shirt which read “Good grammar is sexy” and had just the right amount of makeup.
“Hi there”, Tom said.
“My name’s Suzy! Can I help you?”
“Hi, I’m Tom. Well, I was wondering about these cycling shorts in your window. They are really out of the ordinary, aren’t they?”
Suzy smiled a little mischievously.
“That’s because they aren’t for cycling – we don’t sell sports- but underwear. You like them?”
Tom blushed a little bit for acting stupid in front of this attractive woman.
“Yes, they look really good. But as underwear - I don’t know...”
Suzy interrupted him.
“You should try them on. I guess you’re a size M?”
“Yes but...”
Tom had never tried on underwear in a store before and behaved a little dumbfounded.
“I’ll be right back!” Suzy jumped from her seat.
“At least there’s no one else in the store to overhear this conversation”, Tom thought.
Tom could admire Suzy’s attractive backside in the black leathery very tight fitting leggings she wore as she went into the back of the store. He couldn’t take his eyes of her shiny, slightly swaying behind until she disappeared through a curtain.
It didn’t take her long to come back and her overall appearance now seemed even more stunning to him.
“Here you go!” she said and handed him two sealed plastic bags, one with a label ‘M’ and a long number, the other one with a label ‘one-time try-on thong white M’.
...

 

[WAT456]

No Takers?

I'll be happy to take a look at it. Contact (email) me through my user profile.

Tim

 

[SisterJezabel]

I'd be happy to look at it too. First bit of advice, punctuation goes within quotation marks, including commas!

Also, editrix is the old-fashioned female form of editor, but I see myself as an editor not an editrix!

 

[Charrla]

I agree with the above poster: please don't use either "editrix" or "editorette." It may turn off a large segment of the people whose help you seek. Actually, the majority of editors working today (outside of this forum) are women. Giving female editors a title that's separate from plain old "editor" is both inaccurate and problematic. The implication is that editors must be men, so if you mean to include both sexes, you need to include a separate word. Even if it weren't a statistically incorrect implication, this naming practice is what they call "othering."

In general, the trend in recent decades has been to do away with suffixes that indicate the female gender. Poet, not poetess. Server, not waitress. Flight attendant, not stewardess. Even actor, instead of actress.

As to the punctuation issue, the above poster is correct IF you are writing in American English. If you're writing in British English, it is the norm to place periods and commas after quote marks, as you've done. Personally, I wish American style mirrored British style in this case. I think there is a movement underway to change this, but I think it will be a few years before we see it happen. So in the meantime, yes, American writers need to place periods and commas inside quotation marks (but for punctuation other than periods and commas, it depends on the context).

 

[magic_knirf]

I agree with the above poster: please don't use either "editrix" or "editorette." It may turn off a large segment of the people whose help you seek. Actually, the majority of editors working today (outside of this forum) are women. Giving female editors a title that's separate from plain old "editor" is both inaccurate and problematic. The implication is that editors must be men, so if you mean to include both sexes, you need to include a separate word. Even if it weren't a statistically incorrect implication, this naming practice is what they call "othering."

Thanks for explaining that. There are a variety of ways about "gendering" in my native language and it is considered politically incorrect to use only the male noun. Therefore my confusion! My intention was more to attract female editors so I could use their different perspective too!