New author stories

[Sammywest]

Hi,
I have now had 2 stories rejected by moderaters and I find the reasons extremely thin and very unhelpful. This is discouraging for new authors and due to the very weak reasoning in the rejection it’s disappointing and unhelpful. Is there some agenda or code to being a successful writer on this site?

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Check the Author Hangout for very extensive discussion of this. It's also the place to ask more specific questions. I suggest posting the actual rejection messages, so your fellow authors can help better.

--Annie

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Post the reason given for the rejection, verbatim, and why you disagree.

(As far as anyone knows, it's ultimately at Laurel's sole discretion whether anything gets published or not. But she usually has patterns, so we might be able to help if you say something more specific than "extremely thin and very unhelpful.")

 

[Racoonteur]

Honestly, Sammy, I'm ready to pull the plug on my account here for exactly the same reason you describe.

I've made an honest effort and have tried everything that's been mentioned to you, and about to be mentioned to you, and still am frustrated.

I've made a last ditch effort via email, but don't hold out any hope. I've also requested that the one chapter that miraculously made it through the gauntlet to be deleted and will shutter my account when that happens.

There are those here who will try to somehow make it your fault or accuse you of being impatient simply because they haven't dealt with this themselves... yet. They point vaguely at something that happened in October, but admit they don't know exactly what it was - just, something.

I've tried to understand what might of happened, but I'm at a point now where I really don't care. I'm looking at other options for getting my stories out there, as are others. Good luck with your efforts.

 

[ronde]

Hi,
I have now had 2 stories rejected by moderaters and I find the reasons extremely thin and very unhelpful. This is discouraging for new authors and due to the very weak reasoning in the rejection it’s disappointing and unhelpful. Is there some agenda or code to being a successful writer on this site?

I've had multiple rejections of stories and I've never found the reasons to be "thin". They were all either confusing punctuation or in two cases a violation of the relatively new policy about politics in stories.

The "code" to being a successful author on Literotica is to pay attention to things that contribute to the readability of the story like punctuation, spelling, and paragraph length, and to err on the conservative side when interpreting the submission rules. I continue to see posts on this forum that start with, "Will this pass the moderators?" when it's pretty obvious the author is seeking a way around the rule about under-age characters or stretching the interpretation of "non consent". Hinting about underage sex will surely get your story rejected as will a story where a character is basically raped but in the last line says he/she enjoyed it.

As others have said, it would help to know why the story was rejected. Most rejections are just auto-generated boiler plate recommending that you seek a volunteer editor, but you really only need to be honest with yourself about whether your story is readable and if you followed the site rules to the letter.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hi,
I have now had 2 stories rejected by moderaters and I find the reasons extremely thin and very unhelpful. This is discouraging for new authors and due to the very weak reasoning in the rejection it’s disappointing and unhelpful. Is there some agenda or code to being a successful writer on this site?

What were the reasons? Copy and paste the rejection notes here.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

If it is technical rather than content based, look for an editor who can help.
If it is a content issue, that can be a little trickier, but depending on the nature of the problem it can sometimes be dealt with.
If you got an AI rejection... @AwkwardMD has written quite extensively on how to address that pitfall.