No rewrites?

[laptopwriter]

I swear I've had so damn many problems getting stories published on this site I really question whether it's worth it. I love the instant feedback and the number of readers but damn, a person can only take so much.
After waiting 12 days while my story was pending, I received notice this morning that it was rejected.
The story was my own adaptation of an old story written by an author who has not had any activity since 2002.
It was a first for me, I've never rewritten someone else' story before but this needed to be done. I gave full credit to the original author and explained my reasons for the rewrite. Only a very small part of the story actually bared any resemblance to the original.
The story was rejected because, supposedly, Literotica does not allow rewritten stories...REALLY?
I see them all the time!

 

[sr71plt]

What exactly was the wording of the rejection message?

If you wrote with identical elements to the original (essentially same setting, characters, plotline), I applaud the rejection.

 

[laptopwriter]

did I not write that only a very small part of the original

story bared any resemblance to mine? I used the names of two characters in the story. It was only the first paragraph out of the whole story that was similar, from there the story was my own. I'm sure the story was not read by anyone at lit. They saw the prologue in which I gave credit to the original author and dowsed the story. I guess I wouldn't be quite so angry if it had been done in a timely manner but it sat in "pending," for 12 days. On the 9th day I wrote Laural a pm asking her if there was a problem; I received no reply from her until the rejection this morning. If you ask me that is no way to treat the authors who contribute their time and expertise to submit stories to her site. I understand it is a large site and she is working hard but I also believe there should be a little respect shown the people who contribute here.

 

[laptopwriter]

Here is the rejection notice...

While we allow fanfiction and continuation of other people's fiction, we do not allow rewrites of other authors' works.

If that's their policy okay, but I see rewrites done constantly! This seems to be a selective process to me.

 

[sr71plt]

While we allow fanfiction and continuation of other people's fiction, we do not allow rewrites of other authors' works.

If that's their policy okay, but I see rewrites done constantly! This seems to be a selective process to me.

Determining what would be a too-close usage of the original, indeed, would be a subjective process.

You would have reason to report other rewrites you see, then, citing both the original and the rewrite.

I can't say that I have any sympathy for close rewrites here, and I'm pleased to see this policy stated. The question comes up from time to time and it's good to know there is a policy that can be cited.

Waiting for 12 days before a ruling on a submission, though, is a distressing thought.

 

[PennLady]

I swear I've had so damn many problems getting stories published on this site I really question whether it's worth it. I love the instant feedback and the number of readers but damn, a person can only take so much.
After waiting 12 days while my story was pending, I received notice this morning that it was rejected.
The story was my own adaptation of an old story written by an author who has not had any activity since 2002.
It was a first for me, I've never rewritten someone else' story before but this needed to be done. I gave full credit to the original author and explained my reasons for the rewrite. Only a very small part of the story actually bared any resemblance to the original.
The story was rejected because, supposedly, Literotica does not allow rewritten stories...REALLY?
I see them all the time!

Did you click the "pending" link on your submissions page? If so, that may have pushed your story back to the end of the queue, which could account for the long time for the rejection.

Second, where are these rewritten stories? I haven't read any stories in a while, but I don't think I've heard this before. Sure there are a lot of the same themes in stories, that can't be helped for various reasons, but a writer actually rewriting someone else's story? Can you point to an example?

 

[lovecraft68]

Maybe some of the existing rewrites were done with the original authors permission and the site could verify that?

Maybe it took 12 days because Laurel tries to contact the original author? I'm just guessing on that.

I'm on the fence with re-writes, I guess the people doing it are thinking they are being flattering, but I always fall back on the across the board rule of if its not yours don't touch t.

I've had a few requests from people who would like to "bring back" my SWB characters, I've told them all thanks, but no.

One guy go really nasty with me

 

[Stella_Omega]

if you hadn't said anything no one would have noticed. There are a million identical stories on this site anyway. Humans retell stories all the time, over and over, from the baby Jesus story to Shades of Gray.

Retitle it, give the characters different names and post it with no disclaimers.

 

[GorgeousGeekGirl]

My guess on the 12 day pending wait was that it collided with the window for the Summer Loving Contest. Since those stories had a very limited submission time, those stories would have been prioritized for review.

The main problem with the grousing about submission times is the idea that you are a customer and are receiving poor customer service. Here's the real deal: you're not a PAYING customer. You don't pay them for publishing your story, others don't pay for the privelege of reading your story. Whenever a free service is offered by a for-profit business, it's goal is to lead you to things that you will spend money on. So, do the free written stories get the same attention as the videos charged to your credit card? Hell no! Businesses don't survive based on how many free samples they give out, they live and thrive on actual sales

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

My guess on the 12 day pending wait was that it collided with the window for the Summer Loving Contest. Since those stories had a very limited submission time, those stories would have been prioritized for review.

The main problem with the grousing about submission times is the idea that you are a customer and are receiving poor customer service. Here's the real deal: you're not a PAYING customer. You don't pay them for publishing your story, others don't pay for the privelege of reading your story. Whenever a free service is offered by a for-profit business, it's goal is to lead you to things that you will spend money on. So, do the free written stories get the same attention as the videos charged to your credit card? Hell no! Businesses don't survive based on how many free samples they give out, they live and thrive on actual sales

Partial credit.

Amazon offers lotsa no & low cost Kindle books to lure book readers in. LIT does the same but cant afford to buy the stories it uses for bait. But when a reader clicks your story banners appear with the story. A few million stories prolly generate worthwhile revenue. Posting delay delays banner clicks and revenue.

 

[laptopwriter]

To pennlady

Here is just one of hundreds
http://www.literotica.com/s/the-coward-an-alternate-ending

 

[PennLady]

Here is just one of hundreds
http://www.literotica.com/s/the-coward-an-alternate-ending

The difference here is that according to the author, he had permission to do this from the original writer, so I don't see why anyone would take exception.

 

[bashfullyshameless]

Rewrites, New Versions, and Homages

Joe Brolly's "Genie Chronicles" seems to have inspired a lot of this sort of thing. Some of the "new versions" or "spin-offs" actually have "Genie Chronicles" in the title, but I have seen nothing to indicate that they have the original author's permission. I have no idea if Joe Brolly is even active or reading the site anymore. He may have moved on.

The spin-offs and/or copycats (depending on your take) use much of Brolly's original premise. An ordinary guy finds a strange old bottle and brings it home, finds that opening it is some complicated process (to test his worthiness or whatever), and then when he opens it he falls asleep. When he wakes up, there's the super-hot genie there, and her personality and looks have been magically determined to align perfectly with his preferences.

A lot of the behavior is essentially the same: lots of sex, the guy involved is nice enough that the genie weeps for joy that she has a good and kind master, etc. So far, the only real twists I've seen is with the number of genies involved and the sex acts, but I can't say I've read thoroughly.

Given that, I'm not sure whether it's an homage, or fanfic or whatever. But it happens, and so far either the writers have been up front about being inspired by Brolly's original work or they have copped to it when prodded in the reader comments section.

 

[laptopwriter]

Yup!

I have neither the time nor the patience to go through and find rewrites of stories as some have suggested, but I know I have read tons of them on this site. In most cases they were written with the original author's permission but not always.
In my case I made a couple of attempts to contact the author but fear he is no longer with us. What ticked me off was that my story was only loosely based on the original. In the first paragraph I paraphrased two sentences from the original which somewhat set the stage, after that the entire story was mine.
As one person on this thread suggested, my problem was giving credit to the original author in a prologue. I should have simply written the story my way and I don't think anyone would have associated my story with the original.
I always try thinking outside the box when it comes to plot lines for my stories. The story in question just irked me to no end, that's why I decided to write my own version; that was a first, it will be an only and the last time I do it.

 

[PayDay]

This is a bad ending. You blatantly copied someone's idea, plagarized a small part, and wondered why you got rejected. Now your just going to go all sneaky to get what you want.

The agreement we authors have with Lit prevents just this thing.

Why don't you PM Laurel, explain how you tried to contact the orginal author.

Technically Lit owns these stories.

Just ask. No one likes shady bullshit. Taking out the original author credit makes you a thief.

Truth >

 

[elfin_odalisque]

I swear I've had so damn many problems getting stories published on this site I really question whether it's worth it. I love the instant feedback and the number of readers but damn, a person can only take so much.
After waiting 12 days while my story was pending, I received notice this morning that it was rejected.
The story was my own adaptation of an old story written by an author who has not had any activity since 2002.
It was a first for me, I've never rewritten someone else' story before but this needed to be done. I gave full credit to the original author and explained my reasons for the rewrite. Only a very small part of the story actually bared any resemblance to the original.
The story was rejected because, supposedly, Literotica does not allow rewritten stories...REALLY?
I see them all the time!

For 'rewritten' you should replace with 'breach of copyright'. Without the consent of the original writer you can't just get away with 'giving credit'. You are illegal and Lit is pretty hot on protecting copyright.

 

[TxRad]

This is a bad ending. You blatantly copied someone's idea, plagarized a small part, and wondered why you got rejected. Now your just going to go all sneaky to get what you want.

The agreement we authors have with Lit prevents just this thing.

Why don't you PM Laurel, explain how you tried to contact the orginal author.

Technically Lit owns these stories.

Just ask. No one likes shady bullshit. Taking out the original author credit makes you a thief.

Truth >

The author owns the stories as well as the copyright. Lit just posts them.

And yes, Laurel is very protective of the copyrights on stories posted on this site.

 

[Jounar]

Laptopwriter I noticed this story vanished from SOL as well. Was it the for the same reason?

Personally I loved most of your work to date but I kinda agree with the Lit mods regarding rewrites of other peoples work.

 

[PayDay]

The author owns the stories as well as the copyright. Lit just posts them.

And yes, Laurel is very protective of the copyrights on stories posted on this site.

Yeah yeah. Group action